Some spend their time worrying about what the opposition is or not doing and having a laugh at these goings on
YET, what is happening by those who currently have the power to make changes ?
Have you say regarding New Zealand’s future regarding Education is about to close on the 7th April
And the changes suggested by the “independant” task force gives no evidence based on what it is proposing will work, no overseas experience to see what they propose has achieved, just what they think.
And the cost to implement this ??
Remember we are in a situation whereby teachers are paid below min wage and the min has told us there is no more money available. !!! https://conversation.education.govt.nz/conversations/tomorrows-schools-review/have-your-say-today/ https://www.education.govt.nz/news/tomorrows-schools-report-released/
Imposing the hubs (yes, they need to be imposed) will ensure that education goes back to being a public service run by civil servants for the public good.
Currently, education is run by rotarian hacks as a tradeable commodity, with parents as passive consumers, and schools pushing out pipils seen as hard work and pandering to international students.
It will probably also ensure that schools are constrained by rigid ‘one size fits all’ ideologically driven education policies; by the inability of parent communities to be meaningfully involved in the running of their local schools; by stifling creativity for local schools in devising situation specific solutions to educational issues they face; and so on.
Rather than assist students to be prepared and ready for the challenges of the future; especially in relation to transforming the economy so desired by Grant Robertson, these regressive ideologically driven reforms will produce decidedly average educational outcomes that won’t help students adjust to a changing world, and won’t achieve the outcomes ministers such as Robertson want vis a vis transforming the economy.
So we de construct what works for 80% of students and schools to blindly experiment and go where no one has gone before ??
No mention of what any changes are to achieve only “we believe …” prefixing all Bali Haque statements
There are successes out there why not see why those schools that are succeeding with Māori and Pacific students and implement that to other schools “Local Focus: How this Māori principal turned a failing school into one of the top schools in the country” – I note that such innovation would not be feasible under the newly proposed system 🙁 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12210181
Imposing the hubs (yes, they need to be imposed) will ensure that education goes back to being a public service run by civil servants for the public good. – That wasn’t mentioned in the report as a reason or desired outcome.
I really don’t like the hub model because it just imposes another layer of beuracracy that will suck up tons of funding. It just adds another layer between the MoE and schools to which the MoE can shift blame.
😥
Totally agree with you👍🏾
Pity there is no other means to show agreement with a comment.
At least these hubs will allow in part some growth in employment within the regions, so Min Jones will be happy – growth in the regions. As you comment money being diverted to these hubs will mean funding cuts elsewhere within the ministry – As corporate offices are a necessity will this mean front line cuts ?? 🤔
Funny if not machiavellian, if that post submissions are closed we have this ….
“Next Steps
23 When I report back to the Committee in May 2019, the report-back will also
include:
23.1 the relative costs and benefits of the proposals that the Minister intends to
progress or consult further on, and
23.2 the estimated fiscal costs and regulatory impacts of those proposals
And where under the hub system will success come it is all a 1 fit “”solution””
You ask these questions of me yet none are addressed within the report.
Our overall findings
On some outcome measures, many of our students do well at
school. However, the system is not working well enough for our
most disadvantaged children and young people
So our education system is working – Yet to solve a very long existing issue we destroy everything !! And why not examine schools where “the most disadvantaged .. ” are bucking the norm . Refer link above in the NZ herald ??
“Local Focus: How this Māori principal turned a failing school into one of the top schools in the country”
How do you know that as the report regarding costs and resources will not be out until NEXT month. Unless you are in the know, and the whole process has been manipulated to achieve a predetermined outcome.- that is not open and honest government !!!
I would recommend you take some time to read the report.
And take not of the over used phase (IMO) of “In our view” is used – https://conversation.education.govt.nz/assets/TSR/Tomorrows-Schools-Review-Report-13Dec2018.PDF
That the opposition to change consists of 40 out of 2500 schools, who have been able to cherry pick white wealthy students, and, Mike Hosking, says it all.
