Way back when the first lockdown happened and the government unveiled it's emergency packages – including the free apprentice schemes – I noted that if you wanted to know what the government thought of the future of tourism and international education you just had to look at what new job schemes it was funding. So really, the writing has been on the wall for tourism and the international student sectors for a year now. Normal for them just isn't coming back soon, perhaps never.
Tourism has been exposed as an extremely fragile sector, subject to the whim of global forces well beyond our control. It also has an extremely high environmental cost and carbon footprint. It is however extremely vocal and well connected in the media – let's face it, international tourism is a middle class addiction, an addiction reflected in the middle class dominated MSM obsession with when the borders will re-open so they can flit off to Bali or Bangkok again. I suspect politicians everywhere though see opportunity to meet carbon emission targets by imposing regulations while the tourism and airline industry is currently hors de combat. So chances are good that we'll finally get our country back from hordes of package tourists and our forest edges will become free of the excreta and detritus of freedom campers.
The lack of support for international students is interesting. Again, I think it tells us exactly what government thinking is on the relative economic benefit of that sector, especially vs. the political fallout of basically unchecked immigration from developing countries via student visas.
It might have been convenient to blame NZ First to deflect the outraged screams of “racism!!!” from the twitterati and self-interested business elites, but it looks like Labour agreed with their synopsis of the value of cheap immigration all along. Above all, I think – regardless of all the moaners on twitter who want moar Marxism now – at last the government has broken the shackles of worshipping at the altar of neoliberal global labour mobility and sees an opportunity to choke of a major weapon of NZ capitalism to depress wages. Already, controls on immigration and the importation of cheap foreign labour are having an effect on wages – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/300-a-day-for-fruit-picking-potential-goldmine-for-hawkes-bay-workers-as-growers-up-wages/DIP4OYJWPE563T4DOQVMMQFH6I/
Think it would be wise to focus on the act rather than the rhetoric. We have too many examples of the Gov. acting contrary to message and it would not surprise at all to see an (unheralded) attempt to restart the migrant conveyor once the vaccination programme is complete.
It has been the strategy for the past couple of decades and theres no indication of an alternative.
I think they political view might be that on the balance, it is currently politically less risky upsetting industries dependent on migrants than it is to keep upsetting people who can't afford houses or have seen wage stagnation due to eight of the last ten new entry level professionals employed by their boss being foreigners fresh off the boat or who can’t get a decent wage picking fruit.
It wasn't just student visa that were being abused. Every corporate knows how to play the visa game to get a cheap technician. First, restructure. Then advertise the new role at 10-20% less than the current going rate. When no one wants the job because the pay is to low, go to MBIE or whoever and plead shortage, demonstrating your vain efforts to find someone. Then its a piece of cake to get permission from supine and compliant bureaucrats to recruit from Manila or Bangalore or somewhere like that. Hey presto, you’ve got an eager, compliant, skilled worker for less than you’d have to pay a Kiwi – a Kiwi who might also have an opinion and likes his/her time off.
If you don't have an outlined strategy then you can never be held accountable. You can always just say 'we work with the best data we have today' never mind foresight, hindsight, paid consultants, paid courtiers, paid handmaids, that are all there to help create a strategy.
And one can easily forgive them for the stuff that happened when Covid came barreling in, but we are a year in, and yes, a bit more strategy would be needed.
i.e. whats gonna happen to the tutors of the teaching institutes, and that would involve our universities as they too depend on overseas students – who btw pay their service in full.
b. whats gonna happen to the buildings of these learning institutes, will they be repurposed into schools? Or sold of to the highest bidder with no value to the local communties?
the tourist trade is dead for the next 10 – 15 years as Covid is slowly but surely eating away on what ever savings/wealth people have the planet over. And without disposable income no one travels even without covid.
So what is going to replace these industries? What is going to happen to people that will not find a replacement job? And so on and so forth.
And i would like to remind people that literally all the money that is made in comes from either people coming here to spend, or us sending dairy/fruit/wine etc overseas. How long until Europe etc remember that they have their own dairy/fruit/wine industries and that they should be prioritized?
What then. Really, how many industries can a country lose in a year or two before it starts hurting, or is this something that we should not care about now – kind and gentle please – and then we leave this to the next government?
But so as long as the government outlines nothing, they can't be blamed for not achieving nothing. Maybe that is the only thing they learned from their first term, that not having plans means you can't fail.
You should not "remind people that literally all the money that is made in comes from either people coming here to spend, or us sending dairy/fruit/wine etc overseas." because it is completely untrue. New Zealand produces the accounting unit it transacts in itself and is not going to run short on the basis of the balance of trade.
The New Zealand economy is capable of carrying on for itself at least for all goods and services it can produce domestically. For goods and services only available overseas there are two approaches available to the country, either remain dependent on international trade as a source, or develop these same industries in New Zealand.
Yes this does begin to look like the government doing a 'structural adjustment by stealth' – similar in impact on specific parts of the economy as the Lange-Douglas government.
Except this time they are just letting the crisis do the economic adjustment for it and just allowing the burn away of those less productive parts of the economy .
Structural re-arraignment courtesy of Covid. Cause i bet you a dollar that without covid, nothing would have changed. We still would import people on flimsy pretend student visas to be exploited by various Kiwi businesses. We still would import people to freedom camp with abandon.
Labour has so far shown that it has no guts when it comes to structurally re-organising anything, see housing, see poverty of the adults, see poverty of the children, see no investment in rural areas, etc. etc. etc.
So yeah, the collapse of the tourism industry is not thanks to Labour its thanks to Covid. And anyone in their right mind who believes that Toursim is going to have a fast comeback has not followed the news (yeah, the news!) and / or is telling outright lies so as to not have to do anything.
And btw, Ad, define 'less productive' parts of the economy? At the end of the day, all these industries made good GST revenue for the Government, hired a lot of people paying PAYE and then GST, and then the taxes from the businesses themselves. IS your industry productive enough to be saved?
Agree about tourism, although I think the impact of international climate change agreements would eventually have caused a rethink, but no doubt Covid has accelerated that process dramatically.
