(One has to ask why should people in NZ and China be paying 1 million for a 2 bedroom apartment, a similar price to New York, and our government Kiwibuild is touting $500k for a 1 bedroom in Onehunga, approx 1.5 hours commute from CBD, possibly government too close to the construction industry lobbyists and using them as their “advisers”. )
The wrong types of houses are being built, overpriced and not reflective for (low) Kiwis incomes and families. About $90 p/w will got straight to Auckland council on the Onehunga example for rates and transport alone, on top of the mortgage repayments and then there is insurance and body corporate payments on top of that.
That is why not content to make the poor homeless, they are also raiding the pockets of the middle classes for overpriced ‘affordable’ apartments with high on going costs benefiting, mostly banks, construction and councils.
“The wrong types of houses are being built, overpriced and not reflective for (low) Kiwis incomes”.
Thats because its not Kiwibuild – its Kiwi buy and the developer is building what he was always going to do. Unless he was building the “right” kind of houses for low kiwi incomes – they were never going to sell to them.
Kiwibuild is shaping up to be a huge stuff up – far from what was promised:
“KiwiBuild will deliver 100,000 affordable houses over ten years for first home buyers. Half of these will be built in Auckland. That is a ten-fold increase in the number of affordable houses being built in Auckland each year, from 500 to 5,000.
The stand-alone KiwiBuild homes in Auckland will be priced at $500,000-$600,000 with apartments and terraced houses under $500,000.
To be fair James, the National party were the ones to create the housing crisis fiasco, Labour’s issue is that they failed to understand what was really going on (aka discrepancy of incomes vs living costs in NZ) and seem to get their policy ideas from the MSM, Nat lite policy and industry and social housing ideologists at conferences and think tanks (aka we all live in high rise apartments that in some woke left “woke Green” world, apartments don’t leak or need constant remedial work, are close to the city or with fabulously cheap, fast, transport links with non corrupt, efficient, in touch with reality, transport bodies running them, pollution is not an issue, nor is waste water or sewerage, nobody has any children and if they do they wants to raise them in a high rise, body corporate fees don’t exist, kids don’t need gardens, nor do increased insurance and council rates and high rise building costs exist).
I totally said, Labour had oversold its ability to effect house prices, before it happened. Its time most people, the government in particular, realized the housing market does not work according to simplistic supply and demand theories (the implications of this are actually quite far reaching). This also applies to the notion capital gains taxes will drive profits down (and so cool house prices down). My conclusion is based on other countries which have capital gains regimes also having some of the largest housing bubbles at the same times (Australia and Canada in particular). That policy does not work the way its touted either.
realized the housing market does not work according to simplistic supply and demand theories (the implications of this are actually quite far reaching)
In the first half of this lecture, I show that even if all consumers were utility maximizers whose individual demand curves obeyed the “Law of Demand”, the market demand curve derived from aggregating these consumers could have any shape at all. This result, known as the “Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu Conditions”, is actually a Proof by Contradiction that market demand curves do not obey the “Law” of Demand, and therefore that Marshallian partial equilibrium modeling of individual markets is invalid–let alone the Neoclassical practice of modeling the entire macroeconomy as a single agent in “Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium” models.
Don’t agree on that one DJ Ward. For a start the increase of house price changes in 2002 was also due to many Kiwi’s returning from overseas after 9/11 in 2001 and will probably happen again if there are any major terrorist attacks. That is why so many super rich have a holding in NZ as a 30 million bunker or bolt hole. Also why NZ should be very careful because we are having so many residents and citizens who actually don’t live here but still get access to all the free services available to people who do live here and pay proper taxes here.
However your graph shows (the blue) a huge rise in value of housing stock under the National party reign, in particular after 2016
In my view one of the best ways to control property is to have a ‘wealth’s stamp duty and any assets including business, farms, assets or property over 5 million being bought should have a 1% stamp duty to stop so many luxury developments being built in NZ for people as ‘gold bricks’ or only used occasionally and also a way to charge multinationals and non residents and residents equally a tax that is not linked to income and therefore impossible to avoid.
By only targeting super rich purchases for a tax, it evens up equality and keeps developers in the price point for Kiwis who actually live here and earn NZ wages.
Like the bright line it also stops speculation and financial dodging as each time the asset is transferred, tax is payable.
The super rich have little effect on the overall market. Labour allowed debt to drive the economy. National continued on the same path but never reached Labours values.
“Government policy on housing has not changed markedly since the 1980s. The bigger drivers of house prices have been liberalisation of finance, falling cost of borrowing, and slow supply of housing. Correlation with government terms is spurious – conflating correlation with causation.”
Remember Shamubeel Eaqub is ex Goldman sacs, hardly an independent commentator and told everyone that they should rent, as owning a house is a bad investment (in the mid 2000’s). He is an industry puppet, trotted out regularly even when his advice is so incorrect that in the US he would probably be facing law suits.
Apparently immigration also has nothing to do with the housing crisis (see his reasons do not add immigration when even now the banks acknowledge it is a huge factor to housing prices) because artificially adding 70,000 new residents and giving out 200,000 work visas a year, for the last decade, does not effect housing at all…. sarcasm. obviously adding more population does not effect schools or hospitals, super or jobs either apparently… sarcasm
All the new people just live in a magical economic world of his own ex Goldman sacs and government magical thinking universe…
savenz
So you can not agree with Eaqub’s summation that neither government has had a bigger effect on rising house prices than the other levers he mentions?
https://treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2014-04/twp14-10.pdf
Migration and Macroeconomic Performance in New Zealand:
Theory and Evidence
NZT Working Paper 14/10 April 2014 Julie Fry
Some interesting background on possibilities produced by Treasury with some conclusions that don’t seem to have been noticed by government, such as that about the level of immigration. It makes the point in 3.4.2 that more densely populated centres are supposed to bring both greater productivity and wealth but studies don’t bear this out. (I think I’ve got that right).
See information under –
3.4.2 p.15 Large Population increase?
4.2 p.24 Housing market impacts.
Nice graph – Figure 3 on P25 on rising house prices and immigration figures match.
Can you put an actual definition to productivity? I have been thinking about this recently and find its not a well enough defined term.
You might use the ILO definition, but that is basically productivity is hourly wages, and this is simply not suitable for some important contexts (e.g productivity of a financial investment).
Michael Reddell likes to go on about NZ’s productivity but I have not seen a solid definition from him or anywhere relevant of what is being targeted and measured. Additionally some of his suggestions, such as reducing minimum wages and employment protections, seem likely to harm things and be of a similar vein to other developments since the 1980’s so I don’t think I would want his policy choices to be followed through.
I was reading a report that I put up recently and I think it referred to productivity in terms of immigration having an effect and I didn’t think it was based on whatever wages they were likely to be earning. (It was in 3.4.2 in the Treasury working paper 14/10 in comment above at 1.15pm.) In theory, a high rate of immigration over an extended period could greatly increase New Zealand’s population, allowing productivity gains from economies of scale, both from conventional sources and the particular effects identified by economic geographers.
Also thinking ‘productivity’, just now the Productivity Commission are carrying out an enquiry paper about local body funding.
Closes February, public submissions sought. https://www.productivity.govt.nz/news/localgovtengage
Productivity is a key determinant of economic growth, so New Zealand’s poor performance in the regions and more so in its largest city Auckland, is a real concern.
One of the key outcomes expected of the new $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund is to raise productivity; however, productivity is a complex issue with no quick fix. Part of the challenge is translating complex economic reports into simple meaningful messages that businesses can respond to.
The New Zealand Productivity Commission, established as an independent Crown entity in 2011, has undertaken excellent analysis of the causes and consequences of New Zealand’s low productivity growth and published reports that have both informed the debate and influenced government policy.
However, much of the language is technical and contains many of the disclaimers and assumptions typical of economic analysis, making it hard to translate into action.
Bit problematic all this. I have some further ones,
“Productivity is commonly defined as a ratio between the output volume and the volume of inputs. In other
words, it measures how efficiently production inputs, such as labour and capital, are being used in an economy to
produce a given level of output.” – https://www.oecd.org/sdd/productivity-stats/40526851.pdf
“‘Productivity’ is about how well people combine resources to produce goods and services. For countries, it is about creating more from available resources – such as raw materials, labour, skills, capital equipment, land, intellectual property, managerial capability and financial capital. With the right choices, higher production, higher value and higher incomes can be achieved for every hour worked” – https://www.productivity.govt.nz/about-us/why-is-productivity-important
Seems that productivity is so fuzzy one should not be comparing two countries across it (because its invariably an apples and oranges comparison). From the definitions you might be able to talk about productivity of a particular factor input, but not relative to another input (say labour vs machine productivity), or add them together.
Other things I find weird about this, apparently the NZ work force is one of the most highly skilled around, but with poor productivity growth (whatever that actually means).
Nic the NZer
I have noticed that we are always being bashed for low productivity though long working hours – sounds like us knuckledraggers are slackers wanting to spend all day sleeping
in the sun and singing manana!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTzYgE3XMxk
While at the same time our employment rates are tip-top – like the ice cream they are not quite definite about where the figures belong and who they relate to.
Statistics and economic language – once you can speak that lingo the Rosetta stone would be easy peasy.
Immigration has the biggest effect on prices in NZ. The problem is that no economists were prepared, or too stupid to mention it, so for nearly a decade the immigration debate was stifled and scams encouraged to keep the economy going, rather than using productivity or innovation.
Remember for approx 7 of the last 10 years people like Shamubeel Eaqub told the public that house prices were going to fall based on low wages and cost of living.
The issue was that economists were determined to ignore immigration figures of people coming into NZ and given work permits and citizenship and permanent residency like lollies. Those migrants with money to buy citizenship had a massive advantage as they did not have to rely on local wages to afford a house.
As we can see by all the sob stories people are coming to NZ paying around $30 – $50k for an overpriced ‘degree’ and then getting that job for residency such as working in supermarkets and food stores on low wages (and probably paying all their wages back for the job plus the taxes) so that they can get residency into NZ when they actually don’t have any skills we actually need here and could be easily done by a local if the wages were on par with the cost of living and the cost of a degree.
Meanwhile the scams are driving down wages and skilled people from the country including migrants and next generation children.
Another myth spread by economists and MSM is that there is a housing shortage and a land shortage. Again wrong. There are plenty of spec houses being built for the migrant middle/rich class who come to NZ and expect to pay $100k for a fake job and fake degree and then buy the million dollar house.This is hiding the issue that Kiwi’s can’t afford to buy million dollar housing on local wages and actually driving up the cost of housing overall. Aka $500k for a Kiwibuy 1 bedroom apartment 1.5 hours commute from the CBD.
Meanwhile the roads are clogged and locals are living 10 to a house miles from anywhere and can’t even afford to work with the low wages and petrol taxes (to solve the congestion that the spec houses are creating).
Have a look, video evidence of what it is really like in Auckland, empty speculative houses and apartments and congested roads with Ponzi schemes operating and that is before the houses get occupied! What is the congestion going to be like when the housing estates are full and one road in and out and no public transport.
There are plenty of houses and plenty of land in Auckland and NZ. What is the issue is that first home buyers can’t afford a million dollar house on wages of $50 – $100k… nor can they afford to rent those houses either… We built the wrong houses in the wrong locations and are bankrupting locals to pay for the infrastructure of a folly and profits for developers.
The government could have regulated to create affordable housing and concentrated on closing off immigration scams and increasing wages, but instead have added fuel to the fire, more houses being built that are not what people want or need in the country but based on construction profits.
Construction will then be going wah, wah during the down turn they created and will the government be stupid enough to try to prop them up with more lazy immigration just like the Natz?
Yes savenz
I didn’t know the details of all that. But I have seen rows of two storey semi-majestic houses with porticoes/ over their front door, all painted the same, all lined up like army huts and about as interesting in South Auckland and all appearing to be empty. The government needs to tax empty houses? What about that, have an inspector look at these houses before and after they are built, and if they can’t sell them locally, force a Dutch auction system with the price going down every month?
These speculators need to be tickled where they don’t like it. But any Minister bringing in such stuff needs to watch for hie/her and family’s safety because the claws would come out when the property people got crossed. It’s a jungle out there, it’s just that we don’t really know it.
The government probably had to go forward with their promises and to ensure continuity of even inadequate supply and hopefully they have a cunning plan coming up for Stage Two!
Agree with this conclusion. This is still a government responsibility, but its one which both sides of the house have been wedded to for a long, long time.
Arguably John Key did the most about this with the introduction of loan to value ratios.
I think you actually hit the nail on the head with “discrepancy of incomes vs living costs in NZ”, but in NZ we have a long standing policy of successfully suppressing income, specifically median incomes (called inflation targeting), and unsuccessfully failing to suppress house prices (also called inflation targeting).
The discrepancy is due to the level of success at targeting either inflation targeting has on the wage market vs the housing market and some of the simultaneous policies (such as financial de-regulation) impacts here also.
In theory the economy (due to equilibrium dynamics) will neutralize these changes in the actual economy. In practice all that has been neutralized is a widespread understanding of what has been happening.
……………..”and seem to get their policy ideas from the MSM…………”
True, and/or policy analysts and their managers that still haven’t come to terms with their being a new junta in town.
(The expectation that a new ‘kinder’ government would mean some pretty bloody radical change in attitude and public service culture might take a while to gain acceptance from within) – and it isn’t going to come from purchase agreements, KPI’s and Ministers repeating the mantra: “I have complete confidence in my officials” – that’s almost like saying “Beat me! Beat me!! – harder, HARDER, oh yea baby H A R D E R!)
don’t forget supermarkets. standing over suppliers who then reduce quality to reflect the profit gouging of supermarket. Trading off the lack of competition in food retail.
Labour may think country of origin labellin, good, may change the profit gouging since the heavily imported items will be fresh… ..so much for climate change. Increase the supply, by introducing a Bill that mandates all large towns have a dedicated covered farmers market in cuty limits central to public transit, where local growers can bypass the supermarket duopoly.
National neolibs want less government and more private taxes, by corps for corps.
Soddenleaf that sounds interesting. Local markets good.
The local New World – a nice place to shop – but unfortunately is replacing so many brands with Pams – it’s own brand – so achieving vertical integration and forcing individual brands to their knees. The chemist buy up by Life, is limiting individual brands also and dropping small suppliers, the Health Foods franchise the same.
The opportunities to make your own stuff and have a wee or mid-sized business and create your own productivity, jobs etc with thriving micro NZ businesses trading heavily in their area, buying and selling, but with opportunities to attract buyers from the rest of NZ, is a dream under the present system.