We have 3 great schools within 5kms
One offer Cambridge, the other 2 ncea, but one has an outdoors facility and sports centre. Between them they offer the flyers sports but each offers a uniqu sport league, baseball and rowing (no polo ☹️)
I see these 3 being complementary , others will see them in competition and stealing out of zone students . I suppose it is all how you perceive the world 😉
No middle class traditional suburbia, thou my typos on the phone may have added some confusion some how: traditional sports became “flyers sports” and outdoor pursuits became facility. Perhaps my intended sarc/funny “polo” was missed by you !! But given the contect I can understand the comment 😉
So you support what is a privatisation and deregulation policy, where parents have no support,and schools can force parents to pay through the nose in donations and buy expensive devices
Are you for real and have you read the report all 148 pages ??
So you are happy for a 1 size fits all system, and we don’t even know if the 1 size will even work ?
And with a minister and a hand picked task force that has no links to success from what they are proposing, what outcomes we should expect ??
OUR CHILDREN DON’T DESERVE TO BE LAB RATS
No school forces parents – Perhaps you should go and experience the real world and not scare monger. And why do schools request donations and fund raise ??
Because the govt inadequately funds education. Our minister has been caught out pay below min wage to teachers and support staff. And when they are found out breaking the law –
“The rise in the minimum wage on 1 April will see a 7.3% increase for some education workers – but with no funding to pay the new rates.” https://www.nzei.org.nz/NZEI/Media/Releases/2019/03/Urgent_funding_needed_to_lift_education_workers_to_legal_minimum_wage_next_week.aspx
Herodotus (pretentious ancient Greek pseudonym)
Stop boring us with your ‘one size fits all’ clichés and your faux concern.
I started teaching in 1970, and I laugh to scorn your silly pretence that Tomorrow’s Schools reforms brought anything much that should not now be rescinded.
Who are you to judge?
In Vino
I have taken time to read what was produced from this task force seen the video and the road show. I have concern, who are you to throw away cheap comments with the express intent of insulting comments regarding “faux concern”.
“.. laugh to scorn your silly pretence that Tomorrow’s Schools reforms brought anything much that should not now be rescinded.” Funny how a previous govt made radical changes to the education system that you find have no value. Yet this is what is currently happening, another govt is using our children as lab rats to shake up the education system, for what ?
I am yet to see any links from anyone supporting the changes with what outcomes we should expect.
Another link regarding commentary – I await some sound responses NOT insults. But that is the way of today 😤 https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/111723690/terrifying-words-for-schools-the-ministrys-here-to-help
The whole premise of “competing” schools, run by “Managerial” principals, with a business type “board” of, mostly self selected “representatives”, has been an entirely predictable cluster fuck, right from the start.
Exacerbated recently by National dumping the well researched and consulted on, NZ curriculum, which was flexible and student centred, by an ideological return to producing cannon fodder, for employers.
Schools in well off areas, have been able to go around the narrow education National desired, with extra funding and help from their communities.
They have no desire, for equality of opportunity to return.
“Can’t have poor brown kids competing with our spoilt brats for the best jobs”.
Some are perfectly happy with a two tier education system.
Meanwhile. The system is, failing most children.
Not least because of all the current micro-management, bumf production and control, our “managerial model”, requires. Currently about two hours paperwork is required for every hour of contact time.
Then, there is actually finding time for lesson planning, teaching and helping the many left behind.
Well said, KJT.
I could add a lot more of my own sour feelings about the crassly stupid ‘reforms’ made to our education system under what is now ‘Yesterday’s Schools’, but the thread is old, unlikely to be read, and I think Herodotus a determined right-wing ideologue anyway.
The national permaculture hui begins today in Riverton, with a powhiri in the big Mongolian yurt followed by afternoon tea in the tunnelhouse wharekai. The 150 or so attendees will then weave their way through the forest garden, back to the yurt for the first of the key note talks, this one from me, talking about the history of the area and our garden, surrounding orchards, growing community and projects. Over the next 3 days, we’ll hear from all manner of interesting permaculturalists, Nandor Tanczos is speaking tomorrow, on topics as wide as imaginable; we’ll enjoy bonfires each night, a hangi on Saturday and the delicious food from the talented Green Cuisine crew, serving from their food van on our driveway. We’ve as many musicians as you could ever hope for, enough Jacks and Jills of all trades to cope with any technical hitch, enough fruit on the trees; red-fleshed peaches in particular and more apple varieties than you could name. Our bakers have made and stored treats galore; and this is all I have time to write, as the house is stirring and we’ll be in full-on mode shortly; there are preparations to make; Hollie’s running a Country Mouse market and there are hazels and acorns to polish 🙂
I’ll report back on Sunday, in How to get there and hopefully have something to say on that topic in real-time.