The government took some steps in the international student market when it reduced work rights on student visas and eligibility for post-study work visas and for visas for partners and dependent children of students. That got forgotten about because of Covid, but it was a step in the right direction.
The truth, as Paul Simon said long ago, is that people routinely hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest. In my experience people have quite a high “tune out, drop out” rate whenever government starts telling them to do anything.
And that's what I said on DR about Case L:
“In other words Case L only took notice of what she wanted to hear/read and ignored the plethora of other advice… ”
One more comment – the lack of a plan for a vaccine rollout is either grand incompetence from the MOH or the government simply not willing to commit to a timeline because it is not being able to guarantee it can secure the supplies it needs to commit to anything in what are brutal displays of global real politik going on over vaccine nationalism. I prefer the second option of the above, because it seems to me that if they could have guaranteed supplies, the government would have had a plan out last month and us all vaccinated by October. Instead, they will only commit to vaccinate who they can once the stuff arrives in Auckland.
Given the febrile, nit picking gotcha myopia of our MSM politically that sort of cautious approach is always going to be the best one.
There is no” lack of plan “ to my mind. Rather the opposite evidenced by early realism that was signaled by giving almost 40 million dollars to a number of possible vaccine producers, knowing full well the inevitability of the political and greedy shitfight that has since broken out in Europe would lead to the infighting and hoarding by national interests and that those without “ skin in the game “ would really be demoted to the hindmost tit and be lucky to get that. It was a given that any US version wouldn’t leave its shores until everybody who would take it got it.
So please stop bagging the Government for making the very best job of tiptoeing through a an international minefield laid by the the most egregious arseholes in the known universe.
It must be perplexing for the official Covid response that the B.1.1.1 variant that it does not seem to be as virulent as it is in Britain. I presume the quick and hard lockdown was because of its reputation. But maybe it isn’t as advertised, is it because after a dry sunny summer Aucklanders have in general very good stores of Vitamin D on tap and this is giving them the protective effect that research has presumed. It may well be more virulent in Britain but only because it raised its unwelcome spike at the start of a cold, wet and miserable winter and at a time the dithering BFJ let people out to prematurely party and go Christmas shopping because business, you know , demanded it at a time when apparently only 4% of Brits had sufficient VitD levels.
England also has the Brazilian variant now on the Island, so i guess we are going to be able to see some more new variants coming up. California also has detected a new strain.
It is however a bit concerning that the source of this infection is not known.
But yes, so far we have been so so lucky. Fingers and toes crossed.
A British lockdown is nothing like one of our lockdowns, they seem to be a bit like level 3 minus. Also, in the UK there is a lot of flouting of the rules, more over-crowded cities and housing, and a general cultural & climate driven aversion to fresh air, apart from the fact they seem to have a national alcohol problem.
does not seem to be as virulent as it is in Britain.
Or is it because we have adopted as standard practise in level 1 better social distancing and hand sanitising protocols in this country. This alone may have prevented rapid spread.
I think the key is that we don't have Covid here generally, and infectiousness is primarily a function of viral load, which is low because of the lack of Covid in the community, so even people are getting infected, it's by a single person rather than 10-20 people over a few days, so the load is low, so the super spreader events are much less likely.
VitD theories aside, b111 is demonstrably more infectious because it becomes the dominant strain. But that doesn't mean it's so infectious that it's changed the game.
It's like armour on a vehicle. The UK has driven around in jeeps with canvas sides. That armour is easily defeated.
NZ is like an APC. Bullets bounce off it, but a big gun would blow it up.
B111 is like a bigger bullet. It hurts the people in the jeep more, but it just causes a bigger dent in the APC.
The planB dickheads try to tell us that we have put so much armour on the vehicle that it's huge and heavy and only goes at 2kph and 10L/100k.
Possibly the B.1.1.7 strain has a long tail and will show up at day 12. It has shown that a close contact case and a casual plus contact case have become a positive case in NZ.
Great if our luck was to hold out. Luck cannot be relied on. Following the rules is the luck.
As for stores of vitamin D, at some point this could be confirmed as being more helpful than realised at the time.
Some truths about post war Russia that for some reason seem to get overlooked, but are vital to contextualize any conversation about Russia today, and why we are spending so much time debating Russia at this moment I am not sure?…anyway a bit of historical objectivity never hurts.
"The cold war began because of Russia's reluctance to allow independence to Poland. Stalin was held to have reneged on promises at Yalta. Roosevelt and Churchill had demanded that Poland be allowed a government that would be "free" and also "friendly to Russia". It was a dishonest formula. As recently as 1920, the two countries had been at war. No freely elected Polish government would be friendly to the USSR. Furthermore, as Stalin pointed out at Yalta, Russia had been twice invaded through Poland by Germany in 26 years, with devastating consequences. The invasion of 1941 had led to the deaths of 20 million Russians. Any postwar Russian government – communist, tsarist or social democratic – would have insisted on effective control at least of Poland, if not of larger areas of eastern Europe, as a buffer zone against future attacks."
Russia/SovietU isn't particularly worse than any other regional-to-global power, expansion-wise. But it is more authoritarian than the regions on its western border. So it does what most nations have done when their neighbour-but-one is a competitor: destabilise the buffer state towards its own favour.
Yup that CSIS link is a good one. Yes politics and ideology play their role in these matters – but in the long run it's geography and demography that more than anything else determine the fate of nations:
Russia simultaneously abutted Europe, the Near East, and the Far East. Such a circumstance should have argued for caution in foreign policy. But Russia had tended to be expansionist precisely in the name of vulnerability: even as forces loyal to the tsar had seized territory, they imagined they were preempting attacks [by other great powers]. And once Russia had forcibly acquired a region, its officials invariably insisted they had to acquire the next one over, too, in order to be able to defend their original gains. A sense of destiny and insecurity combined in a heady mix.