The idea of having local areas where people are committed to buying locally made goods is I think the only way we can survive. And i would like to see areas build up skills and a brand for certain skills and trades that reflect the resources in their area. We need to aim at self sufficiency within our country, though not for all things within an area. Slow buying, like slow foods has a following, needs to be our attitude, save, buy on hp for a dearer NZ thing, that will last the distance expected.
We import so much stuff on the spurious basis of being cheaper and that they are more efficient overseas. Our own people can’t compete,; are cast aside and out of work on the malicious meme that we are slack and not as hard-working as the workers in the poor countries. And we import piles of non-essentials which have to be paid for, and are likely to be used for short duration anyway – clothes, toys come to mind. Wastrels we are! And it is time that we stopped being teenagers in the reality of living in this stupid era,
and grow up.
Yes. And you’d think the internet would destabilize the supermarket duopoly. But big retail property has long since locked out entrepreneurical capitalism. Take parcel delivery, along side data housing, there is a huge demand for a post office like shopping experience. Where as you gone into town, you’ve picked a parcel dropped off at a shop, where you also handed over a dongle where you store you own private data in a usb socket at the store, thus bypassing big Corp data with you own web service, site. Nobody owns your data, anyone with it stole it…
We are living in a era where the Lucite are forced to march again for a piece of the new growth, as we’ve seriously been locked out by the big end of town.
While I’m no fan of the Egyptian government, not a bad idea to have a campaign to try to curb families to 2 children to help poverty, increase education in particular of women, curb overpopulation and resources issues like water before their problems become even more extreme.
This is the Guardian, which has got thumbs down recently. But they often have useful reporting. Are they worth supporting overall despite their failings?
Are they worth supporting overall despite their failings?
Is NewstalkZZZzzzB worth supporting despite its line-up of loons and drips? Is the Sensible Sentencing Trust worth supporting despite its bloody-minded support of a knife-killer in 2008, and its heaping of ridicule and hatred on the victim and his family?
The Grauniad is discredited. Luke Harding’s crude and stupid fantasy is the most egregious recent example, but the faux-liberal paper has a long and dishonorable history of attacking dissident intellectuals and lying for the state.
If you don’t trust Morrissey, look up the writings of many genuine leftists in the UK.
Harding’s collusion lies, the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, the push for war in Syria, the attacks on Julian Assange have all left a bitter taste.
I recommend you follow John Wight on Twitter.
The Guardian has become a tool of the establishment.
As far as world news goes, the Guardian will always support the US/UK foreign policy agenda. Their heyday of evenhanded reporting was during the cold war.
But for culture, literature, lifestyle, science reporting, they have some able journalists .They’re liberal, “progressive” rather than leftist, very pro Israel and quite often to be found exhorting the troops to war.
On economics, neoliberal to the core
Still worth a read, if only to find out what the official story line is on any international news.
Even the Independent allows more varied viewpoints
Just another nail in the coffin for me.
I look at George Monbiot’s writing on the environment and not much else now.
It’s like the Herald. I read Rachel Stewart and Kirsty Johnston.
Perhaps we should all write to Luke Harding dropping him bits of real information about NZ and it might get published as he would believe anything if it made a good story.
Perhaps he picked up his ideas from the USA National Enquirer, where they have built a newspaper on gullible readers. We have some astounding things happen here or stories that have curiosity value, we’re a pretty interesting lot despite thinking that we are just ordinary folks.
It’s not my opinion this time, Mr Shark. It’s a fact that the incompetent and stupid “editor” of the Grauniad sent the incompetent and stupid Emma Brockes to savage, of all people, Noam Chomsky. Needless to say, she failed completely.
The guardian has defiantly got an agenda including being unashamedly a globalist supporter and for world population growth and immigration. Personally don’t think that continued human expansion and neoliberalism as it is currently trending, is possible without destroying the planet and also dividing society while it does so.
There is a sort of fascism about thinking every culture is the same and we should all do western capitalism and an accountancy perspective on space…. nor the practical reality of when the richer folks in the world goes around the world to buy up assets …or lobby their view point to achieve more wealth and local governments are all for it, especially when they get foreign donations and lucrative jobs offers post political career.
I linked to this yesterday. Got Morrissey doing the but it’s from the enemy thing.
Good on Egyptian government for taking the real issue for them, population growth seriously. Imagine if China didn’t go down the same path decades ago.
There is a big issue for Egypt in a few years in regard to fresh water, and since it gets power from its dam the greatly reduced flow of the Nile is going to cause major problems.
No. Plus no idea why you think I am a religous person. Pro abortion, pro palistinian, believe in science, evolution of mankind. Plus once in a while I use the term sky fairies. That’s not to say there isn’t some good philosophy from all religions, as well as the crazy stuff.
I don’t think you’re religious. I think you’re extremely naive and easily led. You quoted a notorious Moonie rag, apparently without understanding its provenance.
The basic problem much of the ME faces is that the elites have managed to hold on as modernisation and oil money boosted populations. The mixture of poverty and social conservatism has resulted in ISTR half the population of some ME states being aged under 25. The overpopulation problem being addressed by a two-child policy is too little, too late (how will they run that by the religious elites as well as the capitalists who don’t want to fund cheap healthcare for women is another matter entirely).
There will be more Arab Springs (and African Springs) as resources become more stretched, and water wars.
Populations created by oil will end up being destroyed by lack of water. A lot of the ME is as fucked as a low-lying atoll nation.
Climate crises and catastrophe is the most serious issue facing the world right now.
It would be good if we used this meeting place to put pressure on the New Zealand government and all politicians to act as if it is the most serious issue.
Not a bad idea, Make public transport free in February. Pity we have privatised all the transport in many cases so hard or expensive to make this happen as profit is the over riding agenda in NZ businesses and propped up by taxpayers instead of social good…
The theft already occurred.
We are simply taking back what is ours.
History shows that countries who repossess their assets thrive because they are no longer serfs in their own land.
The only New Zealanders who will suffer are the parasitical class who have served overseas corporations.
AT have been changing the system. It used to be that the buses were profit driven and kept most of the fares that they collected as well as getting subsidies.
That has changed. Now the bus companies are contracted to do the runs that AT design for a fixed price and AT gets all the fares.
This makes changing PT to a free service quite easy but it does mean that the council will have to sign off on it because the money to pay the bus companies has to come from somewhere.
Of course, the next step necessary in how the buses are run will be in removing the bus companies altogether and doing the whole lot in-house. This will save quite a bit of money that could be then be used to up the drivers wages.
And there’s a problem with making the service free – getting the necessary statistics to design the routes. I’d go for a nominal $1 charge, hell, it could be 50c. We just need the stats that are provided when people pay.
Make a massive order now.
Pay drivers a lot more to entice drivers inyto this work.
Make left lane of all motorways and dual carriageways in cities bus only.
Make city centres open only to buses, bikes, scooters, motorbikes and taxis ( btnot Uber)
When we shift to EV cars your argument is irrelevant. Unless the bus is full it’s not like they are efficient vs a car. Buses are more about reducing congestion. Trains etc simply fail to connect A to B 99% of travel.
Well obviously buses full use less space. But if you have ever looked at most buses traveling around they are often far from occupied. The original comment was about climate change. You just shifted your argument to something else because your comment didn’t stack up. Like I said it’s more about congestion not climate change.
And electric cars are not the magic bullet for the environment.
“Electric cars won’t eradicate gridlocks and air pollution, but carbon footprints could be cut by favouring pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit.”
Walking and cycling is one important solution.
“Electric cars move pollution from our cities to distant power plants. For big benefits we need carbon-free electricity. Most studies focus on average driving and average electricity generation. Instead, if we consider real urban driving and off-peak charging, electric cars are already a low pollution option for Belgium, where over half of electricity comes from nuclear power, and for Beijing, where more efficient gas-fired power stations are rapidly replacing old coal ones.
A quarter of England’s car trips are less than two miles. We can be more ambitious. Replacing petrol and diesel cars with electric would miss the opportunity to save the NHS around £17 billion over the next 20 years by swapping short car journeys for walking or cycling.”
Yep there has been a lot of affordable purchasing options for a while. Males who tinker around in there sheds are pushing the tech with high power motorcycles as well. I can’t imagine it being attractive in places like Canada in winter. In nations like ours we should see more of that travel method, scooters. Our issue is how far we live from work combined with far too many days amongst OK days, that are too cold and crapy to want to use a scooter.
The scooter is only for short distances – around your neighbourhood or to the nearest PT stop. Easier to take on a train than a bike, and with some interior redesign, buses too.
Full auto v. transit life cycle. Even starting from scratch, transit’s environmental efficiency fares well compared to that of cars. If you consider greenhouse gas emissions from the full life cycle of each transport mode — including operations, construction, and maintenance — the only mode that does more harm than cars is a bus with about five passengers. As soon as you reach the average of nine passengers the benefits become clear (via the 2009 F.T.A. report):
But if you have ever looked at most buses traveling around they are often far from occupied.
All buses on the road at rush hour (although it’s more like two hours now) are full up to the point where some buses are actually leaving people at bus stops because they’re too full.
You just shifted your argument to something else because your comment didn’t stack up.
It’s your arguments that don’t stack up so we can only assume that you’re talking out your arse.
As soon as it reaches 5 passengers. But that’s for ICE vehicles.
We have a completely new argument when one or both are EV without emissions. If you look at the Cuban extension of a vehicles lifespan which should be far easier with EV, renewables powering vehicle use, production, metals making, bio plastics, then really there is little issue.
The only real issue here is the desire of climate change paranoia to remove people from the car. To remove freedom from them. All on an argument that everything other than time, has essentially solved.
One way of taxing travel could be as a per Km levy based on the number of humans in the car. The more people the less the levy per km. Smart car obviously. Maybe a discount for pet owners taking the dog to the park. Maybe higher Levis in certain places, or times of day. Encourage wise use of the car. Banning it will result in revolution.
We have a completely new argument when one or both are EV without emissions.
No we don’t. Private vehicles are still less efficient and cost more. On a per person basis:
They use more resources to make.
They use up more, very limited, space for both travelling and for parking.
They use up more time as they use up more drivers.
They require more mechanics.
They require more charging stations.
They require more rubber for the tyres.
They create more congestion which loses even more time.
Private vehicles have always been highly expensive. It’s why only the rich could have them throughout the centuries.
Through the teachings of economics we’ve come to the delusional belief that if we just make more cars they get cheaper. They don’t. They still cost the same amount and that is significantly more than public transport especially when you add in all the extra costs.
We never thought economically about cars. We just wanted everyone to have them and it seemed to work. The more cars there were the more mechanics needed, the more fuel was used producing even more employment and all the rest and all of it produced more profit.
And there we have the proof that the profit drive brings about the worst possible result. More profit = more resources being used.
The argument could apply to toasters. You could toast bread in many ways. The toaster using electric power like an EV car uses resources. A community toaster would be more efficient, resources, space, and even vs one user toasters everywhere. You don’t actually need to toast bread.
So since everything has that argument, and there is nothing that doesn’t have its losses or sacrifices, it’s not about harm of cars.
It’s about what cars give to improve the lives of people. How much inevitable loss and harm we can acept. The best we can aim for, with the biggest positive change is conversion to EV as its the easiest win for today’s political enviroment.
Ethiopia goes, what do we desperately need. A: A great big hydro dam for energy security. Say $5 billion. Hardly a dent in Nationals borrowing.
Jacinda, hyperthetical scenerio.
Labour has announced a 1 off investment. The investment is for a factory to create an affordable, safe 4 door EV. The production line allowing a few uprade options. The factory, like the railways did will help train apprentice engineers, electricians, technicians. The steel and Ali will be NZ made.
The factory will then expand into retrofitting kits for an existing ICE SUV, Ute, van, truck. Also rebuild kits, parts for the EV we produce.
Labour acknowledges we can’t compete with foriegn companies and the aim is only 5% of car trade. While crown purchases can be a good part of that we expect good sales. The aim is that numbers of this car build over years until the Buisiness becomes self susianing. Off shout maintenance companies etc.
The government accepts that subsidies will be required for a number of years. However economic activity and taxation returns fron that activity should cover costs. The enviroment and social gains from our current behavour is large. Large family friendly apartment complexes built near the factory will be made available to the workers.
Absolutely correct that the birth of our modern consumerism has major events like the introduction of cars. Only a century ago there was virtually no cars on the planet. It’s had major effects on people’s lives. The distance they travel in there lives. The least free being a prisoner in 24 hour lockdown.
How do I go where I want, for what ever reason I want, when I want, carrying anything legal that I want to carry. Including children who’s freedom is taken from them too.
If the car cost us money and we didn’t get something in return then we wouldn’t use them. Many of us have no choice about using cars because of where we live.
Personally I buy used cars that are efficient fuel wise. Pay around $4,000 and get an extra 200,000 km out of it. Selling it to the Recycling industry when I’ve finished with it. So it’s cheap per km.
How do remove cheap? It’s like physics. We know it’s possible to build very cheap cars, and pay taxes that build the roads. Physics is something that’s hard to ignore.
How do I go where I want, for what ever reason I want, when I want, carrying anything legal that I want to carry. Including children who’s freedom is taken from them too.
1. Nobody’s freedom is taken from them. That’s just a lie.
2. Public transport
Pay around $4,000 and get an extra 200,000 km out of it. Selling it to the Recycling industry when I’ve finished with it. So it’s cheap per km.
And public transport is cheaper.
That’s the bit that you don’t seem to be understanding.
Owning a car is expensive. Public transport is cheaper.
How do remove cheap?
Private motor vehicles aren’t cheap. You believing so is part of the delusion that you’ve been sold over the decades.
It’s like physics. We know it’s possible to build very cheap cars, and pay taxes that build the roads. Physics is something that’s hard to ignore.
Physics is something that you cannot ignore but you’re doing your best to do so.
Cars aren’t cheap – ever.
We cannot build them cheaply. A tonne of material is a tonne of material and it represents all the labour and machinery that went into producing it.
We cannot support them cheaply. The added labour costs are a problem.
Running them costs us in many ways. Congestion, ill-health (and not just from pollution), and other forms of unnecessary death.
You’re ignoring all of these very real, very physical points to hold on to your hope that the private motor car isn’t finished when it obviously is.
When we shift to EV cars your argument is irrelevant. Unless the bus is full it’s not like they are efficient vs a car.
Given that we’re unlikely to transition to EV by February, what’s your argument against getting people out of fossil cars and onto buses this February via free public transportation?
Currently, in my region buses barely compete with fossil cars from a price perspective, even with parking charges included. Make it free and fill the buses.