Sounds like a good model of where we might be in a decade or so when energy problems and global warming problems force us all to becoming much more self sufficient. Do we really need exotic foods and goods to be imported, and do we need to depend on vast numbers of tourists?
Sounds great Robert.
Kia ora, all. Just a quick update on a matter raised earlier in the week. Yesterday, I went to a WINZ office to act as support for someone who found themselves needing urgent financial help.
A couple of Standarnistas gave me some tips and advice on what to ask for and I’m pleased to report that the staff at the WINZ office were helpful, understanding and empathetic. We will meet again early next week to provide some more paperwork, which will confirm the total entitlements, but in the meantime, accommodation supplement is already OK’d and it has been indicated that Temporary Additional Support will likely be granted.
This is a significant matter for the person I represented, who has been left with no income for over a month due to a weakness in the ACC system.
So, thank you to those who pointed me in the right direction. It might have only been a few words on a blog, but you’ve made a huge difference to a young man in a desperate situation.
TRP, I’m glad he had someone like you to help him. You are right that the service gaps of weeks to change over can be traumatic to someone already stressed. Pleased to hear there was a helpful attitude at WINZ.
Wonder if there has been a real change of Heart at WINZ because your current contact sounds reasonable. If so it makes you wonder what made WINZ previously sound so threatening. Was it really a deliberate policy from previous Government to make it as hard as possible?
The Nats certainly enabled a nasty culture to fester in WINZ and ACC. Always worth remembering that Paula Benefit publicly bullied and humiliated a couple of beneficiaries who stood up to her. If the boss is an unrepentant bully, it gives the green light for poor behaviour from all staff. Happily, I’ve got the feeling that the new culture of kindness has taken root in at least one WINZ branch.
ACC needs a top down overhaul. It’s not focused on getting people well again just it’s numbers using case workers dishing out ‘youre on your own sweetie ‘ type advice.
The DHB’S also. Watching clinicians wait for Windows 7 to go through the motions in 2019 is a sign they’re way off the pace. They are visibly frustrated by it and MS stopped mainstream support 4 years ago…….Tick tick tick
I was speaking to someone last weekend who has had to give up work to be a full time carer for her son who has been diagnosed with cancer and she was treated with respect. The WINZ meeting was friendly and she was not put through hoops like she was expecting.
So the silly gun lobby cry… “wah wah, all this ban does is make criminals of law-abiding people and responsible gun-owners, and has no effect on actual criminals”
Is it not apparent to them that the mosque-murderer was a “law-abiding person and responsible gun-owner” ?
We have this gun lobby not identifying the target correctly and firing shots at shadows and movement instead. And they will end up shooting their mates.
Maduro’s kangaroo court is working with his fake parliament to remove Guaido’s civil rights. The practical exercise of stalinism as state policy is meant to signal that no dissent will be tolerated, and democracy is only good when preached – bad when practiced. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47799263
“Why was his immunity lifted? Under the Venezuelan constitution, lawmakers cannot be arrested or put on trial unless they are stripped of their parliamentary immunity first. On Monday, the Supreme Court asked the National Constituent Assembly to end Mr Guaidó’s immunity because he defied a travel ban the Supreme Court had imposed on him.”
Freedom of movement is a civil right in a democracy. To a stalinist, it is intolerable. And it is absolutely essential to strip legislators of their legal protection!
“Why is this move controversial? According to article 200 of the Venezuelan constitution, the Supreme Court has the power to order the arrest or prosecution of a lawmaker “subject to authorisation in advance from the National Assembly”.”