…
If this argument is correct—that Russia’s strategic worldview is driven by a deep sense of insecurity and a threat of encirclement rather than the ideology of its current leaders—we must acknowledge an uncomfortable reality about the future. One day, Russia’s current leaders—Putin included—will no longer rule the country. But Russia’s geography and geopolitical realities will remain unchanged …
Historically the Russian people have occupied a peculiarly vulnerable territory, lacking defined hard borders, they have been invaded repeatedly over the centuries. Arguably the only reason their culture has survived this long has been their oldest enemy and best ally at the same time – their ferocious winter. A winter that has repeatedly repelled outsiders ill-prepared for it.
But otherwise the wide open steppes and flatlands of the motherland were impossible to defend, so in response the Russian strategy has been to reach out to borders they believed they could defend. This meant expanding until they could reach the mountains of Central Asia, the Caucasus's to the south and the Carpathian's to the west. Normally absorbing so much territory would increase the length of the borders to be defended – but in Russia's case it has the perverse incentive of reducing them.
This is the underlying, irreducible geography that is essential to understanding Russia, a combination of a realistic fear of invasion, combined with a map that demands they expand in order to counter that fear.
"This is the underlying, irreducible geography that is essential to understanding Russia, a combination of a realistic fear of invasion, combined with a map that demands they expand in order to counter that fear."
I agree with your conclusion, except that it seems that the word expansion in the context of todays Russia doesn't really hold up, surely it could be more accurately described as maintaining a buffer to offset a "realistic fear of invasion"?
Russia hasn't been expansionist out side of the historical and usual contested buffer territories on it's boarders over the past 30-40 years as far as I know…though I could stand to be corrected, I am no expert.
Think of them as less than "buffer zones" and more like establishing "defendable borders". It's far easier to find the manpower to deal to a relatively short section of flat land between two geographic barriers, than to hold a line thousands of km long in the wide open flatlands.
If the objective were to simply find the most convenient defensible border positions for Russia, there was no reason to occupy Poland or East Germany.
Russia has had the solution to defending the plains for centuries: scorched earth, and retreat slowly enough for their two key generals to get cracking- General Mud and General Winter. But it still doesn't hurt to have a decent buffer.
Maybe look at a map with contour lines. I specifically mentioned the Carpathians and the Caucasus mountains as desirable 'defendable borders'. As the Afghanis have demonstrated over and again, difficult terrain plays to the advantage of the home team every time.
It's extremely improbable that Russia would be interested to extend that far into Germany. (The converse is more likely in my view, but that's a whole other thread.)
At present the Russian 'western front' is over 5000km long, almost all in in wide open flatland. That's utterly impossible to defend against land based invasions, especially for a nation suffering from a demographic slump in the young adult generation which comprises any army. The old strategy of retreat and scorched earth is a desperately expensive one, a price Russia can not afford to pay again.
Of course the mountains I've named do not form a complete barrier, but they do reduce the open front dramatically. And on the Northern European Plain, the Vistula River makes for a feasible boundary.
It should be obvious that I'm addressing the underlying geopolitical drivers. I'll leave it to you to allocate all the correct rights and wrongs to history.
strive to understand is the reasons why they made the decisions they did,
The banality of evil, and the dark places of the human heart, need no special consideration.
Our concepts of political right and wrong are founded on the consent or assent of individuals making up the state. When those liberties are taken away, the state is necessarily illegitimate, nor has any real world example lent much credibility to the myth of the benign dictator.
Well I guess just after having over 26 million of it's citizens butchered, it's towns burned to the ground, it's major cities flattened and it's economy destroyed by the most brutal regime in the history of this planet, the Russians people might have felt that they deserved a bit of occupational as well as financial revenge at the very least…pretty hard position to argue with at the time I would assume?
Especially hard to argue with considering that the Russians had also just saved nearly the whole of Europe from Hitler's fascism with the blood of their people in quantities unfathomable to any of us today.
Now I am not saying I agreed with that occupation, because I don't, but as usual, and for reasons known only to yourself, you can't or won't bring any historical objectivity into your thoughts on Russia.
It is because of this inability to contextualize, that your thoughts on this subject remain and have ever only been one dimensional…thereby, sadly, offer nothing really to further the conversation…IMO that is.
After her husband was killed fighting in 1941, Oktyabrskaya sold her possessions to donate a tank for the war effort, and requested that she be allowed to drive it. She received and drove a T-34 medium tank
…
Oktyabrskaya proved her ability and bravery in battle, and was promoted to the rank of sergeant. After she died of wounds from battle in 1944, she was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union's highest honor for bravery during combat. She was the first of only two female tank drivers to be awarded the title.
There was considerable Russian responsibility for the size of those casualty figures, not least of which lies in inflating the results, which does nothing to support your thesis – other sources put the number at 16 825 000.
inability to contextualize
There's a lot of it about – in your case recognizing that Molotov-Ribbentrop, with its division of Poland, constituted as manifest an assumption of risk as stepping into a boxing ring would for you.
I find myself rarely interested in re-litigating the rights and wrongs of history. After all:
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart."
Solzhenitsyn
But what we can rightly strive to understand is the reasons why they made the decisions they did, why they acted as they did, and try to see the world through their eyes – in order perhaps to understand our own world better.
It is probably inadequate to attribute a complex political stance to a single cause like Polish independence. It was an embarrassment to Britain however, as Polish forces had joined them against Germany much as they had Napoleon a hundred and some years before. To be sure, there were significant anti-communist interests like US industrialists aligned against Russia with the fall of Germany. But Europe had had a taste of totalitarianism and was not persuaded that the Russian version was any more palatable than the German one.
Britain was an old hand at the imperial game, and knew perfectly well that despotic regimes like Russia's were ripe for replacement. But all countries were exhausted by the war, and their priority was rebuilding. Russian expansionism, in the form of the permanent occupation of East Germany, looked not too dissimilar from the Nazi occupation of other small countries. They tolerated it because there was little public enthusiasm for defending Germany or prolonging the war. But it was an invidious compromise, with a state that routinely oppressed its subjects.