Nothing’s free. How you getting the money for this. We all have to make a contribution in some form of tax or currency devaluation.
Maybe the next question would be if it was “free”, would the use dramatically increase. Or would the costs dramatically increase due to new demand. I’m struggling with this free thing becoming so free the taxpayer has no freedom left.
Dude, it’s a month. If it works, it’ll lower traffic congestion, lower emissions, lower infrastructure costs, boost economic activity, and help us work towards deserving our “clean&green” global brand.
The penalty for failure is… probably less than a flag referendum. Wellington currently spends about $4mil a month on the subsidy, so if it’s 50% that’s 4mil additional costs for a free feb for Wellington. I figure larger sum for auckland, smaller sums elsewhere, CHCH is already very cheap.
If you can show that it’d cost like a billion dollars even if it didn’t increase patronage, you might have a point. Until then, I’ll ignore your cries of tyranny.
Cripes don’t go on Ed. Saving the planet is one thing held in one hand. Keeping NZ going and transport running so people can get where they want to be is another. The two hands can see each other, are communicating, but must keep separate until they can combine on one project satisfactorily then another. It won’t be seamless, but it can work. Wanting and demanding instant change won’t serve the people. You want to save the planet and possibly the people; they want to get to work so they have food and rent for the next few days and are able to make small plans for their future.
I think we should all take a moment to celebrate Nancy Pelosi’s re-ascension to the House Speakership. Two geologic eras after she first took the gavel.
While a guy Trumps age could fall over at any time with a heart attack I can imagine the best lifesaving gear is always somewhere nearby. Plus apart from his weight he has had a very clean living life. Apart from wild women which is actually healthy until you apply our sexist veiw of red blooded males, and patriarchy veiw of relationship responsibility (oh no I said Patriarchy like it exists. Ms Ford will be proud of me, agreeing with her. It harms men) and the psycological harms men experience. The other option is he gets a diagnoses with a short life expectancy which is common at his age. Generally that’s at least a few years warning. Or at least the medical professionals could keep him going long enough. I however think Trump will be enjoying being president so much he will refuse to die.
Apart from wild women which is actually healthy until you apply our sexist veiw of red blooded males, and patriarchy veiw of relationship responsibility (oh no I said Patriarchy like it exists.
Actually, that was pretty darned funny, Mr Ward. Incoherent and almost illiterate, but still quite funny.
Have you considered a career in talk radio? Leighton Smith is retiring; you couldn’t be worse than him.
(That old loon regularly quotes the Moonie papers too.)
I heard a snippet all she babbled is how great the middle classes are and how those who arnt should aspire to be . Fuck your fat lazy middle classes I like it down here.
Oh good. Coz the way things are going, that space will continue to stay there or even go a little further down. Be ready for a lot more people coming to join you, tho.
Pelosi’s not one for big visions and ideas and strategies, her talents are in the tactics and maneuvers to get an inch here and another inch there. But fuck me, she is damn good at that tactical stuff.
Not an intelligent answer, joe. Luke Harding can get away with it, for a while at least, because he has the backing (for now at least) of a large and corrupt media organization that works closely with the disinformation services of the British government.
You, on the other hand, have what reason to keep defending the indefensible?
Yep I understood that – had some people who commented vigorously here actually gone and looked up the thread they would have seen that the “outing” had backfired completely. – which I am sure was what joe was sardonically saying.
I like the Grauniad—I just don’t have any confidence in the integrity of its political “reporting.” However, its sports and cultural sections are well worth reading.
The release of that video, intended to embarrass Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, reminds me of an ill advised move in 1980 by the California DNC to sponsor a weekend-long non-stop television marathon of Ronald Reagan’s B-movies, featuring especially Bedtime for Bonzo.
Of course, the plan backfired, and Reagan became even more popular.
Given the above, I think maybe we need a Phil Ure to ride in on a moped and mediate.
Ain’t The Standard the most brill thing you ever stumbled on?!
Filled with a broad church with so many desperados doing their best to push back (often on shift work it seems), the truly dedicated, the spray and walk aways, and the politically connected elite as well as the frustrated disconnected from all.
Either @ greywarshark, or @Gabby, or others (Robert Guyton maybe),:
I’m semi-interested to know whether Pete George – aka the beige badger – and aka a few other things is the same Dunedin (area-based) fella that once stood for Council and was in a past life someone that amounts to a software salesman?
Anyone that can confirm my suspicion, I’ll give Pete a reality TV show with Him as host (though I can’t guarantee the producers won’t want to dress him in once of those short-sleeved safari/liesure suits).
If it’s THAT Pete George, it’ll probably explain to me why people like Lprent know him as being such a wanker
Hi Once Was Tim – firstly, Phil Ure – Phil visited me here in Riverton some years ago; he was touring the country along with his 3 beautiful, vegan dogs. He’s a lovely man, with a kind heart and a wicked sense of humour. I loved his on-blog work, especially his use of ellipses, something others seemed to struggle with…
The description you give of the beige-one sounds accurate to me. He stood as the UnitedFuture candidate in that area and those other descriptions seem fitting. I think he wears such suits as a matter of every-day-wear, keeping the pith helmet for special nights-out at the local milk bar, but that might just be supposition/speculation :-).
Yep @ Robert. It’d be 30 or 40 years ago that I met Phil in passing – my brother more his vintage but what I remember of him is as you say (kind heart and wicked sense of humour). These days, a friend of a friend kind of thing.
Re PG. mmm OK i t figures, and fits with my various prejudices.
As it happens, so do I. I have a lot of admiration for people that (not sure how to put it but…..) stay clean using whatever God or belief system they hold dear.
Too many good people have fallen while too many complete wankers prosper and reek/wreak havoc
For as little as a dollar a day, you can help give a dour monomaniac a sense of humour. An open-minded perspective, actually thinking about someone else’s comment before criticising their political inadequacy, a fresh appreciation of irony, even letting an unrelated thread go by without mentioning Russia, all of these basic abilities are sadly out of reach of the humour-impaired.
Please, help change the world. End everyone else’s suffering. Bring humour to those most in need. Your dollar will go towards dictionaries, study materials on identifying when humour might be occurring, and crowbars to help extract the heads of the most deprived from out of their own arseholes.
So democrats finally have power in Washington… …theyhare too blame for Trump not using Congress to pay for the wall?!? a wall Mexico was supposed to. So now Democrats are either going to let migrants in or pay for a wall, like the media is so gormless backing all the fake news for trump. Do they honest believe anyone dares if the wall isn’t extended….
The Democrates are powerless. They only have 1 of the 4 branches. The house vs the senate, president, Supreme Court. Anything the do will be blocked in the Senate.
Yes, no.. …The press too. If they had a free press they’d be running scare stories abround two years of federal shutdown. How, for example, business can’t get passports and other federal docs…
..but the press ain’t free, that’s why every story is Trump said this or that irrelevent thing, that swings markets artificially, landing someone a bonanza.
Mayor Bill de Blasio is touting the reductions as a victory in the city’s Vision Zero plan, which involved lowering speed limits, redesigning streets and upping enforcement of traffic laws.
All the things that, from what I can make out from their insistence on MOAR ROADS, their preference for higher speeds and insisting that speed cameras are for revenue gathering, National is against.
Latest Daisycutter Sports Inc. series off to a rocky start
Our new series, entitled They gave that a**hole a KNIGHTHOOD?!!?? got under way this morning on Kiwiblog. Unfortunately our friends over there took to it like a cat to water, and it was soon “disappeared.”
But, oh my friends, and ah! my foes, it is still alive and viewable here….
Stephen Tindall and Peter Jackson in with a gallery of rogues and scoundrels? Oh the lack of vision of people who never walk to a summit for an overall view.
So you think the Walton family benefited the US by destroying small town US?
And that Tindall’s Red Sheds benefited New Zealand by closing down so many New Zealand companies as it flooded us with cheap foreign imports?
That’s all good, I just don’t happen to agree with that view.
Many companies started selling cheaper Asian goods and it was just fortunate that it wasn’t all Asians or other foreigners who pioneered the new consumer wave. It could have been far worse.
Tindall has a Trust and is behind many good projects here.
And they claimed Musk’s statements were “imaginative attacks” which were protected by US free speech laws. Expressions of opinion are protected under Californian law….
In a statement to Business Insider, Wood said: “Mr. Musk does not let the facts or law get in the way of his novel but inaccurate contentions in his motion to dismiss…
Vern Unsworth is one of the cave divers who helped in the effort this summer to rescue 12 Thai boys and their football coach from a network of caves in Thailand, where they had been stranded thanks to floodwater…
After the rescue, Unsworth appeared on CNN and dismissed Elon Musk’s mini-submarine, stating that the Tesla CEO could “stick his submarine where it hurts.” He criticised the plan as a PR stunt.
This prompted Musk to describe Unsworth a “pedo guy” baselessly on Twitter. He later apologised and deleted the original tweet, but then revived the feud in August by asking why Unsworth hadn’t sued him yet. He then doubled down on his original pedophile comments in an email to BuzzFeed, suggesting Unsworth was a “child rapist”, again without offering proof.
Unsworth then sued for libel.
When you look at the simplest diagram of the cave situation you can see that the
submarine idea should have been sunk from the first. But when you are super rich no-one should stop you elbowing your way to the front for selfies and such.
Thank you.
So the first thing that needs to happen is to get rid of any foreign control and then have a nationalistic and proactive socialist government.
And a philosophy that puts the needs of the collective above the rights of the individual.
Agree with all of this.
So I’m seeing the end of WW1, Great Depression, Labours first housing policy, WW2, introduction of cars and TV etc, Lange government, 1987 crash, Debt driven housing. Placing home ownership rates as the intention of policy would be a big winner for Labour. Just a labour did in the thirties. They used the options available to them.
Options are building up by adding high rises at the town centres and boardering industrial parks. State run first home financing, increasing intensified rural housing based on small block enterprise. Fruits, vegetables, livestock, flowers, hemp, oil crops, stock feed, pay to visit private enterprise parks, etc.
Singapore has been tightly regulated for decades. I would imagine that those high rise places didn’t develop cracks shortly after they were completed. They need to build high because they are small. Abour four or five stories is fairly satisfactory for general housing including family units. It is very isolating being high up in tower blocks, and the elevators are conduits that can become congested or foul, or mechanically faulty or vandalised. Steps down are a chore, but up may be like climbing a mountain for the mid to upper floors.
Look at South Horizons Hong Kong , maps or Wikipedia over 30,000 people in small space , but good walking spaces, nice outlook and generally good living, in my opinion , I would have no problem living in such a development.
Good for you Bruce. But not so good for families who get bunged up in them. There are very bad reports of the results in Britain. They are effective for parcelling up individuals and childless couples though, and enable living near the job if working in the city.
im struggling to cheer for any Dem in the likely Pres nomination field.
some for having had their shot, some for inexperience and lack of muscle, some for humourless idealism.
hopefully it winnows quickly after the Trump family indictments.
Of the current lot, my first pick is Harris, then O’Rourke, then Klobuchar, then Brown. Sadly, there’s no next Obama there.
None of them are likely to satisfy the purity moonbats, either. But if Sanders had had a full workover from a motivated opponent, there’s plenty in his background that should have put off the purity moonbats as well.
“A near absence of inflows into the valley’s two major dams – Split Rock and Keepit – in the past 18 months has resulted in Keepit Dam storage falling below 1 per cent of capacity and ceasing releases,” he said.
The final release from Keepit Dam into the Lower Namoi was some 30km from Walgett and “there is some likelihood it could reach the town in the next eight to 12 days”.
Walgett isn’t the only place in a crap place atm IRT water. There is a wee town in the Hunter Valley Region that has about 5% of usable water left and the scary thing is that the Hunter Region doesn’t usually get affected by drought. If this drought keeps going it’s current course it well start affecting other regions and towns etc that don’t usually get affected by drought.
Here in Darwin we have had the driest December since 1991 where we should at least 400mm plus atm and the temperatures in central Australia nudging the high 40’s! Out west in the Iron Belt some areas are hitting above 50 degrees.
Penny did affected us in Darwin when it was in Gulf as it suck all the moisture to the east which resulted In dry westerly winds instead of our northerly winds which brings the monsoon rains.
Depending on how Penny tracks atm and what Cat it is once hit land. It could dump a lot of rain in the channel country which feeds in the Darling and Lake Eyre Basins. There is a good chance would swing through the parts of western, southern/ sout east parts of Qld. Before heading back through northern NSW in a South easterly direction the prevailing winds in the greater of Australia go from west to east hence all the heat waves across the eastern/ southern parts of Oz atm.
The other question is what happens when the Tropical Areas failed to get their annual Monsoon rains over a extended period and the effect of water and food security? No Cocoa, coffee, tea and rice etc.
Apropos of nothing, many years ago, I spent a couple of weeks weeding cotton fields in Collarenebri, a town near Walgett. The temps also got into the 40’s most days. After a while, I got acclimatised and would put on a jersey when it dropped into the thirties. Great memories of swimming in the Barwon with Koori kids. Learned a hell of lot about the life of aboriginal people from that experience. It started on day one, when the boss of the weeding gang told that there were two boozers in town. The RSL for ‘us whites’, the pub for the blacks. I’ve no idea what the RSL was like, but the pub was friendly as hell.
The RSL and/ or sports clubs were and are still today to some degree in some small country towns are a close shop/ tight run organisations. You probably could throw in the old CWA and that’s one organisation you don’t want to upset or get offside with.
When as local Pub/s were and are still a fun place to find some real characters whatever your race, colour, religion you are. Called into a outback QLD pub in the GAFA and finding old Bob Katter holding court with a well known black fella from the Labor Party who’s tribe comes from that area and that was an interesting day to say the least which coved a lot of tropics.
It’s the gap between a good growing season and bad season getting smaller with the droughts getting longer and starting to effect areas/ regions that normally or don’t get effected by drought which is starting to scare/ concern everyone atm.
The last big drought summit in Canberra late last year, there is now some serious talk about abandoning/ retire areas to farming and in other areas change the way they growing crops and farming stock. Which both have cross party/ bench, CSIRO (like the old NZ DSIR) and NFF.
I guess you have seen the vids that I put up about Australia and the extremely hard work put in by an old guy on water trapping after rain to stop it running away, so that there was always water running on his property wet or drought. His neighbours didn’t like him, the politicians hedged, and finally a Korean mining company bought up his neighbours properties for a coal mine. It still works but these farmers and their at-bottomed, thick-headed sales reps in government like to ignore anything new that could help.