Will leftist commentators onsite here once again retreat into denial or perform backflips & other mental contortions to evade the moral point? I await their performance with eager anticipation…
First of all, the elections in Venezuela are probably better run than the ones in the United States, the idea that Maduro has no legitimacy as leader is a straight propaganda lie.
Secondly, if David Seymour declared himself prime minster tomorrow, incited gun owners and farmers and ACToids to riot, destroy property and encouraged foreign agent provocateurs to cripple the elctricity system and fire on the police and agitated for his big business mates to launch a capital strike to cripple the economy I am pretty sure he would be facing arraignment and a treason trial a lot quicker than Guaido will.
Thirdly, his human rights are not – yet – being violated. All that is happening is via a legal process his immunity to prosecution is being removed. Given that Guaido has basically committed treason, that seems fair enough to me.
The propaganda war has been in full swing for years and won’t let up until Abrams and his like achieve their goal of regime change. This time it’s a little different. The other players on the periphery – Russia and China – are not going to let Venezuela slip away into the hands of the USA.
Guido is part of a group that tried an armed insurrection against an elected Government.
Try conspiring to overthrow our Government by force, and see how long you stay out of jail.
Dennis. You have imbibed a near fatal dose of right wing Fox news.
I suggest a course of ingesting actual journalism.
If Maduro was a totalitarian dictator, the armed rebellion would have been all shot already. Even here Guido, and his violent coup supporting mates, would be in jail. How many coup attempts against an elected Government are you allowed. If you are a US supporting, Fascist!
Actually, I don’t watch Fox. Not to say that I wouldn’t, if it became free to air here, for the entertainment value.
As regards journalism, the only type of relevance would be investigative, but media owners have disposed of that in the new millennium. That’s why I had to do it myself, to expose the suppression of democracy in Venezuela, and publish the facts here several months ago.
I agree that Maduro is being careful not to go full Stalinism as yet. Happy to give him credit for that. Equally, there is no coup happening so far. Other countries in the region refer to Maduro’s “self-coup” and I published the quote for that back then too. I oppose any unilateral intervention by the US.
Don’t be silly. Nuanced view of complex situations aren’t as difficult as you seem to think! I don’t like Maduro’s class warfare agenda. If the middle class can do peaceful coexistence with the working class in other countries, why not in Venezuela too?
I don’t believe US control needs to be imposed. I’ve opposed US foreign policy since the Vietnam War era, and specifically that banana-republic part since I learnt about it in the mid-80s. I believe their oil money ought to be distributed to all Venezuelan people – not captured by corporations or Maduro’s stalinists.
Given that many of the things talked about go off in a very different direction to the values and methods in Robert’s post, I kinda figured it would be derailing or even trolling to put it as a reply there.
The thing is we dont gave a food shortage. If the food grown wasn’t wasted and people only ate the amount required to stay healthy and we found a way for poorer nations to buy the excess created it would be solved tomorrow.
In a world that’s on its way to 10 or 11 billion people, any surplus we might create from reducing waste and distribution inefficiency is going to disappear really quickly. That’s even before climate change and soil depletion start seriously reducing potential yields. And before considering the way most people start overconsuming food when it becomes easy to do so, in a rush to emulate the worst of porky westerners.
Someone posted the latest projection here a few months back. It supported the prognosis published by Fred Pearce a few years ago in Peoplequake, that global population is likely to top out at 9.5 billion then subside due to demographic trends.
So unless you have a contradictory source, looks like non-replacement is now becoming so prevalent in so many different countries as to cancel out the third world boom effect…
Most of the projected increase in the world’s population can be attributed to a short list of high-fertility countries, mainly in Africa, or countries with already large populations. During 2015-2050, half of the world’s population growth is expected to be concentrated in nine countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, United Republic of Tanzania, United States of America (USA), Indonesia and Uganda, listed according to the size of their contribution to the total growth.
Given what climate change is going to do most of those countries, I’m guessing those projections will end up being high. I suspect there’s going to be a shitload of suffering creating that difference between projection and actual.
Four horsemen? Even putting that effect to one side, subsidence of population due to culture change, due to economic lifting of the third world out of the poverty trap, could be understated currently.