I found this an interesting story. Permanent employee visa due to expire and the company feels it will not be renewed looks to hire a local. Is the answer for the company to give a lot of notice that it won't support a visa renewal so employment ceases when the visa runs out? Or does it have an obligation to support the visa application up to a point and wait for immigration to turn it down? The recruitment notification was issued in Nov 20 for a Jan 21 search? That does see like reasonable forwarning
It's not stated in the article what work visa category it was, but the information suggests it was one of the labour-market tested visa categories, so Restaurant Brands are required to make genuine attempts to recruit a NZ citizen/resident each time one of their potential or current employees applies for a visa. That's a full scale recruitment effort with advertising etc.
I think the more likely problem is hinted at the end of the article where it says they dismissed him before his visa expired while he was still legally able to work, rather than attempting to support him through application process.
must advertise for a local and they do appear to have found one
-but must also support the visa application extension when they have the local alternative lined up so they can't really support it because it fails the work test ?
but they need to let a person work until the actual visa expiry date – which I can understand.
Still sounds like a mess – can someone be a permanent employee when they are on a time limited visa. My head swims. Still it’s not a firm I have a lot of sympathy for.
Interesting piece from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, worth a few minute to read, especially for a few of the 'lefties' around these parts…
Humanitarian Imperialism
How corporate media sell regime change, Intervention and war to progressive audiences
"Media are experts in using progressives’ empathy and compassion against them, presenting them carefully selected images and stories of suffering around the world, and suggesting that US military power can be used to alleviate it. As such, intervention is sold to the US left less on the basis of fear than of pity."
can't-sell culture strikes again. NZME editors publish an opinion piece, only to discover that it is "unacceptable" to the degree that the contributor will no longer appear on their platforms.
I mean, it's difficult being a content editor these days. One can't even publish the innocent opinions of tory racists without risking that what you hoped would be click-baiting dogwhistles turn out to be explicit racism that damages your advertisers' revenue.
These prisoners need TLC. It's time for some letters to Corrections and the token woman at the top here. Time for Corrections to be corrected themselves. Government looking for cheap bargains in delovering (sic) services get cheap results. To follow that logic, we should put government up for tender every three years. We aren't getting satisfactory action from present pollie system – jam tomorrow, or are we out permanently Mum?
It appears as though full force was always applied when it did not need to be applied. Corrections used no tact when it came to choosing a method which would not be the most humiliating. Not asking a person to stand against a wall to deliver food through a hatch compared to lying face down on the ground is an example. The situation has snowballed and the judge is the circuit breaker. Addressing the PTSD will uncover how the world is seen. Regaining trust will take time.
On Staying at home, a self of entitlement and the Tamaki's.
As I have stated before, the bloke who went to the Gym and Polytech on or around the day he also had a covid test strikes me as being fool hardly, irresponsible and seemingly done with a sense of self entitlement. Likewise 2 women going for a walk under level 3 requirements was fool hardy and irresponsible. It might have been naive if they thought they were allowed to, or self entitled if they decided to flout the rules. Stay home when you are required to.
Any Aucklander madly rushing to exit the city to go to their beach house prior to level 3 restrictions is also irresponsible, reckless and seemingly done with a sense of self entitlement. Stay in Auckland when you are required to.
I see in the news the Tamaki's fled Auckland to be with a congregation in Rotorua. Again, fool hardy, irresponsible and done with a sense of self entitlement. Stay in Auckland.
The justifications for doing such were apparently their ministry demanded they must be in Rotorua. I assume they have a Pastor in that city. I assume they are a perfectly competent and genuine pastor who can lead that congregation. I assume the Tamaki's are not in Rotorua every weekend. Hence why the need to rush out of Auckland when someone competent is available to minister to that congregation.
It's better for them to be in Rotorua was what they are quoted as saying. Better for the congregation they were in Rotorua, or better for the Tamaki's bank balance? There was it seems an "alter call for cash". If you 'give, give, give' God will give you a blessing, a "Jubilee". Maybe a brand new Tesla car like Hannah Tamaki bought herself.
My following comments are not about the Tamaki's fleeing Auckland. It is pretty apparent what they should have done, stayed in Auckland, done the right thing. These are comments about this notion of chasing cash. I term it games show christianity. A flash slick games show host and the prize that maybe someone could win a car. Wheel of Fortune, Who wants to be a Millionaire, The Chase, The X Factor, Destiny Alter Call For Cash.
If you go back to the bible you find some interesting things. John the Baptist lived in the wilderness and ate locusts and wild honey. He baptised Jesus. He didn't have a big house. The greatest Apostle, Paul, was an itinerant tent maker who I suspect didn't die a rich man. He didn't drive a Tesla or ride a Harley Davidson. Paul, formerly a Roman commander who presumably could have lived a comfortable life, he forsook that for ministry. Biblical leaders were not wealthy nor blessed with physical riches.
correction. Paul not a roman commander but rather a Jew whose status and connections could have presumably provided a comfortable living, forsook that for the ministry with no promises of riches or abundance
A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”
“All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths. Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. David talks about the struggle to raise awareness ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
http://werewolf.co.nz/2021/03/gordon-campbell-on-why-the-public-doesnt-always-do-what-its-told-even-in-24-different-languages/
gordon Campbell nails it again
Interesting article.
Politik has a story on the grim outlook for tourism as well here – https://www.politik.co.nz/2021/03/04/what-do-we-do-if-the-tourists-dont-come-bacl/
Way back when the first lockdown happened and the government unveiled it's emergency packages – including the free apprentice schemes – I noted that if you wanted to know what the government thought of the future of tourism and international education you just had to look at what new job schemes it was funding. So really, the writing has been on the wall for tourism and the international student sectors for a year now. Normal for them just isn't coming back soon, perhaps never.
Tourism has been exposed as an extremely fragile sector, subject to the whim of global forces well beyond our control. It also has an extremely high environmental cost and carbon footprint. It is however extremely vocal and well connected in the media – let's face it, international tourism is a middle class addiction, an addiction reflected in the middle class dominated MSM obsession with when the borders will re-open so they can flit off to Bali or Bangkok again. I suspect politicians everywhere though see opportunity to meet carbon emission targets by imposing regulations while the tourism and airline industry is currently hors de combat. So chances are good that we'll finally get our country back from hordes of package tourists and our forest edges will become free of the excreta and detritus of freedom campers.