This from USA? Permaculture that WtB put up. Damned clever, well thought out and each property needs its own plan I think. But once they know what to look for and methods, many of these poor beggars with smaller operations could improve. I wonder how many of the big runs went out and planted groves of trees with safety fences around them.
Once you get some basic areas going they can self-seed.
How Peter Andrews rejuvenates drought-struck land | Australian Story
ABC News (Australia) Published on Oct 29, 2018
Is “natural sequence farming” the secret to restoring our water-starved continent? For more than a decade, two farmers have shown that parched landscapes can be revived. And finally, Canberra’s listening.
Australian Story explores the potential solution to Australia’s drought crisis.
(One comment that was interesting:
This same phenomenon of water retention and land rejuvenation was observed in the USA when beavers were reintroduced to parts of the country where they had been wiped out by fur trapping 100 years prior. The beavers build dams of wood and mud to create habitat they can live in and as in this documentary, the land could hold water again and desert became oasis.)
*****************************
And a comment from Wethe Bleeple – Note how this useful stuff we are collecting is immediately seen to be applicable if noted and used by those struggling. This is what we can do good in, apart from anything physical we might tackle. Be a repository for the numerous good keen men and women who think, research, present possible practical systems and are go-to people for those not wanting to wait for the fat-bottomed politicians, and I’m not talking about Queen’s song.)
WeTheBleeple 34.1
13 December 2018 at 7:56 am
Excellent.
“63% increase in production in the hydrated portion of the valley”.
That’s something Farmers can understand loud and clear. Now imagine having the advantage of plenty of water without the public outcry.
Probably worth doing.
Keyline systems. Swales and ponds. Or stream works like above. The options are interchangeable and have the same goals.
Keyline is amazing, and the yeomans plow something of a legend. I’ll get into that before too long plenty of our farmers would already know about subsurface ripping. But how many know they can push water towards their ridges using it?
Natural Sequence Farming is apparently the name given to this managed water harvesting system. There are two books Back from the Brink, and Beyond the Brink.
Place – Malloon Creek, Bungendore NSW
I first heard about this bloke and what he was doing, when the ABC’s Landline did an article before it appeared on Australia Story and I thought this is cool, then I started to wonder this is so simple why the heck other farmers haven’t taken this up. Having been posted to Canberra in the past, it can get very hot and dry during summer and bloody cold and very dry during winter with a bit of rain or snow. Had have I known about the tours conducted at this farm I would’ve pop over the hill and payed a visit.
Pat
That blows me away. How great. How can we get started in NZ? It is exciting when he says it could start and be effective within a few years. And the Right Livelihood Awards – Nobel alternative – perhaps even more noble, now those are something to take an interest in. There is a whole world of activism out there with go-ahead people whose brains haven’t been milk-fed for too long.
The root system of the chopped down trees remained alive under the ground – Rinaudo describes it as an “underground forest” – it just needed to be pruned and allowed to grow.
“Nature would heal itself, you just needed to stop hammering it.”
Thirty years on, his technique – he describes it as akin to pruning a grape vine back to just one or two stems each season – has a name, farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR). It is, Rinaudo says, an “embarrassingly simple solution” to what appeared to be an intractable problem.
But it involved overturning generations of accepted wisdom, and a resistance to giving some land back to nature.
That is what the Australian man Peter Andrews has found. He was doing things that were the opposite of what their Ministry was advising I think.
I think I’ll have to start paying The Guardian to some extent. They are producing enough things that are of value.
It give Eco Maori A sore face to see our buisness leader are starting to see the reality in what we will leave te mokopunas if we don’t change the way we live our lives to combat human caused climate change. Yes we need ALL our buisness leaders to join in and make changes to the way we think and live. Also I thank all the people who have been fighting climate change deniers now and the last 30 years we are winning finally.
I was a late convert to being a climate change leader for business, and I’m not alone
All this is positive. Many business leaders are taking a strong personal interest and leadership. For myself I admit to being a late convert to the need for such action and to according it a high priority. The fact that I am not alone in that is no excuse, and the best I can do is not compound the mistake by continuing with it.
As in so many areas of social change it is those at the edge who drive it. The activists who are so often derided but are later seen to have been prescient. As business adopts the talk and increasingly the walk of facing climate change we do well to remember this, and value activism not simply as a past warning bell but as a present and future monitor, prodder and if necessary – enforcer of action To those activists I say keep up the pressure. Do not rely on business to continue the progress itself. We in business have many competing pressures and influences. We are easily swayed. Our current positions are determined strongly by how our communities of investors, consumers, employees, suppliers and voters think and act.
If their views show any wavering it would be very foolish to expect business to keep up the fight.
Many business colleagues will not welcome me saying this but it is also true that legal instruction is required. We in business all like to talk of freedom to act but mostly this is about our own freedom to act as we see fit.
We are not slow to seek legal protection when it suits us or when the actions of others do not suit us. Similarly most businesses or people do not object to paying taxes at some level (usually lower than whatever is their current level) The successful reaction to climate change will dramatically impact what we do and how we do it. Much will be destroyed and much will be created.
The important thing is that it is not the planet which is destroyed, and that a system where people can prosper together is created. That will include thriving businesses.
Best be quick about it.
Rob Campbell is chairman of SkyCity, Tourism Holdings, Summerset and Wel Group.
Ka kite ano links below
The Racism in Aotearoa is built into the system over 200 years these old white men who have a war going on against Eco Maori think all maori are savages and should be locked up in jail .
‘I didn’t take the easy way’: Curtis Cheng’s son on fighting hate with tolerance
Suffering the reality of extremism has made Alpha Cheng more determined to stand up to racism. He reflects on his father’s murder, Fraser Anning’s speech and the close Muslim friend who helped him through his darkest hour .Three years after the worst day of his life, Alpha Cheng picks his words with care.
The 31-year old schoolteacher speaks out – sometimes. He talks about what he knows: racism, his friends and what happened to his father. In October 2015, Curtis Cheng was leaving work at Parramatta police station when he was shot and killed by a 15-year-old boy claiming to act for Islamic State.
In the years since, there have been trials, inquests and people telling Cheng – in what they think is a compliment – that they could not have done what he has done. In 2016, he wrote to Pauline Hanson and told her to stop using his father’s death to attack Muslim migration. This year, after senator Fraser Anning called for a return to the White Australia policy, he did the same.
“If anyone should be spiteful at Muslims, many would say that it would be me,” he wrote.
Curtis Cheng’s son calls for end to political ‘scapegoating’ of Muslims
Read more “If anyone should be spiteful at Muslims, many would say that it would be me,” he wrote.
Curtis Cheng’s son calls for end to political ‘scapegoating’ of Muslims
Read more
“[But] I am tired of needing to explain to adults that the actions of these individuals cannot be attributed to an entire group of people.”
One of his closest friends, Qais Mohammed, is a Muslim. They became friends the same way anyone does in late-stage university life – a friend of a friend needed a housemate.
They discovered they had done the same course at uni, and were big history buffs, both nerds who liked to talk about ancient geopolitics.
“[But] I am tired of needing to explain to adults that the actions of these individuals cannot be attributed to an entire group of people.” Ka kite ano links below.
I wish that some of the thoughtful people who come here would respond to eco maori. He is full of thoughts and trying to work out ideas in his mind and I think would like a few comments to bounce off. He is trying hard to work out how to go about things, view things, move forward holding on to the good past etc. Stream of consciousness stuff I think, but you get that as you start digging deep into your head and joining up random thoughts. Writing them down gives them form.
Finding out how different people think, it gives a rounded picture of them, sometimes a bit different than you imagine.
Kia ora Newshub The fire risk is very high with the wet spring and the temputres spiking fast becareful people fires can get out of control real fast.
All the people around trump look like they are very nervous.
Chrismas puts a big strain of a lot of people and there realationships I see it all the time we need to give to the poor hear and overseas that would be a great socity .
That was the old maori way was one gave and tryed to give the best to the neighbours and needy a beautiful system.
Bill Connelly is a great man who is handling his problems very well kia kaha.
The Popup globe Theatre for Aotearoa storys and actors in the Theatre is going great in Australia it looks well run all the best to everyone in the team making it run smovely there are a lot of maori storys to chose from .
Ka kite ano
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Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
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Global construction woes…
Empty Homes and Protests: China’s Property Market Strains the World
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/business/china-economy-property.html
Australia’s house price bloodbath
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/australias-house-price-bloodbath-35810
Auckland tower builder slammed over cracked Sydney apartments
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/auckland-tower-builder-slammed-over-cracked-sydney-apartments-opal-tower-35807
As Market Cools, Median Price for Manhattan Apartment Drops Below $1 Million
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/nyregion/manhattan-real-estate-market.html
(One has to ask why should people in NZ and China be paying 1 million for a 2 bedroom apartment, a similar price to New York, and our government Kiwibuild is touting $500k for a 1 bedroom in Onehunga, approx 1.5 hours commute from CBD, possibly government too close to the construction industry lobbyists and using them as their “advisers”. )
Then wonders why people are not taking them up on it? https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/five-kiwibuild-homes-fail-to-sell-through-the-ballot-35722
The wrong types of houses are being built, overpriced and not reflective for (low) Kiwis incomes and families. About $90 p/w will got straight to Auckland council on the Onehunga example for rates and transport alone, on top of the mortgage repayments and then there is insurance and body corporate payments on top of that.
That is why not content to make the poor homeless, they are also raiding the pockets of the middle classes for overpriced ‘affordable’ apartments with high on going costs benefiting, mostly banks, construction and councils.
“The wrong types of houses are being built, overpriced and not reflective for (low) Kiwis incomes”.
Thats because its not Kiwibuild – its Kiwi buy and the developer is building what he was always going to do. Unless he was building the “right” kind of houses for low kiwi incomes – they were never going to sell to them.
Kiwibuild is shaping up to be a huge stuff up – far from what was promised:
“KiwiBuild will deliver 100,000 affordable houses over ten years for first home buyers. Half of these will be built in Auckland. That is a ten-fold increase in the number of affordable houses being built in Auckland each year, from 500 to 5,000.
The stand-alone KiwiBuild homes in Auckland will be priced at $500,000-$600,000 with apartments and terraced houses under $500,000.
https://www.labour.org.nz/kiwibuild“
To be fair James, the National party were the ones to create the housing crisis fiasco, Labour’s issue is that they failed to understand what was really going on (aka discrepancy of incomes vs living costs in NZ) and seem to get their policy ideas from the MSM, Nat lite policy and industry and social housing ideologists at conferences and think tanks (aka we all live in high rise apartments that in some woke left “woke Green” world, apartments don’t leak or need constant remedial work, are close to the city or with fabulously cheap, fast, transport links with non corrupt, efficient, in touch with reality, transport bodies running them, pollution is not an issue, nor is waste water or sewerage, nobody has any children and if they do they wants to raise them in a high rise, body corporate fees don’t exist, kids don’t need gardens, nor do increased insurance and council rates and high rise building costs exist).
this government has oversold its ablity to tilt the housing market.
Key’s Bright Line test has made the biggest public sector difference so far.
Twyford will do well to hold both Transport and Housing in the reshuffle
I totally said, Labour had oversold its ability to effect house prices, before it happened. Its time most people, the government in particular, realized the housing market does not work according to simplistic supply and demand theories (the implications of this are actually quite far reaching). This also applies to the notion capital gains taxes will drive profits down (and so cool house prices down). My conclusion is based on other countries which have capital gains regimes also having some of the largest housing bubbles at the same times (Australia and Canada in particular). That policy does not work the way its touted either.
No market does:
True. Probably our inability to understand the housing and jobs markets are the most important policy consequences of this.
Bullshit if you build heaps prices will fall . Labour is in government. Change the laws take the land build the fucking houses.
You might want to look at the embedded youtube video in savenz’s comment below. It appears heaps have already been built in Auckland.
Rubbish SaveNZ it was Labour. To drive the economy Cullen flooded the market with foriegn money using our banking system, plus immigration.
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/key-graphs/key-graph-house-price-values
Don’t agree on that one DJ Ward. For a start the increase of house price changes in 2002 was also due to many Kiwi’s returning from overseas after 9/11 in 2001 and will probably happen again if there are any major terrorist attacks. That is why so many super rich have a holding in NZ as a 30 million bunker or bolt hole. Also why NZ should be very careful because we are having so many residents and citizens who actually don’t live here but still get access to all the free services available to people who do live here and pay proper taxes here.
However your graph shows (the blue) a huge rise in value of housing stock under the National party reign, in particular after 2016
In my view one of the best ways to control property is to have a ‘wealth’s stamp duty and any assets including business, farms, assets or property over 5 million being bought should have a 1% stamp duty to stop so many luxury developments being built in NZ for people as ‘gold bricks’ or only used occasionally and also a way to charge multinationals and non residents and residents equally a tax that is not linked to income and therefore impossible to avoid.
By only targeting super rich purchases for a tax, it evens up equality and keeps developers in the price point for Kiwis who actually live here and earn NZ wages.
Like the bright line it also stops speculation and financial dodging as each time the asset is transferred, tax is payable.
The super rich have little effect on the overall market. Labour allowed debt to drive the economy. National continued on the same path but never reached Labours values.
https://goo.gl/images/szcVXd
I think this link from stuff puts the house price rises in perspective.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/98475352/labour-governments-have-overseen-greatest-house-price-inflation-data-shows
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub agreed it would be incorrect to tie the fortunes of the housing market to the political leanings of the government.
“Government policy on housing has not changed markedly since the 1980s. The bigger drivers of house prices have been liberalisation of finance, falling cost of borrowing, and slow supply of housing. Correlation with government terms is spurious – conflating correlation with causation.”
For those who want to refresh on what they know about the effects of deregulation of the financial system in the 1980’s this seems a balanced and informed piece, as far as I can tell.
by Carl E Walsh, Visiting Scholar, Federal Reserve Bank of San Fransisco.
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/historical/frbsf/frbsf_let/frbsf_let_19881014.pdf
Remember Shamubeel Eaqub is ex Goldman sacs, hardly an independent commentator and told everyone that they should rent, as owning a house is a bad investment (in the mid 2000’s). He is an industry puppet, trotted out regularly even when his advice is so incorrect that in the US he would probably be facing law suits.