Getting back to the starting point of this thread, even if we didn’t have population growth worries, we’d still have a lot of incentive to increase agricultural productivity by whatever means we can, including technological. To get more output from less input and smaller footprint.
Maybe so foods that now are occasional luxuries become more frequent. Maybe further reduce the numbers of us suffering hunger and malnutrition. Maybe we can stop destroying what few wild places remain, and maybe, just maybe, even start rewilding some areas currently used for agriculture.
With regard to the current or recent huuhaa in Parliament I would point out that Guns do not kill people but the humans pulling the trigger or careless handling.
It is easy to ban guns but what is being done about and for the human element in the problem?
jcuknz it is a reasonable question. Severely restricting the sale of semi automatics etc will help as the countries (such as japan) with the strictest guns laws have the less gun crime. It is a bit like the suicide rate. One of the only ways it has been significantly reduced was when we changed the house hold gas supply from toxic to benign. Did that deal with the issue of people feeling suicidal and wanting to end their life, of course not. That is the really tough bit. Same with stopping people who want to kill others or commit extremist crimes.
I listened to an interview on Radio NZ with a Professor Gill who has studied “lone wolf” terrorists. I have to say, the interviewer was very disappointing, but I followed up by reading some of his research.
The most helpful thing seems to be that these guys often tell people what they are going to do, or publicize it. Interestingly enough there is a case reported today of a right wing extremist who was going to stab a Labour MP and policewoman and was dobbed in by someone he talked to…………………..
People with guns kill people, no matter how much the gun lobby repeats that BS. I hope the public at large are motivated enough to make a quick submission today. Every recommendation of the Thorp Report needs to be enacted. Now.
“The “emotional staffer” who National Leader Simon Bridges said was responsible for deleting a controversial petition on the party’s website is said to be in dispute with National.”
Oh dear. Simon has upset one of his own. Lawyers involved.
Sanders isn’t a Democrat. He’s never run for office in Vermont as a Democrat. But the Fox/Trump/NRA Axis of Evil is determined to make Sanders a Democrat because they think he’s the candidate Trump can most easily beat.
Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum will host a town hall with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders on April 15 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with a focus on the economy and jobs.
Why it matters: Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee barred Fox News from hosting any of its primary debates, after a New Yorker investigation shed light on the extent of the network’s ties to the Trump administration.
He’s never lifted a finger to fund raise for the party but because he needs access to their data, staff, and volunteer base, he had to join and pledge allegiance.
You’re not wrong. Such apalling principles – grind Bernie into the dust.
“As an Independent member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Vermont, Sanders was one of 23 co-sponsors of House Resolution 629, which called for Congress to give its consent to the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact — an agreement between the states of Texas, Maine, and Vermont.
Speaking on the floor of the house in October 1997, Sanders said he was in “strong support” of the resolution for environmental reasons, and stressed that he personally was opposed to the use of nuclear power, but that the waste it produces had to be disposed of as safely as possible.”
Congress passed the resolution comfortably by 305 votes to 117, as did the Senate, by 78 votes to 15.
“Within that tab, we can click “All Senators.” Up top, receiving $420,000 from the defense industry, is Bernie Sanders. Then Ted Cruz. Both ran for president, so it’s not a surprise they received a lot of money. Sanders hung on longer than Cruz. And, notably, their main rivals (Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, respectively) were not in Congress, so they would not be listed here even if they had received more. Instead, we go to the “Recipients” tab and see Clinton received over $1 million from the defense industry; Trump received about $319,000.”
““I just feel he’s honest, he’s straightforward, dependable, trustworthy and doesn’t change his tune to get votes,” said Connie Whalley, a nurse practitioner who left her job three years ago to spend more time with her family.
The 66-year-old Topanga resident has contributed $622 to Sanders’ campaign in 22 separate donations because she was impressed by his calls for a $15 minimum wage, tuition-free public college, campaign-finance reform and most of all, single-payer healthcare.
“I honestly believe everyone has the right to free healthcare and… I just think it is unspeakable we have insurance companies that are making profits off people’s health,” she said.
Not surprisingly, Sanders gets very little money — 2% of his overall haul — from Wall Street, which he frequently criticizes as “corrupt” and responsible for creating a “rigged economy.””