The lack of support for international students is interesting. Again, I think it tells us exactly what government thinking is on the relative economic benefit of that sector, especially vs. the political fallout of basically unchecked immigration from developing countries via student visas.
It might have been convenient to blame NZ First to deflect the outraged screams of “racism!!!” from the twitterati and self-interested business elites, but it looks like Labour agreed with their synopsis of the value of cheap immigration all along. Above all, I think – regardless of all the moaners on twitter who want moar Marxism now – at last the government has broken the shackles of worshipping at the altar of neoliberal global labour mobility and sees an opportunity to choke of a major weapon of NZ capitalism to depress wages. Already, controls on immigration and the importation of cheap foreign labour are having an effect on wages – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/300-a-day-for-fruit-picking-potential-goldmine-for-hawkes-bay-workers-as-growers-up-wages/DIP4OYJWPE563T4DOQVMMQFH6I/
Think it would be wise to focus on the act rather than the rhetoric. We have too many examples of the Gov. acting contrary to message and it would not surprise at all to see an (unheralded) attempt to restart the migrant conveyor once the vaccination programme is complete.
It has been the strategy for the past couple of decades and theres no indication of an alternative.
I think they political view might be that on the balance, it is currently politically less risky upsetting industries dependent on migrants than it is to keep upsetting people who can't afford houses or have seen wage stagnation due to eight of the last ten new entry level professionals employed by their boss being foreigners fresh off the boat or who can’t get a decent wage picking fruit.
It wasn't just student visa that were being abused. Every corporate knows how to play the visa game to get a cheap technician. First, restructure. Then advertise the new role at 10-20% less than the current going rate. When no one wants the job because the pay is to low, go to MBIE or whoever and plead shortage, demonstrating your vain efforts to find someone. Then its a piece of cake to get permission from supine and compliant bureaucrats to recruit from Manila or Bangalore or somewhere like that. Hey presto, you’ve got an eager, compliant, skilled worker for less than you’d have to pay a Kiwi – a Kiwi who might also have an opinion and likes his/her time off.
Indeed….it would be easier to accept the rhetoric if they outlined a detailed alternative ….which is strangely missing.
If you don't have an outlined strategy then you can never be held accountable. You can always just say 'we work with the best data we have today' never mind foresight, hindsight, paid consultants, paid courtiers, paid handmaids, that are all there to help create a strategy.
And one can easily forgive them for the stuff that happened when Covid came barreling in, but we are a year in, and yes, a bit more strategy would be needed.
i.e. whats gonna happen to the tutors of the teaching institutes, and that would involve our universities as they too depend on overseas students – who btw pay their service in full.
b. whats gonna happen to the buildings of these learning institutes, will they be repurposed into schools? Or sold of to the highest bidder with no value to the local communties?
the tourist trade is dead for the next 10 – 15 years as Covid is slowly but surely eating away on what ever savings/wealth people have the planet over. And without disposable income no one travels even without covid.
So what is going to replace these industries? What is going to happen to people that will not find a replacement job? And so on and so forth.
And i would like to remind people that literally all the money that is made in comes from either people coming here to spend, or us sending dairy/fruit/wine etc overseas. How long until Europe etc remember that they have their own dairy/fruit/wine industries and that they should be prioritized?
What then. Really, how many industries can a country lose in a year or two before it starts hurting, or is this something that we should not care about now – kind and gentle please – and then we leave this to the next government?
But so as long as the government outlines nothing, they can't be blamed for not achieving nothing. Maybe that is the only thing they learned from their first term, that not having plans means you can't fail.
You should not "remind people that literally all the money that is made in comes from either people coming here to spend, or us sending dairy/fruit/wine etc overseas." because it is completely untrue. New Zealand produces the accounting unit it transacts in itself and is not going to run short on the basis of the balance of trade.
The New Zealand economy is capable of carrying on for itself at least for all goods and services it can produce domestically. For goods and services only available overseas there are two approaches available to the country, either remain dependent on international trade as a source, or develop these same industries in New Zealand.
couple of good posts sanctuary
Eg the UFB roll-out by Chorus with a large number of immigrant contractors, most of whom were subsequently reaveled to be on about the minimum wage
Yes this does begin to look like the government doing a 'structural adjustment by stealth' – similar in impact on specific parts of the economy as the Lange-Douglas government.
Except this time they are just letting the crisis do the economic adjustment for it and just allowing the burn away of those less productive parts of the economy .
Structural re-arraignment courtesy of Covid. Cause i bet you a dollar that without covid, nothing would have changed. We still would import people on flimsy pretend student visas to be exploited by various Kiwi businesses. We still would import people to freedom camp with abandon.
Labour has so far shown that it has no guts when it comes to structurally re-organising anything, see housing, see poverty of the adults, see poverty of the children, see no investment in rural areas, etc. etc. etc.
So yeah, the collapse of the tourism industry is not thanks to Labour its thanks to Covid. And anyone in their right mind who believes that Toursim is going to have a fast comeback has not followed the news (yeah, the news!) and / or is telling outright lies so as to not have to do anything.
And btw, Ad, define 'less productive' parts of the economy? At the end of the day, all these industries made good GST revenue for the Government, hired a lot of people paying PAYE and then GST, and then the taxes from the businesses themselves. IS your industry productive enough to be saved?
You won't find me giving "thanks to Covid". For anything.
It's not that hard to define productivity.
We have a whole Productivity Commission that's been going on about it for a while. Go find it if you're interested.
And yes, my industry is well and truly more productive than most. It is also one of the most state funded: infrastructure.
Agree about tourism, although I think the impact of international climate change agreements would eventually have caused a rethink, but no doubt Covid has accelerated that process dramatically.
The government took some steps in the international student market when it reduced work rights on student visas and eligibility for post-study work visas and for visas for partners and dependent children of students. That got forgotten about because of Covid, but it was a step in the right direction.
And that's what I said on DR about Case L:
“In other words Case L only took notice of what she wanted to hear/read and ignored the plethora of other advice… ”
https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-03-03-2021/#comment-1781685
Excellent analysis from Campbell as always. Good journos are a rare commodity these days.