Apparently immigration also has nothing to do with the housing crisis (see his reasons do not add immigration when even now the banks acknowledge it is a huge factor to housing prices) because artificially adding 70,000 new residents and giving out 200,000 work visas a year, for the last decade, does not effect housing at all…. sarcasm. obviously adding more population does not effect schools or hospitals, super or jobs either apparently… sarcasm
All the new people just live in a magical economic world of his own ex Goldman sacs and government magical thinking universe…
savenz
So you can not agree with Eaqub’s summation that neither government has had a bigger effect on rising house prices than the other levers he mentions?
https://treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2014-04/twp14-10.pdf
Migration and Macroeconomic Performance in New Zealand:
Theory and Evidence
NZT Working Paper 14/10 April 2014 Julie Fry
Some interesting background on possibilities produced by Treasury with some conclusions that don’t seem to have been noticed by government, such as that about the level of immigration. It makes the point in 3.4.2 that more densely populated centres are supposed to bring both greater productivity and wealth but studies don’t bear this out. (I think I’ve got that right).
See information under –
3.4.2 p.15 Large Population increase?
4.2 p.24 Housing market impacts.
Nice graph – Figure 3 on P25 on rising house prices and immigration figures match.
Can you put an actual definition to productivity? I have been thinking about this recently and find its not a well enough defined term.
You might use the ILO definition, but that is basically productivity is hourly wages, and this is simply not suitable for some important contexts (e.g productivity of a financial investment).
Michael Reddell likes to go on about NZ’s productivity but I have not seen a solid definition from him or anywhere relevant of what is being targeted and measured. Additionally some of his suggestions, such as reducing minimum wages and employment protections, seem likely to harm things and be of a similar vein to other developments since the 1980’s so I don’t think I would want his policy choices to be followed through.
I was reading a report that I put up recently and I think it referred to productivity in terms of immigration having an effect and I didn’t think it was based on whatever wages they were likely to be earning. (It was in 3.4.2 in the Treasury working paper 14/10 in comment above at 1.15pm.)
In theory, a high rate of immigration over an extended period could greatly increase New Zealand’s population, allowing productivity gains from economies of scale, both from conventional sources and the particular effects identified by economic geographers.
Also thinking ‘productivity’, just now the Productivity Commission are carrying out an enquiry paper about local body funding.
Closes February, public submissions sought.
https://www.productivity.govt.nz/news/localgovtengage
The NZ Herald says this by Northern Advocate
By: David Wilson and Patrick McVeigh.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=12034057
Productivity is a key determinant of economic growth, so New Zealand’s poor performance in the regions and more so in its largest city Auckland, is a real concern.
One of the key outcomes expected of the new $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund is to raise productivity; however, productivity is a complex issue with no quick fix. Part of the challenge is translating complex economic reports into simple meaningful messages that businesses can respond to.
The New Zealand Productivity Commission, established as an independent Crown entity in 2011, has undertaken excellent analysis of the causes and consequences of New Zealand’s low productivity growth and published reports that have both informed the debate and influenced government policy.
However, much of the language is technical and contains many of the disclaimers and assumptions typical of economic analysis, making it hard to translate into action.
Bit problematic all this. I have some further ones,
“Productivity is commonly defined as a ratio between the output volume and the volume of inputs. In other
words, it measures how efficiently production inputs, such as labour and capital, are being used in an economy to
produce a given level of output.” – https://www.oecd.org/sdd/productivity-stats/40526851.pdf
“‘Productivity’ is about how well people combine resources to produce goods and services. For countries, it is about creating more from available resources – such as raw materials, labour, skills, capital equipment, land, intellectual property, managerial capability and financial capital. With the right choices, higher production, higher value and higher incomes can be achieved for every hour worked” – https://www.productivity.govt.nz/about-us/why-is-productivity-important
Seems that productivity is so fuzzy one should not be comparing two countries across it (because its invariably an apples and oranges comparison). From the definitions you might be able to talk about productivity of a particular factor input, but not relative to another input (say labour vs machine productivity), or add them together.
Other things I find weird about this, apparently the NZ work force is one of the most highly skilled around, but with poor productivity growth (whatever that actually means).
Nic the NZer
I have noticed that we are always being bashed for low productivity though long working hours – sounds like us knuckledraggers are slackers wanting to spend all day sleeping
in the sun and singing manana!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTzYgE3XMxk
While at the same time our employment rates are tip-top – like the ice cream they are not quite definite about where the figures belong and who they relate to.
Statistics and economic language – once you can speak that lingo the Rosetta stone would be easy peasy.
Immigration has the biggest effect on prices in NZ. The problem is that no economists were prepared, or too stupid to mention it, so for nearly a decade the immigration debate was stifled and scams encouraged to keep the economy going, rather than using productivity or innovation.
Remember for approx 7 of the last 10 years people like Shamubeel Eaqub told the public that house prices were going to fall based on low wages and cost of living.
The issue was that economists were determined to ignore immigration figures of people coming into NZ and given work permits and citizenship and permanent residency like lollies. Those migrants with money to buy citizenship had a massive advantage as they did not have to rely on local wages to afford a house.
As we can see by all the sob stories people are coming to NZ paying around $30 – $50k for an overpriced ‘degree’ and then getting that job for residency such as working in supermarkets and food stores on low wages (and probably paying all their wages back for the job plus the taxes) so that they can get residency into NZ when they actually don’t have any skills we actually need here and could be easily done by a local if the wages were on par with the cost of living and the cost of a degree.
Meanwhile the scams are driving down wages and skilled people from the country including migrants and next generation children.
Another myth spread by economists and MSM is that there is a housing shortage and a land shortage. Again wrong. There are plenty of spec houses being built for the migrant middle/rich class who come to NZ and expect to pay $100k for a fake job and fake degree and then buy the million dollar house.This is hiding the issue that Kiwi’s can’t afford to buy million dollar housing on local wages and actually driving up the cost of housing overall. Aka $500k for a Kiwibuy 1 bedroom apartment 1.5 hours commute from the CBD.
Meanwhile the roads are clogged and locals are living 10 to a house miles from anywhere and can’t even afford to work with the low wages and petrol taxes (to solve the congestion that the spec houses are creating).
Have a look, video evidence of what it is really like in Auckland, empty speculative houses and apartments and congested roads with Ponzi schemes operating and that is before the houses get occupied! What is the congestion going to be like when the housing estates are full and one road in and out and no public transport.
There are plenty of houses and plenty of land in Auckland and NZ. What is the issue is that first home buyers can’t afford a million dollar house on wages of $50 – $100k… nor can they afford to rent those houses either… We built the wrong houses in the wrong locations and are bankrupting locals to pay for the infrastructure of a folly and profits for developers.
The government could have regulated to create affordable housing and concentrated on closing off immigration scams and increasing wages, but instead have added fuel to the fire, more houses being built that are not what people want or need in the country but based on construction profits.
Construction will then be going wah, wah during the down turn they created and will the government be stupid enough to try to prop them up with more lazy immigration just like the Natz?
Yes savenz
I didn’t know the details of all that. But I have seen rows of two storey semi-majestic houses with porticoes/ over their front door, all painted the same, all lined up like army huts and about as interesting in South Auckland and all appearing to be empty. The government needs to tax empty houses? What about that, have an inspector look at these houses before and after they are built, and if they can’t sell them locally, force a Dutch auction system with the price going down every month?
These speculators need to be tickled where they don’t like it. But any Minister bringing in such stuff needs to watch for hie/her and family’s safety because the claws would come out when the property people got crossed. It’s a jungle out there, it’s just that we don’t really know it.
The government probably had to go forward with their promises and to ensure continuity of even inadequate supply and hopefully they have a cunning plan coming up for Stage Two!
Agree with this conclusion. This is still a government responsibility, but its one which both sides of the house have been wedded to for a long, long time.
Arguably John Key did the most about this with the introduction of loan to value ratios.
Yes, best thing that the government could do is a complete ban on offshore ownership followed by bringing back tight monetary controls.
Net migration was much higher under National than Labour.
I think you actually hit the nail on the head with “discrepancy of incomes vs living costs in NZ”, but in NZ we have a long standing policy of successfully suppressing income, specifically median incomes (called inflation targeting), and unsuccessfully failing to suppress house prices (also called inflation targeting).
The discrepancy is due to the level of success at targeting either inflation targeting has on the wage market vs the housing market and some of the simultaneous policies (such as financial de-regulation) impacts here also.
In theory the economy (due to equilibrium dynamics) will neutralize these changes in the actual economy. In practice all that has been neutralized is a widespread understanding of what has been happening.
Since the 1980s…..
……………..”and seem to get their policy ideas from the MSM…………”
True, and/or policy analysts and their managers that still haven’t come to terms with their being a new junta in town.
(The expectation that a new ‘kinder’ government would mean some pretty bloody radical change in attitude and public service culture might take a while to gain acceptance from within) – and it isn’t going to come from purchase agreements, KPI’s and Ministers repeating the mantra: “I have complete confidence in my officials” – that’s almost like saying “Beat me! Beat me!! – harder, HARDER, oh yea baby H A R D E R!)
It’s Chinabuy jimby. Twyford’s been told he can do what he likes but if property values drop he’s dog tucker.
don’t forget supermarkets. standing over suppliers who then reduce quality to reflect the profit gouging of supermarket. Trading off the lack of competition in food retail.
Labour may think country of origin labellin, good, may change the profit gouging since the heavily imported items will be fresh… ..so much for climate change. Increase the supply, by introducing a Bill that mandates all large towns have a dedicated covered farmers market in cuty limits central to public transit, where local growers can bypass the supermarket duopoly.
National neolibs want less government and more private taxes, by corps for corps.
Soddenleaf that sounds interesting. Local markets good.
The local New World – a nice place to shop – but unfortunately is replacing so many brands with Pams – it’s own brand – so achieving vertical integration and forcing individual brands to their knees. The chemist buy up by Life, is limiting individual brands also and dropping small suppliers, the Health Foods franchise the same.
The opportunities to make your own stuff and have a wee or mid-sized business and create your own productivity, jobs etc with thriving micro NZ businesses trading heavily in their area, buying and selling, but with opportunities to attract buyers from the rest of NZ, is a dream under the present system.
The idea of having local areas where people are committed to buying locally made goods is I think the only way we can survive. And i would like to see areas build up skills and a brand for certain skills and trades that reflect the resources in their area. We need to aim at self sufficiency within our country, though not for all things within an area. Slow buying, like slow foods has a following, needs to be our attitude, save, buy on hp for a dearer NZ thing, that will last the distance expected.
We import so much stuff on the spurious basis of being cheaper and that they are more efficient overseas. Our own people can’t compete,; are cast aside and out of work on the malicious meme that we are slack and not as hard-working as the workers in the poor countries. And we import piles of non-essentials which have to be paid for, and are likely to be used for short duration anyway – clothes, toys come to mind. Wastrels we are! And it is time that we stopped being teenagers in the reality of living in this stupid era,
and grow up.
Yes. And you’d think the internet would destabilize the supermarket duopoly. But big retail property has long since locked out entrepreneurical capitalism. Take parcel delivery, along side data housing, there is a huge demand for a post office like shopping experience. Where as you gone into town, you’ve picked a parcel dropped off at a shop, where you also handed over a dongle where you store you own private data in a usb socket at the store, thus bypassing big Corp data with you own web service, site. Nobody owns your data, anyone with it stole it…
We are living in a era where the Lucite are forced to march again for a piece of the new growth, as we’ve seriously been locked out by the big end of town.
While I’m no fan of the Egyptian government, not a bad idea to have a campaign to try to curb families to 2 children to help poverty, increase education in particular of women, curb overpopulation and resources issues like water before their problems become even more extreme.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jan/03/experts-urge-egypt-to-rethink-two-is-enough-population-strategy
This is the Guardian, which has got thumbs down recently. But they often have useful reporting. Are they worth supporting overall despite their failings?
Are they worth supporting overall despite their failings?
Is NewstalkZZZzzzB worth supporting despite its line-up of loons and drips? Is the Sensible Sentencing Trust worth supporting despite its bloody-minded support of a knife-killer in 2008, and its heaping of ridicule and hatred on the victim and his family?
The Grauniad is discredited. Luke Harding’s crude and stupid fantasy is the most egregious recent example, but the faux-liberal paper has a long and dishonorable history of attacking dissident intellectuals and lying for the state.
But Morrissey I can’t take your opinion as the end of the argument, knowing your own flights of hyperbole which occur from time to time.
If you don’t trust Morrissey, look up the writings of many genuine leftists in the UK.
Harding’s collusion lies, the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, the push for war in Syria, the attacks on Julian Assange have all left a bitter taste.
I recommend you follow John Wight on Twitter.
The Guardian has become a tool of the establishment.
As far as world news goes, the Guardian will always support the US/UK foreign policy agenda. Their heyday of evenhanded reporting was during the cold war.
But for culture, literature, lifestyle, science reporting, they have some able journalists .They’re liberal, “progressive” rather than leftist, very pro Israel and quite often to be found exhorting the troops to war.
On economics, neoliberal to the core
Still worth a read, if only to find out what the official story line is on any international news.
Even the Independent allows more varied viewpoints
Writing good film reviews does not a progressive paper make……
Their lies about Manafort meeting Assange makes it a neocon rag.
https://off-guardian.org/2019/01/02/the-guardians-reputation-in-tatters-after-forger-revealed-to-have-co-authored-assange-smear/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/11/assange-never-met-manafort-luke-harding-and-the-guardian-publish-still-more-blatant-mi6-lies/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/extraordinary-and-deliberate-lies-from-the-guardian/
https://off-guardian.org/2018/11/27/discuss-the-secret-meetings-of-paul-manafort-julian-assange/
Yes Ed that was shocking about Assange – Manafort. Meet?
Just another nail in the coffin for me.
I look at George Monbiot’s writing on the environment and not much else now.
It’s like the Herald. I read Rachel Stewart and Kirsty Johnston.
No. It was a lie. A piece of black propaganda, handed directly to the hapless Grauniad/MI6 hack Luke Harding by “an anonymous source.”
He still has not apologized, or been punished.
Perhaps we should all write to Luke Harding dropping him bits of real information about NZ and it might get published as he would believe anything if it made a good story.
Perhaps he picked up his ideas from the USA National Enquirer, where they have built a newspaper on gullible readers. We have some astounding things happen here or stories that have curiosity value, we’re a pretty interesting lot despite thinking that we are just ordinary folks.
Here are some wonderful stories from the internet as examples. I am sure we could think up some real doozies ourselves.
This from 2016
https://www.salon.com/2016/03/25/the_national_enquirers_5_most_outrageous_political_scoops/
https://www.ranker.com/list/funny-tabloid-headlines/nathandavidson
Thereporting at the Guardian has about as much integrity as the reporting at the Enquirer.
This article is well worth a read if you want to understand the recent changes at the Guardian.
‘How the Guardian Changed Tack on Corbyn, Despite Its Readers.’
https://novaramedia.com/2017/01/08/how-the-guardian-changed-tack-on-corbyn-despite-its-readers/
That was interesting Ed.
Thanks francesca for that full opinion.
And savenz too.
I still read and enjoy the Grauniad, Francesca. As you say, its film reviews and book reviews and many other parts of the paper are first rate.
Just like the German press from 1933 to 1945.
It’s not my opinion this time, Mr Shark. It’s a fact that the incompetent and stupid “editor” of the Grauniad sent the incompetent and stupid Emma Brockes to savage, of all people, Noam Chomsky. Needless to say, she failed completely.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/nov/17/theguardian.pressandpublishing
And it’s a fact that the Grauniad has not apologized for Luke Harding’s absurd lies about Paul Manafort conspiring with Julian Assange.
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after-the-guardians-viral-blockbuster-assangemanafort-scoop-no-evidence-has-emerged-just-stonewalling/
The guardian has defiantly got an agenda including being unashamedly a globalist supporter and for world population growth and immigration. Personally don’t think that continued human expansion and neoliberalism as it is currently trending, is possible without destroying the planet and also dividing society while it does so.
There is a sort of fascism about thinking every culture is the same and we should all do western capitalism and an accountancy perspective on space…. nor the practical reality of when the richer folks in the world goes around the world to buy up assets …or lobby their view point to achieve more wealth and local governments are all for it, especially when they get foreign donations and lucrative jobs offers post political career.
I linked to this yesterday. Got Morrissey doing the but it’s from the enemy thing.
Good on Egyptian government for taking the real issue for them, population growth seriously. Imagine if China didn’t go down the same path decades ago.
There is a big issue for Egypt in a few years in regard to fresh water, and since it gets power from its dam the greatly reduced flow of the Nile is going to cause major problems.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/2/egypt-water-anxiety-grows-over-ethiopia-dam-nile/
You fool. Are you a member of the Unification Church?
You’re certainly fanatical enough.
No. Plus no idea why you think I am a religous person. Pro abortion, pro palistinian, believe in science, evolution of mankind. Plus once in a while I use the term sky fairies. That’s not to say there isn’t some good philosophy from all religions, as well as the crazy stuff.
I don’t think you’re religious. I think you’re extremely naive and easily led. You quoted a notorious Moonie rag, apparently without understanding its provenance.
The basic problem much of the ME faces is that the elites have managed to hold on as modernisation and oil money boosted populations. The mixture of poverty and social conservatism has resulted in ISTR half the population of some ME states being aged under 25. The overpopulation problem being addressed by a two-child policy is too little, too late (how will they run that by the religious elites as well as the capitalists who don’t want to fund cheap healthcare for women is another matter entirely).
There will be more Arab Springs (and African Springs) as resources become more stretched, and water wars.
Populations created by oil will end up being destroyed by lack of water. A lot of the ME is as fucked as a low-lying atoll nation.
Climate crises and catastrophe is the most serious issue facing the world right now.
It would be good if we used this meeting place to put pressure on the New Zealand government and all politicians to act as if it is the most serious issue.
Daily threads.
Daily recommendations.
Idea 1 .
Make public transport free in February.
Not a bad idea, Make public transport free in February. Pity we have privatised all the transport in many cases so hard or expensive to make this happen as profit is the over riding agenda in NZ businesses and propped up by taxpayers instead of social good…
So renationalise public transport.
In January.
With what money? Let me guess. ED gets his economic philosophy, and asset purchasing from the Cuba example.
That’d probably be better than the Western capitalist example.
Cuba is a fine country, managing very well despite an illegal blockade by the U.S.
Appropriation is perfectly fine if the government sold away our assets illegally and without our consent.
Eh? the current owners should be punished for something the gummint did in the 80S?
Yes. It was an illegal sale.
What was an illegal sale? Doe this what still have the same owners? And even if they got it cheap why do you now get to steal it ?
And what would you do once our economy has collapsed because no one else will trade with us because we steal stuff?
At least you are now saying what you mean by “nationalise”.
The theft already occurred.
We are simply taking back what is ours.
History shows that countries who repossess their assets thrive because they are no longer serfs in their own land.
The only New Zealanders who will suffer are the parasitical class who have served overseas corporations.
AT have been changing the system. It used to be that the buses were profit driven and kept most of the fares that they collected as well as getting subsidies.
That has changed. Now the bus companies are contracted to do the runs that AT design for a fixed price and AT gets all the fares.
This makes changing PT to a free service quite easy but it does mean that the council will have to sign off on it because the money to pay the bus companies has to come from somewhere.
Of course, the next step necessary in how the buses are run will be in removing the bus companies altogether and doing the whole lot in-house. This will save quite a bit of money that could be then be used to up the drivers wages.
And there’s a problem with making the service free – getting the necessary statistics to design the routes. I’d go for a nominal $1 charge, hell, it could be 50c. We just need the stats that are provided when people pay.
The main barrier to making PT free is the lack of vehicles, drivers, and separated lanes to cope with increased demand.
Solutions- to do in January
Make a massive order now.
Pay drivers a lot more to entice drivers inyto this work.
Make left lane of all motorways and dual carriageways in cities bus only.
Make city centres open only to buses, bikes, scooters, motorbikes and taxis ( btnot Uber)
It’s already heavily subsidised. How more free does it need to get. Shouldn’t the users pay for there own transport choices.
No. Saving the planet means incentivising a low carbon world.
We need to get as many people as possible out of cars.
When we shift to EV cars your argument is irrelevant. Unless the bus is full it’s not like they are efficient vs a car. Buses are more about reducing congestion. Trains etc simply fail to connect A to B 99% of travel.
Electric cars solve nothing.
https://www.citymetric.com/transport/pictures-do-cars-take-too-much-space-city-streets-483
Well obviously buses full use less space. But if you have ever looked at most buses traveling around they are often far from occupied. The original comment was about climate change. You just shifted your argument to something else because your comment didn’t stack up. Like I said it’s more about congestion not climate change.
They would be full if they were free.
And electric cars are not the magic bullet for the environment.
“Electric cars won’t eradicate gridlocks and air pollution, but carbon footprints could be cut by favouring pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit.”
Walking and cycling is one important solution.
“Electric cars move pollution from our cities to distant power plants. For big benefits we need carbon-free electricity. Most studies focus on average driving and average electricity generation. Instead, if we consider real urban driving and off-peak charging, electric cars are already a low pollution option for Belgium, where over half of electricity comes from nuclear power, and for Beijing, where more efficient gas-fired power stations are rapidly replacing old coal ones.
A quarter of England’s car trips are less than two miles. We can be more ambitious. Replacing petrol and diesel cars with electric would miss the opportunity to save the NHS around £17 billion over the next 20 years by swapping short car journeys for walking or cycling.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/16/our-cities-need-fewer-cars-not-cleaner-cars-electric-green-transport
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/13/electric-cars-are-not-the-solution-pollutionwatch
The electric vehicles that will make the biggest difference are called scooters.
Electric bikes even more so.
Yep there has been a lot of affordable purchasing options for a while. Males who tinker around in there sheds are pushing the tech with high power motorcycles as well. I can’t imagine it being attractive in places like Canada in winter. In nations like ours we should see more of that travel method, scooters. Our issue is how far we live from work combined with far too many days amongst OK days, that are too cold and crapy to want to use a scooter.
The scooter is only for short distances – around your neighbourhood or to the nearest PT stop. Easier to take on a train than a bike, and with some interior redesign, buses too.
No, it will still be relevant as cars are still less efficient that public transport. They simply use more resources to achieve the same thing.
To put it another way: Private cars are far more expensive than public transport.
It’ll be electric public transport once we get electric vehicles. We shouldn’t even be considering electric private vehicles.
Wrong:
All buses on the road at rush hour (although it’s more like two hours now) are full up to the point where some buses are actually leaving people at bus stops because they’re too full.
It’s your arguments that don’t stack up so we can only assume that you’re talking out your arse.
This is unanswerable Draco.
Thank you.
As soon as it reaches 5 passengers. But that’s for ICE vehicles.
We have a completely new argument when one or both are EV without emissions. If you look at the Cuban extension of a vehicles lifespan which should be far easier with EV, renewables powering vehicle use, production, metals making, bio plastics, then really there is little issue.
The only real issue here is the desire of climate change paranoia to remove people from the car. To remove freedom from them. All on an argument that everything other than time, has essentially solved.
One way of taxing travel could be as a per Km levy based on the number of humans in the car. The more people the less the levy per km. Smart car obviously. Maybe a discount for pet owners taking the dog to the park. Maybe higher Levis in certain places, or times of day. Encourage wise use of the car. Banning it will result in revolution.
No we don’t. Private vehicles are still less efficient and cost more. On a per person basis:
They use more resources to make.
They use up more, very limited, space for both travelling and for parking.
They use up more time as they use up more drivers.
They require more mechanics.
They require more charging stations.
They require more rubber for the tyres.
They create more congestion which loses even more time.
Private vehicles have always been highly expensive. It’s why only the rich could have them throughout the centuries.
Through the teachings of economics we’ve come to the delusional belief that if we just make more cars they get cheaper. They don’t. They still cost the same amount and that is significantly more than public transport especially when you add in all the extra costs.
We never thought economically about cars. We just wanted everyone to have them and it seemed to work. The more cars there were the more mechanics needed, the more fuel was used producing even more employment and all the rest and all of it produced more profit.
And there we have the proof that the profit drive brings about the worst possible result. More profit = more resources being used.
Its not without some losses or sacrifices.
The argument could apply to toasters. You could toast bread in many ways. The toaster using electric power like an EV car uses resources. A community toaster would be more efficient, resources, space, and even vs one user toasters everywhere. You don’t actually need to toast bread.
So since everything has that argument, and there is nothing that doesn’t have its losses or sacrifices, it’s not about harm of cars.
It’s about what cars give to improve the lives of people. How much inevitable loss and harm we can acept. The best we can aim for, with the biggest positive change is conversion to EV as its the easiest win for today’s political enviroment.
Ethiopia goes, what do we desperately need. A: A great big hydro dam for energy security. Say $5 billion. Hardly a dent in Nationals borrowing.
Jacinda, hyperthetical scenerio.
Labour has announced a 1 off investment. The investment is for a factory to create an affordable, safe 4 door EV. The production line allowing a few uprade options. The factory, like the railways did will help train apprentice engineers, electricians, technicians. The steel and Ali will be NZ made.
The factory will then expand into retrofitting kits for an existing ICE SUV, Ute, van, truck. Also rebuild kits, parts for the EV we produce.
Labour acknowledges we can’t compete with foriegn companies and the aim is only 5% of car trade. While crown purchases can be a good part of that we expect good sales. The aim is that numbers of this car build over years until the Buisiness becomes self susianing. Off shout maintenance companies etc.
The government accepts that subsidies will be required for a number of years. However economic activity and taxation returns fron that activity should cover costs. The enviroment and social gains from our current behavour is large. Large family friendly apartment complexes built near the factory will be made available to the workers.
Unlikely as it would require more time.
How else are you going to get toast?
You’re just trying to build up a strawman argument because you can’t refute mine.
We’re talking economics and the economics tells us that we can’t afford cars. We can afford toasters.
They don’t.
That’s a large part of the argument against them. Using public transport removes the stress of actually owning a car:
https://axleaddict.com/cars/10-Reasons-to-Give-Up-Owning-a-Car
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-reduce-the-compounding-stress-of-car-ownership-1561857592?IR=T
No, that’s not the best we can hope for. That’s about the worst we can hope for. Cars are expensive and highly stressful.
Absolutely correct that the birth of our modern consumerism has major events like the introduction of cars. Only a century ago there was virtually no cars on the planet. It’s had major effects on people’s lives. The distance they travel in there lives. The least free being a prisoner in 24 hour lockdown.
How do I go where I want, for what ever reason I want, when I want, carrying anything legal that I want to carry. Including children who’s freedom is taken from them too.
If the car cost us money and we didn’t get something in return then we wouldn’t use them. Many of us have no choice about using cars because of where we live.
Personally I buy used cars that are efficient fuel wise. Pay around $4,000 and get an extra 200,000 km out of it. Selling it to the Recycling industry when I’ve finished with it. So it’s cheap per km.
How do remove cheap? It’s like physics. We know it’s possible to build very cheap cars, and pay taxes that build the roads. Physics is something that’s hard to ignore.
1. Nobody’s freedom is taken from them. That’s just a lie.
2. Public transport
And public transport is cheaper.
That’s the bit that you don’t seem to be understanding.
Owning a car is expensive. Public transport is cheaper.
Private motor vehicles aren’t cheap. You believing so is part of the delusion that you’ve been sold over the decades.
Physics is something that you cannot ignore but you’re doing your best to do so.
Cars aren’t cheap – ever.
We cannot build them cheaply. A tonne of material is a tonne of material and it represents all the labour and machinery that went into producing it.
We cannot support them cheaply. The added labour costs are a problem.
Running them costs us in many ways. Congestion, ill-health (and not just from pollution), and other forms of unnecessary death.
You’re ignoring all of these very real, very physical points to hold on to your hope that the private motor car isn’t finished when it obviously is.
Given that we’re unlikely to transition to EV by February, what’s your argument against getting people out of fossil cars and onto buses this February via free public transportation?
Currently, in my region buses barely compete with fossil cars from a price perspective, even with parking charges included. Make it free and fill the buses.
Nothing’s free. How you getting the money for this. We all have to make a contribution in some form of tax or currency devaluation.
Maybe the next question would be if it was “free”, would the use dramatically increase. Or would the costs dramatically increase due to new demand. I’m struggling with this free thing becoming so free the taxpayer has no freedom left.
Dude, it’s a month. If it works, it’ll lower traffic congestion, lower emissions, lower infrastructure costs, boost economic activity, and help us work towards deserving our “clean&green” global brand.
The penalty for failure is… probably less than a flag referendum. Wellington currently spends about $4mil a month on the subsidy, so if it’s 50% that’s 4mil additional costs for a free feb for Wellington. I figure larger sum for auckland, smaller sums elsewhere, CHCH is already very cheap.
If you can show that it’d cost like a billion dollars even if it didn’t increase patronage, you might have a point. Until then, I’ll ignore your cries of tyranny.
Cripes don’t go on Ed. Saving the planet is one thing held in one hand. Keeping NZ going and transport running so people can get where they want to be is another. The two hands can see each other, are communicating, but must keep separate until they can combine on one project satisfactorily then another. It won’t be seamless, but it can work. Wanting and demanding instant change won’t serve the people. You want to save the planet and possibly the people; they want to get to work so they have food and rent for the next few days and are able to make small plans for their future.