One more comment – the lack of a plan for a vaccine rollout is either grand incompetence from the MOH or the government simply not willing to commit to a timeline because it is not being able to guarantee it can secure the supplies it needs to commit to anything in what are brutal displays of global real politik going on over vaccine nationalism. I prefer the second option of the above, because it seems to me that if they could have guaranteed supplies, the government would have had a plan out last month and us all vaccinated by October. Instead, they will only commit to vaccinate who they can once the stuff arrives in Auckland.
Given the febrile, nit picking gotcha myopia of our MSM politically that sort of cautious approach is always going to be the best one.
There is no” lack of plan “ to my mind. Rather the opposite evidenced by early realism that was signaled by giving almost 40 million dollars to a number of possible vaccine producers, knowing full well the inevitability of the political and greedy shitfight that has since broken out in Europe would lead to the infighting and hoarding by national interests and that those without “ skin in the game “ would really be demoted to the hindmost tit and be lucky to get that. It was a given that any US version wouldn’t leave its shores until everybody who would take it got it.
So please stop bagging the Government for making the very best job of tiptoeing through a an international minefield laid by the the most egregious arseholes in the known universe.
It must be perplexing for the official Covid response that the B.1.1.1 variant that it does not seem to be as virulent as it is in Britain. I presume the quick and hard lockdown was because of its reputation. But maybe it isn’t as advertised, is it because after a dry sunny summer Aucklanders have in general very good stores of Vitamin D on tap and this is giving them the protective effect that research has presumed. It may well be more virulent in Britain but only because it raised its unwelcome spike at the start of a cold, wet and miserable winter and at a time the dithering BFJ let people out to prematurely party and go Christmas shopping because business, you know , demanded it at a time when apparently only 4% of Brits had sufficient VitD levels.
once more, shit we are lucky.
England also has the Brazilian variant now on the Island, so i guess we are going to be able to see some more new variants coming up. California also has detected a new strain.
It is however a bit concerning that the source of this infection is not known.
But yes, so far we have been so so lucky. Fingers and toes crossed.
A British lockdown is nothing like one of our lockdowns, they seem to be a bit like level 3 minus. Also, in the UK there is a lot of flouting of the rules, more over-crowded cities and housing, and a general cultural & climate driven aversion to fresh air, apart from the fact they seem to have a national alcohol problem.
Or is it because we have adopted as standard practise in level 1 better social distancing and hand sanitising protocols in this country. This alone may have prevented rapid spread.
I think the key is that we don't have Covid here generally, and infectiousness is primarily a function of viral load, which is low because of the lack of Covid in the community, so even people are getting infected, it's by a single person rather than 10-20 people over a few days, so the load is low, so the super spreader events are much less likely.
That's just my amateur reckons though.
VitD theories aside, b111 is demonstrably more infectious because it becomes the dominant strain. But that doesn't mean it's so infectious that it's changed the game.
It's like armour on a vehicle. The UK has driven around in jeeps with canvas sides. That armour is easily defeated.
NZ is like an APC. Bullets bounce off it, but a big gun would blow it up.
B111 is like a bigger bullet. It hurts the people in the jeep more, but it just causes a bigger dent in the APC.
The planB dickheads try to tell us that we have put so much armour on the vehicle that it's huge and heavy and only goes at 2kph and 10L/100k.
Possibly the B.1.1.7 strain has a long tail and will show up at day 12. It has shown that a close contact case and a casual plus contact case have become a positive case in NZ.
Great if our luck was to hold out. Luck cannot be relied on. Following the rules is the luck.
As for stores of vitamin D, at some point this could be confirmed as being more helpful than realised at the time.
Some truths about post war Russia that for some reason seem to get overlooked, but are vital to contextualize any conversation about Russia today, and why we are spending so much time debating Russia at this moment I am not sure?…anyway a bit of historical objectivity never hurts.
I don't agree with all of the conclusions here, but you don't have to agree with everything, right?, it is from Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) after all.
Four Myths about Russian Grand Strategy
https://www.csis.org/blogs/post-soviet-post/four-myths-about-russian-grand-strategy
From The Guardian no less…
The Soviet threat was a myth
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/19/russia.comment
"The cold war began because of Russia's reluctance to allow independence to Poland. Stalin was held to have reneged on promises at Yalta. Roosevelt and Churchill had demanded that Poland be allowed a government that would be "free" and also "friendly to Russia". It was a dishonest formula. As recently as 1920, the two countries had been at war. No freely elected Polish government would be friendly to the USSR. Furthermore, as Stalin pointed out at Yalta, Russia had been twice invaded through Poland by Germany in 26 years, with devastating consequences. The invasion of 1941 had led to the deaths of 20 million Russians. Any postwar Russian government – communist, tsarist or social democratic – would have insisted on effective control at least of Poland, if not of larger areas of eastern Europe, as a buffer zone against future attacks."
Go on then, stretch your legs and do an actual post on Russia in the Next 5 Years if you're so obsessed. Spell out your Russia truths.
You've got to do better than just recycling context-free quotes.
Maybe if you settled down a notch and read the article you would get the context…dummy.
Oh no I read the article. Such as it was.
It's just time you stopped railing against one imagined interpretation of history and put some actual thoughts of your own together.
I liked the bit where it discussed the Soviets invading Poland in 1939. Oh, wait…
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/polish-soviet_war_1920-1921
https://www.historyhit.com/1945-red-army-retakes-warsaw/
But Poland is an historic invasion route (I guess France should invade Belgium, by that logic).
What about Finland?
Russia/SovietU isn't particularly worse than any other regional-to-global power, expansion-wise. But it is more authoritarian than the regions on its western border. So it does what most nations have done when their neighbour-but-one is a competitor: destabilise the buffer state towards its own favour.
Adrian,
Yup that CSIS link is a good one. Yes politics and ideology play their role in these matters – but in the long run it's geography and demography that more than anything else determine the fate of nations:
Historically the Russian people have occupied a peculiarly vulnerable territory, lacking defined hard borders, they have been invaded repeatedly over the centuries. Arguably the only reason their culture has survived this long has been their oldest enemy and best ally at the same time – their ferocious winter. A winter that has repeatedly repelled outsiders ill-prepared for it.