You mean employers jocks? Good luck with that.
The users do – through rates.
I think we should all take a moment to celebrate Nancy Pelosi’s re-ascension to the House Speakership. Two geologic eras after she first took the gavel.
I like your all comment. Even Trump is celebrating.
Pelosi’s second in line to succeed to the presidency.
Pence?
Pence is first in line.
While a guy Trumps age could fall over at any time with a heart attack I can imagine the best lifesaving gear is always somewhere nearby. Plus apart from his weight he has had a very clean living life. Apart from wild women which is actually healthy until you apply our sexist veiw of red blooded males, and patriarchy veiw of relationship responsibility (oh no I said Patriarchy like it exists. Ms Ford will be proud of me, agreeing with her. It harms men) and the psycological harms men experience. The other option is he gets a diagnoses with a short life expectancy which is common at his age. Generally that’s at least a few years warning. Or at least the medical professionals could keep him going long enough. I however think Trump will be enjoying being president so much he will refuse to die.
The Darth Vader conspiracy theory.
A fuckwit writes:
Apart from wild women which is actually healthy until you apply our sexist veiw of red blooded males, and patriarchy veiw of relationship responsibility (oh no I said Patriarchy like it exists.
Actually, that was pretty darned funny, Mr Ward. Incoherent and almost illiterate, but still quite funny.
Have you considered a career in talk radio? Leighton Smith is retiring; you couldn’t be worse than him.
(That old loon regularly quotes the Moonie papers too.)
Since you keep going on about Moonies. So I’m only guessing what that means.
Plus you like communism, so China.
They are getting good at landing on the dark side off the moon. Have you ever thought of going over to the dark side for a visit?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jan/03/china-probe-change-4-land-far-side-moon-basin-crater
You could rule your socialist utopia from your new home. A small moon floating around the Ewok’s planet, sorry humans.
China is not communist…..
He’s riddled with vd jocks.
“apart from his weight he has had a very clean living life”
His dealers through the decades love your sense of humour.
Sniff, sniff
Hank Williams III-Gutter Stomp – YouTube
Celebrate that…
No!
“Hidden meaning is the continuity of personal experiences”
I heard a snippet all she babbled is how great the middle classes are and how those who arnt should aspire to be . Fuck your fat lazy middle classes I like it down here.
Oh good. Coz the way things are going, that space will continue to stay there or even go a little further down. Be ready for a lot more people coming to join you, tho.
Pelosi’s not one for big visions and ideas and strategies, her talents are in the tactics and maneuvers to get an inch here and another inch there. But fuck me, she is damn good at that tactical stuff.
Breaking!. The right has outed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
https://twitter.com/AnonymousQ1776/status/1080594276831047680
Teen dancing is the devil’s work, sir!
We’ve all seen Footloose ..
How does one “act” like the clueless nitwit one is?
Surely being ones self isn’t acting.
You’ll be buying into it, Joe? Like you buy into the demonization of Russia.
*head desk*
Didja really expect anything else from our resident fuckwits?
What about us all being kind in 2019?
Aren’t we able to debate with poise, etiquette, reason and style?
!
Who the hell do you think you are Te Reo? Victor freaking Hugo?
Sorry, slight mistake there. I meant to say: Who the hell do you think you are Te Reo? Victor Hugo’s freaking publisher!?!?!??
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2005/10/13/the-worlds-shortest-telegram/
Is there really a futility closet? What a divine idea.
I figured if anybody knew of the world’s shortest communication, it’d be you, Moz. Thrilled to be proven correct!
You and Joe are both long on abuse, Andre, but short on specifics. If we didn’t know better, we’d think you were a couple of Grauniad True Believers.
Oh wait….
????
Not an intelligent answer, joe. Luke Harding can get away with it, for a while at least, because he has the backing (for now at least) of a large and corrupt media organization that works closely with the disinformation services of the British government.
You, on the other hand, have what reason to keep defending the indefensible?
Luke Harding was shown up properly here.
In this interview, he was exposed as the fraud he is.
You forgot to put quotes around outed joe – it threw the children off track completely.
For Ed, Morrissey, et al…
Here is what joe is referencing – you won’t have seen it because you don’t like the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/04/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-college-dance-video-discredit-backfires
Lol – thick as thieves
The clip was edited from a longer piece with a few more people involved.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-dancing-video_us_5c2e883ae4b08aaf7a97b11b
Yep I understood that – had some people who commented vigorously here actually gone and looked up the thread they would have seen that the “outing” had backfired completely. – which I am sure was what joe was sardonically saying.
The full vid is worth watching, and I didn’t spot a link to it in the Guardian piece. Plus the extra twitter snark is always fun.
I like the Grauniad—I just don’t have any confidence in the integrity of its political “reporting.” However, its sports and cultural sections are well worth reading.
The release of that video, intended to embarrass Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, reminds me of an ill advised move in 1980 by the California DNC to sponsor a weekend-long non-stop television marathon of Ronald Reagan’s B-movies, featuring especially Bedtime for Bonzo.
Of course, the plan backfired, and Reagan became even more popular.
And demonisation of Russia in the Ukraine.
From his constant postings, I sense joe is a Clinton and Obama fan.
Why did Joe post this?
Why?
Cui Bono?
Hey ed don’t go nuclear and bring Bono into the mix – too far.
I don’t see anything wrong with having a bit of fun. Good on her.
The right should just stick to reporting on her insane thinking, as criticism of her very natural personality and charm will backfire.
Could you elucidate on your “insane thinking” charge?
Or does the Moonie press not go into detail?
I couldn’t help it.
https://goo.gl/images/QZtBuk
As funny as you are learned.
Is that what the Moonies laugh at?
Could you explain the joke for us non-Moonies please?
Gosh this commie thing seems fun. Lead me to it.
I miss phil’s contributions.
I’m gonna keep well clear of it. I think that’s best for everyone.
Dad dancing.
Given the above, I think maybe we need a Phil Ure to ride in on a moped and mediate.
Ain’t The Standard the most brill thing you ever stumbled on?!
Filled with a broad church with so many desperados doing their best to push back (often on shift work it seems), the truly dedicated, the spray and walk aways, and the politically connected elite as well as the frustrated disconnected from all.
Fucking wonderful!
Must we join the UreNation extimbo?
Someone call a urologist.
Oh the wonder, the rapture!
Either @ greywarshark, or @Gabby, or others (Robert Guyton maybe),:
I’m semi-interested to know whether Pete George – aka the beige badger – and aka a few other things is the same Dunedin (area-based) fella that once stood for Council and was in a past life someone that amounts to a software salesman?
Anyone that can confirm my suspicion, I’ll give Pete a reality TV show with Him as host (though I can’t guarantee the producers won’t want to dress him in once of those short-sleeved safari/liesure suits).
If it’s THAT Pete George, it’ll probably explain to me why people like Lprent know him as being such a wanker
Hi Once Was Tim – firstly, Phil Ure – Phil visited me here in Riverton some years ago; he was touring the country along with his 3 beautiful, vegan dogs. He’s a lovely man, with a kind heart and a wicked sense of humour. I loved his on-blog work, especially his use of ellipses, something others seemed to struggle with…
The description you give of the beige-one sounds accurate to me. He stood as the UnitedFuture candidate in that area and those other descriptions seem fitting. I think he wears such suits as a matter of every-day-wear, keeping the pith helmet for special nights-out at the local milk bar, but that might just be supposition/speculation :-).
Yep @ Robert. It’d be 30 or 40 years ago that I met Phil in passing – my brother more his vintage but what I remember of him is as you say (kind heart and wicked sense of humour). These days, a friend of a friend kind of thing.
Re PG. mmm OK i t figures, and fits with my various prejudices.
Mr ure there’s a man for a rant lots of energy in a ball of fury . Wore the mods out daily . Miss you phill
As it happens, so do I. I have a lot of admiration for people that (not sure how to put it but…..) stay clean using whatever God or belief system they hold dear.
Too many good people have fallen while too many complete wankers prosper and reek/wreak havoc
For as little as a dollar a day, you can help give a dour monomaniac a sense of humour. An open-minded perspective, actually thinking about someone else’s comment before criticising their political inadequacy, a fresh appreciation of irony, even letting an unrelated thread go by without mentioning Russia, all of these basic abilities are sadly out of reach of the humour-impaired.
Please, help change the world. End everyone else’s suffering. Bring humour to those most in need. Your dollar will go towards dictionaries, study materials on identifying when humour might be occurring, and crowbars to help extract the heads of the most deprived from out of their own arseholes.
mcflock
But you don’t give your link for the donation!
I never picked it up off the ads, either 🙂
So democrats finally have power in Washington… …theyhare too blame for Trump not using Congress to pay for the wall?!? a wall Mexico was supposed to. So now Democrats are either going to let migrants in or pay for a wall, like the media is so gormless backing all the fake news for trump. Do they honest believe anyone dares if the wall isn’t extended….
The Democrates are powerless. They only have 1 of the 4 branches. The house vs the senate, president, Supreme Court. Anything the do will be blocked in the Senate.
Backing the fake news for Trump. Didn’t get that?
Yes, no.. …The press too. If they had a free press they’d be running scare stories abround two years of federal shutdown. How, for example, business can’t get passports and other federal docs…
..but the press ain’t free, that’s why every story is Trump said this or that irrelevent thing, that swings markets artificially, landing someone a bonanza.
Could you image the screams of communism and revenue gathering if the government tried this here?
NYC marks 5th straight year of declining traffic deaths
All the things that, from what I can make out from their insistence on MOAR ROADS, their preference for higher speeds and insisting that speed cameras are for revenue gathering, National is against.
Latest Daisycutter Sports Inc. series off to a rocky start
Our new series, entitled They gave that a**hole a KNIGHTHOOD?!!?? got under way this morning on Kiwiblog. Unfortunately our friends over there took to it like a cat to water, and it was soon “disappeared.”
But, oh my friends, and ah! my foes, it is still alive and viewable here….
http://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/01/they-gave-that-ahole-knighthood-no-1.html
Peter Talley is #2?
John Philip Key at #3
Bob Jones at #4
Thanks Ed. I’ll get Lester Poppins to consider it.
Douglas Graham at #5
Phil Goff at #6
Stephen Tindall at #7
Peter Jackson at #8
Bob Parker at #9
Jenny Shipley at #10
That’s a gallery of rogues and scoundrels….
Stephen Tindall and Peter Jackson in with a gallery of rogues and scoundrels? Oh the lack of vision of people who never walk to a summit for an overall view.
Tindall’s ‘red sheds’ destroyed Small New Zealand businesses.
It is the Walmart of New Zealand.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/06/warehouse-accused-of-swapping-kiwi-values-for-walmart-morals.html
https://www.academia.edu/3016527/The_impact_of_The_Warehouse_on_New_Zealand_small_towns_A_discussion_paper_with_specific_reference_to_Maori
Jackson weakened New Zealand Labour laws.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/8095496/New-Zealand-passes-Hobbit-employment-laws-despite-protests.html
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/343511/hobbit-law-change-vindication-for-late-union-leader
You think they are bastards – but they are our bastards! /sarc
They have both come out of what they have achieved giving us a net gain for the country.
So you think the Walton family benefited the US by destroying small town US?
And that Tindall’s Red Sheds benefited New Zealand by closing down so many New Zealand companies as it flooded us with cheap foreign imports?
That’s all good, I just don’t happen to agree with that view.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3517713
Many companies started selling cheaper Asian goods and it was just fortunate that it wasn’t all Asians or other foreigners who pioneered the new consumer wave. It could have been far worse.
Tindall has a Trust and is behind many good projects here.
So that merits a knighthood?
Being better than the worst.
There are soooo many more honourable and worthy recipients than the NZ Walton owner.
Personally, I’d put him in court, along with the politicians who enabled the destruction of NZ’s manufacturing base.
🙄
Absolutely correct Ed, Tindall has destroyed NZ jobs, industries and retail. Although if he didn’t do it some other member of the elite would have.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/elon-musk-diver-vern-unsworths-defamation-lawsuit-dismissed-2018-12?r=US&IR=T
And they claimed Musk’s statements were “imaginative attacks” which were protected by US free speech laws. Expressions of opinion are protected under Californian law….
In a statement to Business Insider, Wood said: “Mr. Musk does not let the facts or law get in the way of his novel but inaccurate contentions in his motion to dismiss…
Vern Unsworth is one of the cave divers who helped in the effort this summer to rescue 12 Thai boys and their football coach from a network of caves in Thailand, where they had been stranded thanks to floodwater…
After the rescue, Unsworth appeared on CNN and dismissed Elon Musk’s mini-submarine, stating that the Tesla CEO could “stick his submarine where it hurts.” He criticised the plan as a PR stunt.
This prompted Musk to describe Unsworth a “pedo guy” baselessly on Twitter. He later apologised and deleted the original tweet, but then revived the feud in August by asking why Unsworth hadn’t sued him yet. He then doubled down on his original pedophile comments in an email to BuzzFeed, suggesting Unsworth was a “child rapist”, again without offering proof.
Unsworth then sued for libel.
When you look at the simplest diagram of the cave situation you can see that the
submarine idea should have been sunk from the first. But when you are super rich no-one should stop you elbowing your way to the front for selfies and such.
Some food for thought.
How Singapore Fixed Its Housing Problem
Thank you.
So the first thing that needs to happen is to get rid of any foreign control and then have a nationalistic and proactive socialist government.
And a philosophy that puts the needs of the collective above the rights of the individual.
Agree with all of this.
Labour’s shortcoming to totally exclude or discourage offshore demand is counterproductive to building up net housing supply.
You can see in this long term graph how home ownership reacts to some events in history in NZ.
https://goo.gl/images/vnj9aE
So I’m seeing the end of WW1, Great Depression, Labours first housing policy, WW2, introduction of cars and TV etc, Lange government, 1987 crash, Debt driven housing. Placing home ownership rates as the intention of policy would be a big winner for Labour. Just a labour did in the thirties. They used the options available to them.
Options are building up by adding high rises at the town centres and boardering industrial parks. State run first home financing, increasing intensified rural housing based on small block enterprise. Fruits, vegetables, livestock, flowers, hemp, oil crops, stock feed, pay to visit private enterprise parks, etc.
Urban Development Agency legislation is draftwd and ready to ge introduced after Easter.
it wont be Singapore-authoritarian but it sure will do highrise.
Singapore has been tightly regulated for decades. I would imagine that those high rise places didn’t develop cracks shortly after they were completed. They need to build high because they are small. Abour four or five stories is fairly satisfactory for general housing including family units. It is very isolating being high up in tower blocks, and the elevators are conduits that can become congested or foul, or mechanically faulty or vandalised. Steps down are a chore, but up may be like climbing a mountain for the mid to upper floors.
Look at South Horizons Hong Kong , maps or Wikipedia over 30,000 people in small space , but good walking spaces, nice outlook and generally good living, in my opinion , I would have no problem living in such a development.
Good for you Bruce. But not so good for families who get bunged up in them. There are very bad reports of the results in Britain. They are effective for parcelling up individuals and childless couples though, and enable living near the job if working in the city.
Why Bernie won’t be prez: he might not be an actual Bernie Bro but he sure as shit has no clue how to deal with them and the problems they cause.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-bernie-sanders-campaign-sexual-harassment-2016-2020_us_5c2e50cce4b08aaf7a975068
1972 sez he’s the original.
He seems to have learned something since then. Dunno whether it’s an actual attitude adjustment, or just to keep some things to himself.
im struggling to cheer for any Dem in the likely Pres nomination field.
some for having had their shot, some for inexperience and lack of muscle, some for humourless idealism.
hopefully it winnows quickly after the Trump family indictments.
Of the current lot, my first pick is Harris, then O’Rourke, then Klobuchar, then Brown. Sadly, there’s no next Obama there.
None of them are likely to satisfy the purity moonbats, either. But if Sanders had had a full workover from a motivated opponent, there’s plenty in his background that should have put off the purity moonbats as well.
cause the speaker is a lady
and we are all buckled in for the ride
Hell yáll arguin’ about?
Sam Lightnin’ Hopkins – Cotton – YouTube
3rd worlds inability to adapt to climate change.
“A near absence of inflows into the valley’s two major dams – Split Rock and Keepit – in the past 18 months has resulted in Keepit Dam storage falling below 1 per cent of capacity and ceasing releases,” he said.
The final release from Keepit Dam into the Lower Namoi was some 30km from Walgett and “there is some likelihood it could reach the town in the next eight to 12 days”.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/bit-of-a-panic-as-roasting-outback-nsw-town-runs-out-of-water-20190104-p50pmp.html
Walgett isn’t the only place in a crap place atm IRT water. There is a wee town in the Hunter Valley Region that has about 5% of usable water left and the scary thing is that the Hunter Region doesn’t usually get affected by drought. If this drought keeps going it’s current course it well start affecting other regions and towns etc that don’t usually get affected by drought.
Here in Darwin we have had the driest December since 1991 where we should at least 400mm plus atm and the temperatures in central Australia nudging the high 40’s! Out west in the Iron Belt some areas are hitting above 50 degrees.
Will penny give you a nudge.
https://www.facebook.com/HigginsStormChasing/photos/a.456839771078482/2167177343378041/?type=3
Oh dear
https://www.weatherwatch.co.nz/sites/all/files/IDQ65001_0.png
Penny did affected us in Darwin when it was in Gulf as it suck all the moisture to the east which resulted In dry westerly winds instead of our northerly winds which brings the monsoon rains.
Depending on how Penny tracks atm and what Cat it is once hit land. It could dump a lot of rain in the channel country which feeds in the Darling and Lake Eyre Basins. There is a good chance would swing through the parts of western, southern/ sout east parts of Qld. Before heading back through northern NSW in a South easterly direction the prevailing winds in the greater of Australia go from west to east hence all the heat waves across the eastern/ southern parts of Oz atm.
begs the question what happens as the glaciers disappear around the world?
Yes that’s an interesting question Pat?
The other question is what happens when the Tropical Areas failed to get their annual Monsoon rains over a extended period and the effect of water and food security? No Cocoa, coffee, tea and rice etc.
Here’s the ABC article on Walgett
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-04/crisis-as-walgett-loses-all-water-during-heatwave/10685466
Apropos of nothing, many years ago, I spent a couple of weeks weeding cotton fields in Collarenebri, a town near Walgett. The temps also got into the 40’s most days. After a while, I got acclimatised and would put on a jersey when it dropped into the thirties. Great memories of swimming in the Barwon with Koori kids. Learned a hell of lot about the life of aboriginal people from that experience. It started on day one, when the boss of the weeding gang told that there were two boozers in town. The RSL for ‘us whites’, the pub for the blacks. I’ve no idea what the RSL was like, but the pub was friendly as hell.
The RSL and/ or sports clubs were and are still today to some degree in some small country towns are a close shop/ tight run organisations. You probably could throw in the old CWA and that’s one organisation you don’t want to upset or get offside with.
When as local Pub/s were and are still a fun place to find some real characters whatever your race, colour, religion you are. Called into a outback QLD pub in the GAFA and finding old Bob Katter holding court with a well known black fella from the Labor Party who’s tribe comes from that area and that was an interesting day to say the least which coved a lot of tropics.
“It may be more technical than that. But we need to ensure in the future that there is back up for these unforeseen circumstances.”
from your link.
Id suggest these circumstances are anything but ‘unforeseen’…..except by the deluded
It’s the gap between a good growing season and bad season getting smaller with the droughts getting longer and starting to effect areas/ regions that normally or don’t get effected by drought which is starting to scare/ concern everyone atm.
The last big drought summit in Canberra late last year, there is now some serious talk about abandoning/ retire areas to farming and in other areas change the way they growing crops and farming stock. Which both have cross party/ bench, CSIRO (like the old NZ DSIR) and NFF.
I guess you have seen the vids that I put up about Australia and the extremely hard work put in by an old guy on water trapping after rain to stop it running away, so that there was always water running on his property wet or drought. His neighbours didn’t like him, the politicians hedged, and finally a Korean mining company bought up his neighbours properties for a coal mine. It still works but these farmers and their at-bottomed, thick-headed sales reps in government like to ignore anything new that could help.
This from USA? Permaculture that WtB put up. Damned clever, well thought out and each property needs its own plan I think. But once they know what to look for and methods, many of these poor beggars with smaller operations could improve. I wonder how many of the big runs went out and planted groves of trees with safety fences around them.
Once you get some basic areas going they can self-seed.
Hey found the Great Australian Conquering Drought Story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4OBcRHX1Bc
How Peter Andrews rejuvenates drought-struck land | Australian Story
ABC News (Australia) Published on Oct 29, 2018
Is “natural sequence farming” the secret to restoring our water-starved continent? For more than a decade, two farmers have shown that parched landscapes can be revived. And finally, Canberra’s listening.
Australian Story explores the potential solution to Australia’s drought crisis.
Read more here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-2…
(One comment that was interesting:
This same phenomenon of water retention and land rejuvenation was observed in the USA when beavers were reintroduced to parts of the country where they had been wiped out by fur trapping 100 years prior. The beavers build dams of wood and mud to create habitat they can live in and as in this documentary, the land could hold water again and desert became oasis.)
*****************************
And a comment from Wethe Bleeple – Note how this useful stuff we are collecting is immediately seen to be applicable if noted and used by those struggling. This is what we can do good in, apart from anything physical we might tackle. Be a repository for the numerous good keen men and women who think, research, present possible practical systems and are go-to people for those not wanting to wait for the fat-bottomed politicians, and I’m not talking about Queen’s song.)
WeTheBleeple 34.1
13 December 2018 at 7:56 am
Excellent.
“63% increase in production in the hydrated portion of the valley”.
That’s something Farmers can understand loud and clear. Now imagine having the advantage of plenty of water without the public outcry.
Probably worth doing.
Keyline systems. Swales and ponds. Or stream works like above. The options are interchangeable and have the same goals.
Keyline is amazing, and the yeomans plow something of a legend. I’ll get into that before too long plenty of our farmers would already know about subsurface ripping. But how many know they can push water towards their ridges using it?
Natural Sequence Farming is apparently the name given to this managed water harvesting system. There are two books Back from the Brink, and Beyond the Brink.
Place – Malloon Creek, Bungendore NSW
https://www.nsfarming.com/
Link showing some diagrams of how it works.
https://www.nsfarming.com/andrews.htm
A Christmas and New Year greeting for 2019 from the man still going.
https://www.peterandrewsoam.com/
I first heard about this bloke and what he was doing, when the ABC’s Landline did an article before it appeared on Australia Story and I thought this is cool, then I started to wonder this is so simple why the heck other farmers haven’t taken this up. Having been posted to Canberra in the past, it can get very hot and dry during summer and bloody cold and very dry during winter with a bit of rain or snow. Had have I known about the tours conducted at this farm I would’ve pop over the hill and payed a visit.
when i saw that I wondered if it was this fella id read about….its not.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/14/reforesting-world-australian-farmer-240m-trees
Pat
That blows me away. How great. How can we get started in NZ? It is exciting when he says it could start and be effective within a few years. And the Right Livelihood Awards – Nobel alternative – perhaps even more noble, now those are something to take an interest in. There is a whole world of activism out there with go-ahead people whose brains haven’t been milk-fed for too long.
The root system of the chopped down trees remained alive under the ground – Rinaudo describes it as an “underground forest” – it just needed to be pruned and allowed to grow.
“Nature would heal itself, you just needed to stop hammering it.”
Thirty years on, his technique – he describes it as akin to pruning a grape vine back to just one or two stems each season – has a name, farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR). It is, Rinaudo says, an “embarrassingly simple solution” to what appeared to be an intractable problem.
But it involved overturning generations of accepted wisdom, and a resistance to giving some land back to nature.
That is what the Australian man Peter Andrews has found. He was doing things that were the opposite of what their Ministry was advising I think.
I think I’ll have to start paying The Guardian to some extent. They are producing enough things that are of value.
There are some very clever people in this world….and the political realm is not where you find them
It give Eco Maori A sore face to see our buisness leader are starting to see the reality in what we will leave te mokopunas if we don’t change the way we live our lives to combat human caused climate change. Yes we need ALL our buisness leaders to join in and make changes to the way we think and live. Also I thank all the people who have been fighting climate change deniers now and the last 30 years we are winning finally.
I was a late convert to being a climate change leader for business, and I’m not alone
All this is positive. Many business leaders are taking a strong personal interest and leadership. For myself I admit to being a late convert to the need for such action and to according it a high priority. The fact that I am not alone in that is no excuse, and the best I can do is not compound the mistake by continuing with it.
As in so many areas of social change it is those at the edge who drive it. The activists who are so often derided but are later seen to have been prescient. As business adopts the talk and increasingly the walk of facing climate change we do well to remember this, and value activism not simply as a past warning bell but as a present and future monitor, prodder and if necessary – enforcer of action To those activists I say keep up the pressure. Do not rely on business to continue the progress itself. We in business have many competing pressures and influences. We are easily swayed. Our current positions are determined strongly by how our communities of investors, consumers, employees, suppliers and voters think and act.
If their views show any wavering it would be very foolish to expect business to keep up the fight.
Many business colleagues will not welcome me saying this but it is also true that legal instruction is required. We in business all like to talk of freedom to act but mostly this is about our own freedom to act as we see fit.
We are not slow to seek legal protection when it suits us or when the actions of others do not suit us. Similarly most businesses or people do not object to paying taxes at some level (usually lower than whatever is their current level) The successful reaction to climate change will dramatically impact what we do and how we do it. Much will be destroyed and much will be created.
The important thing is that it is not the planet which is destroyed, and that a system where people can prosper together is created. That will include thriving businesses.
Best be quick about it.
Rob Campbell is chairman of SkyCity, Tourism Holdings, Summerset and Wel Group.
Ka kite ano links below
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/109726546/i-was-a-late-convert-to-being-a-climate-change-leader-for-business-and-im-not-alone
The Racism in Aotearoa is built into the system over 200 years these old white men who have a war going on against Eco Maori think all maori are savages and should be locked up in jail .
‘I didn’t take the easy way’: Curtis Cheng’s son on fighting hate with tolerance
Suffering the reality of extremism has made Alpha Cheng more determined to stand up to racism. He reflects on his father’s murder, Fraser Anning’s speech and the close Muslim friend who helped him through his darkest hour .Three years after the worst day of his life, Alpha Cheng picks his words with care.
The 31-year old schoolteacher speaks out – sometimes. He talks about what he knows: racism, his friends and what happened to his father. In October 2015, Curtis Cheng was leaving work at Parramatta police station when he was shot and killed by a 15-year-old boy claiming to act for Islamic State.
In the years since, there have been trials, inquests and people telling Cheng – in what they think is a compliment – that they could not have done what he has done. In 2016, he wrote to Pauline Hanson and told her to stop using his father’s death to attack Muslim migration. This year, after senator Fraser Anning called for a return to the White Australia policy, he did the same.
“If anyone should be spiteful at Muslims, many would say that it would be me,” he wrote.
Curtis Cheng’s son calls for end to political ‘scapegoating’ of Muslims
Read more “If anyone should be spiteful at Muslims, many would say that it would be me,” he wrote.
Curtis Cheng’s son calls for end to political ‘scapegoating’ of Muslims
Read more
“[But] I am tired of needing to explain to adults that the actions of these individuals cannot be attributed to an entire group of people.”
One of his closest friends, Qais Mohammed, is a Muslim. They became friends the same way anyone does in late-stage university life – a friend of a friend needed a housemate.
They discovered they had done the same course at uni, and were big history buffs, both nerds who liked to talk about ancient geopolitics.
“[But] I am tired of needing to explain to adults that the actions of these individuals cannot be attributed to an entire group of people.” Ka kite ano links below.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/04/curtis-cheng-son-alpha-parramatta-fighting-hate-tolerance
I” OUR Tangata Whenua of Australia have it a lot harder than Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa but there still is ingrained raceisem in the NZ systems.
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
I wish that some of the thoughtful people who come here would respond to eco maori. He is full of thoughts and trying to work out ideas in his mind and I think would like a few comments to bounce off. He is trying hard to work out how to go about things, view things, move forward holding on to the good past etc. Stream of consciousness stuff I think, but you get that as you start digging deep into your head and joining up random thoughts. Writing them down gives them form.
Finding out how different people think, it gives a rounded picture of them, sometimes a bit different than you imagine.
Kia ora Newshub The fire risk is very high with the wet spring and the temputres spiking fast becareful people fires can get out of control real fast.
All the people around trump look like they are very nervous.
Chrismas puts a big strain of a lot of people and there realationships I see it all the time we need to give to the poor hear and overseas that would be a great socity .
That was the old maori way was one gave and tryed to give the best to the neighbours and needy a beautiful system.
Bill Connelly is a great man who is handling his problems very well kia kaha.
The Popup globe Theatre for Aotearoa storys and actors in the Theatre is going great in Australia it looks well run all the best to everyone in the team making it run smovely there are a lot of maori storys to chose from .
Ka kite ano