But otherwise the wide open steppes and flatlands of the motherland were impossible to defend, so in response the Russian strategy has been to reach out to borders they believed they could defend. This meant expanding until they could reach the mountains of Central Asia, the Caucasus's to the south and the Carpathian's to the west. Normally absorbing so much territory would increase the length of the borders to be defended – but in Russia's case it has the perverse incentive of reducing them.
This is the underlying, irreducible geography that is essential to understanding Russia, a combination of a realistic fear of invasion, combined with a map that demands they expand in order to counter that fear.
"This is the underlying, irreducible geography that is essential to understanding Russia, a combination of a realistic fear of invasion, combined with a map that demands they expand in order to counter that fear."
I agree with your conclusion, except that it seems that the word expansion in the context of todays Russia doesn't really hold up, surely it could be more accurately described as maintaining a buffer to offset a "realistic fear of invasion"?
Russia hasn't been expansionist out side of the historical and usual contested buffer territories on it's boarders over the past 30-40 years as far as I know…though I could stand to be corrected, I am no expert.
Think of them as less than "buffer zones" and more like establishing "defendable borders". It's far easier to find the manpower to deal to a relatively short section of flat land between two geographic barriers, than to hold a line thousands of km long in the wide open flatlands.
The Sulwaki Gap is a good example of this in action.
Two points:
If the objective were to simply find the most convenient defensible border positions for Russia, there was no reason to occupy Poland or East Germany.
Russia has had the solution to defending the plains for centuries: scorched earth, and retreat slowly enough for their two key generals to get cracking- General Mud and General Winter. But it still doesn't hurt to have a decent buffer.
Maybe look at a map with contour lines. I specifically mentioned the Carpathians and the Caucasus mountains as desirable 'defendable borders'. As the Afghanis have demonstrated over and again, difficult terrain plays to the advantage of the home team every time.
How far do the Carpathians go into East Germany?
It's extremely improbable that Russia would be interested to extend that far into Germany. (The converse is more likely in my view, but that's a whole other thread.)
At present the Russian 'western front' is over 5000km long, almost all in in wide open flatland. That's utterly impossible to defend against land based invasions, especially for a nation suffering from a demographic slump in the young adult generation which comprises any army. The old strategy of retreat and scorched earth is a desperately expensive one, a price Russia can not afford to pay again.
Of course the mountains I've named do not form a complete barrier, but they do reduce the open front dramatically. And on the Northern European Plain, the Vistula River makes for a feasible boundary.
No further territorial demands beyond the vistula, huh?
It's not theirs, anyway.
It should be obvious that I'm addressing the underlying geopolitical drivers. I'll leave it to you to allocate all the correct rights and wrongs to history.
Meh.
Russia at the moment seems to think buffer states are largely the way to go. E.g. belorus, donbas, chechnya. Lucky for the poles.
strive to understand is the reasons why they made the decisions they did,
The banality of evil, and the dark places of the human heart, need no special consideration.
Our concepts of political right and wrong are founded on the consent or assent of individuals making up the state. When those liberties are taken away, the state is necessarily illegitimate, nor has any real world example lent much credibility to the myth of the benign dictator.
@ McFlock
No reason to occupy East Germany?
Well I guess just after having over 26 million of it's citizens butchered, it's towns burned to the ground, it's major cities flattened and it's economy destroyed by the most brutal regime in the history of this planet, the Russians people might have felt that they deserved a bit of occupational as well as financial revenge at the very least…pretty hard position to argue with at the time I would assume?
Especially hard to argue with considering that the Russians had also just saved nearly the whole of Europe from Hitler's fascism with the blood of their people in quantities unfathomable to any of us today.
Now I am not saying I agreed with that occupation, because I don't, but as usual, and for reasons known only to yourself, you can't or won't bring any historical objectivity into your thoughts on Russia.
It is because of this inability to contextualize, that your thoughts on this subject remain and have ever only been one dimensional…thereby, sadly, offer nothing really to further the conversation…IMO that is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariya_Oktyabrskaya
OK, if we're going to look at “historical objectivity”, what about Poland in 1939?
26 million of its citizens butchered
There was considerable Russian responsibility for the size of those casualty figures, not least of which lies in inflating the results, which does nothing to support your thesis – other sources put the number at 16 825 000.
inability to contextualize
There's a lot of it about – in your case recognizing that Molotov-Ribbentrop, with its division of Poland, constituted as manifest an assumption of risk as stepping into a boxing ring would for you.
I find myself rarely interested in re-litigating the rights and wrongs of history. After all:
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart."
Solzhenitsyn
But what we can rightly strive to understand is the reasons why they made the decisions they did, why they acted as they did, and try to see the world through their eyes – in order perhaps to understand our own world better.
It is probably inadequate to attribute a complex political stance to a single cause like Polish independence. It was an embarrassment to Britain however, as Polish forces had joined them against Germany much as they had Napoleon a hundred and some years before. To be sure, there were significant anti-communist interests like US industrialists aligned against Russia with the fall of Germany. But Europe had had a taste of totalitarianism and was not persuaded that the Russian version was any more palatable than the German one.
Britain was an old hand at the imperial game, and knew perfectly well that despotic regimes like Russia's were ripe for replacement. But all countries were exhausted by the war, and their priority was rebuilding. Russian expansionism, in the form of the permanent occupation of East Germany, looked not too dissimilar from the Nazi occupation of other small countries. They tolerated it because there was little public enthusiasm for defending Germany or prolonging the war. But it was an invidious compromise, with a state that routinely oppressed its subjects.
I found this an interesting story. Permanent employee visa due to expire and the company feels it will not be renewed looks to hire a local. Is the answer for the company to give a lot of notice that it won't support a visa renewal so employment ceases when the visa runs out? Or does it have an obligation to support the visa application up to a point and wait for immigration to turn it down? The recruitment notification was issued in Nov 20 for a Jan 21 search? That does see like reasonable forwarning
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124406551/restaurant-brands-ordered-to-pay-former-worker-18k-for-unjustifiable-dismissal
It's not stated in the article what work visa category it was, but the information suggests it was one of the labour-market tested visa categories, so Restaurant Brands are required to make genuine attempts to recruit a NZ citizen/resident each time one of their potential or current employees applies for a visa. That's a full scale recruitment effort with advertising etc.
I think the more likely problem is hinted at the end of the article where it says they dismissed him before his visa expired while he was still legally able to work, rather than attempting to support him through application process.
So the take away is that the business
-but must also support the visa application extension when they have the local alternative lined up so they can't really support it because it fails the work test ?
Still sounds like a mess – can someone be a permanent employee when they are on a time limited visa. My head swims. Still it’s not a firm I have a lot of sympathy for.
Interesting piece from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, worth a few minute to read, especially for a few of the 'lefties' around these parts…
Humanitarian Imperialism
How corporate media sell regime change, Intervention and war to progressive audiences
"Media are experts in using progressives’ empathy and compassion against them, presenting them carefully selected images and stories of suffering around the world, and suggesting that US military power can be used to alleviate it. As such, intervention is sold to the US left less on the basis of fear than of pity."
can't-sell culture strikes again. NZME editors publish an opinion piece, only to discover that it is "unacceptable" to the degree that the contributor will no longer appear on their platforms.
I mean, it's difficult being a content editor these days. One can't even publish the innocent opinions of tory racists without risking that what you hoped would be click-baiting dogwhistles turn out to be explicit racism that damages your advertisers' revenue.
It's an easy route to self righteousness to have an enemy – they make a convenient totem on which to place all evil.
Dunno about all that, but it seems as if advertisers think racism doesn't sell product like it used to.
There is an obvious need for women supporting women. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/431299/gassed-in-their-cells-begging-for-food-at-auckland-women-s-prison
These prisoners need TLC. It's time for some letters to Corrections and the token woman at the top here. Time for Corrections to be corrected themselves. Government looking for cheap bargains in delovering (sic) services get cheap results. To follow that logic, we should put government up for tender every three years. We aren't getting satisfactory action from present pollie system – jam tomorrow, or are we out permanently Mum?
Geez that's a distressing read.
It appears as though full force was always applied when it did not need to be applied. Corrections used no tact when it came to choosing a method which would not be the most humiliating. Not asking a person to stand against a wall to deliver food through a hatch compared to lying face down on the ground is an example. The situation has snowballed and the judge is the circuit breaker. Addressing the PTSD will uncover how the world is seen. Regaining trust will take time.
About time.
But how come the equally notorious Mike Hosking is still being published by this discredited outfit?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018786126/nzme-pulls-racism-article-and-bans-bassett
On Staying at home, a self of entitlement and the Tamaki's.
As I have stated before, the bloke who went to the Gym and Polytech on or around the day he also had a covid test strikes me as being fool hardly, irresponsible and seemingly done with a sense of self entitlement. Likewise 2 women going for a walk under level 3 requirements was fool hardy and irresponsible. It might have been naive if they thought they were allowed to, or self entitled if they decided to flout the rules. Stay home when you are required to.
Any Aucklander madly rushing to exit the city to go to their beach house prior to level 3 restrictions is also irresponsible, reckless and seemingly done with a sense of self entitlement. Stay in Auckland when you are required to.
I see in the news the Tamaki's fled Auckland to be with a congregation in Rotorua. Again, fool hardy, irresponsible and done with a sense of self entitlement. Stay in Auckland.
The justifications for doing such were apparently their ministry demanded they must be in Rotorua. I assume they have a Pastor in that city. I assume they are a perfectly competent and genuine pastor who can lead that congregation. I assume the Tamaki's are not in Rotorua every weekend. Hence why the need to rush out of Auckland when someone competent is available to minister to that congregation.
It's better for them to be in Rotorua was what they are quoted as saying. Better for the congregation they were in Rotorua, or better for the Tamaki's bank balance? There was it seems an "alter call for cash". If you 'give, give, give' God will give you a blessing, a "Jubilee". Maybe a brand new Tesla car like Hannah Tamaki bought herself.
My following comments are not about the Tamaki's fleeing Auckland. It is pretty apparent what they should have done, stayed in Auckland, done the right thing. These are comments about this notion of chasing cash. I term it games show christianity. A flash slick games show host and the prize that maybe someone could win a car. Wheel of Fortune, Who wants to be a Millionaire, The Chase, The X Factor, Destiny Alter Call For Cash.
If you go back to the bible you find some interesting things. John the Baptist lived in the wilderness and ate locusts and wild honey. He baptised Jesus. He didn't have a big house. The greatest Apostle, Paul, was an itinerant tent maker who I suspect didn't die a rich man. He didn't drive a Tesla or ride a Harley Davidson. Paul, formerly a Roman commander who presumably could have lived a comfortable life, he forsook that for ministry. Biblical leaders were not wealthy nor blessed with physical riches.
correction. Paul not a roman commander but rather a Jew whose status and connections could have presumably provided a comfortable living, forsook that for the ministry with no promises of riches or abundance
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+18%3A18-18%3A25
It sounds like a good idea to do targeting Covid-19 testing in every region.
I would look at the following, bus drivers, taxi drivers, bar workers, domestic air crew and shops in malls.
And what about teachers? Cooped up in a confined space with around 30 kids?
Or – the "modern learning environment" where there may be over 100.
I intended to include teachers, thanks for mentioning them. Hair stylists and dentists as well.
bus drivers, taxi drivers, bar workers…….self annointed Apostles
Back then it would have been those leading the donkey with the passenger and calling into the inn for a mead.
I heard Bishop Tamaki on Checkpoint this evening.
He spoke more of Mammon than God.
'Being in the people changing business'.
'The strain on the economy'.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018786152/brian-tamaki-responds-to-criticism-after-leaving-auckland-on-eve-of-lockdown
pandemics can have a cleansing effect on wooly thinking.
global warming is very emetic.
we live in "interesting times", allegedly an ancient chinese curse wished upon those they disliked.
economists beware
hubris is fatal
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]