Newsroom co-editor Mark Jennings, investigations editor Melanie Reid and cameraman Hayden Aull are in a holding room at the Totogo police station after developer Freesoul Real Estate accused them of criminal trespass. While they have not been charged, they were locked up ahead of likely police interviews this morning.
The unbanked pay much of their income—up to 10 percent—just to use their money. For these families, the total price of simple financial services each month is more than they spend on food. Indeed, it is very expensive to be poor.
This problem, however, reaches well beyond those traditionally considered poor. More than 70 percent of Americans consider themselves “middle class,” yet anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of the population must rely on check cashing or payday lending services.
There seems to be some misunderstanding and misapplication of the term Postmodernism. In this video, the tension between identity politics and the work of postmodern theorists is addressed.
Yeah, was worth a listen. Too academic for most punters, I suspect. Got better around 12 mins in. Ivory-tower syndrome is a terrible affliction which imposes a crippling handicap on the intellect. No reference to shapeshifters (that would require both lateral-thinking and reference to the big-picture context outside acadaemia).
Even worse, no acknowledgement of those with multiple personalities. Presumably, the speaker believes discriminating against that minority is cool. I think those with multiple identities deserve inclusion, not exclusion. I learnt much about human nature from reading several dozen books about them. Cohabitation of a human body by a crowd of identities is a thing. Denial of this part of life is bad.
“Newstalk ZB broadcaster Heather du Plessis-Allan has been censured over comments made on air last September.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) found comments made by du Plessis-Allan, referring to Pacific Islands as “leeches”, breached broadcasting standards.
The BSA ordered broadcaster NZME Radio to pay $3000 in costs to the Crown and also broadcast a statement during du Plessis-Allan’s show summarising the decision.”
Crosby Textor have their grubby little hands over everything don’t they. Not content with stuffing up NZ social justice for over a decade promoting the right wing agenda of Key and co, they have now been found out to be behind a multitude of pro-leave adverts directed at chosen Facebook uses to pressure MP’s on voting to leave. Oh and they are also buttering up the same facebook users to accepting dipstick in chief Boris as PM! Their mission (as was exhibited by Key) is to leave the world as f**ked up as possible – including the promotion of burning more coal. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/03/grassroots-facebook-brexit-ads-secretly-run-by-staff-of-lynton-crosby-firm
The House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport select committee, which has led the way on investigating online disinformation, has repeatedly called for Facebook to reveal the identities of those who were funding Mainstream Network, suggesting they crossed an ethical line.
“I believe there is a strong public interest in understanding who is behind the Mainstream Network, and that this information should be published,” the committee’s chairman, Damian Collins, said last month after Facebook refused to identify the individuals behind the page.
“People should have a right to know who is targeting them with political advertisements and why. That is why the committee had called for a change in the law to outlaw these kind of dark adverts from secret campaigns,” he said.
Although the documents point towards the individuals who are running the campaigns, it remains unclear who is ultimately picking up the substantial bill for this attempt to persuade MPs there is a grassroots uprising for a hard Brexit.
Nobody coulda seen this one coming: maybe Mueller’s report was a teensy tiny bit not quite so positive for Agent Orange as Barr’s summary letter made it out to be.
AFAIK, no. He was commissioned to investigate and report to the DOJ, which would then decide what to do with it from there. If he did publicly talk about it, he would be breaking the same general protocols and norms Comey broke by talking about her e-mails, let alone possibly breaking laws buried in the statutes that allowed his Special Counsel investigation to be set up.
Well, all I can say is: what a f****d up country America is. It means a corrupt president and his equally corrupt administration lackeys can lie to the people with total impunity and never be brought to account. It beggars belief!
Yeah. Some of it goes all the way back to the founding.
Some of the justification for the Electoral College rather than directly electing the prez was so the electors would be able to examine the character and fitness for office of the leading candidate. If the popular vote barfed up some loser grifter, they would exercise their better judgement to overrule the popular vote and choose someone who actually was suitable. It was supposed to be a line of defense against someone like Don Drumpfeone becoming prez. Look up Federalist 68 if you’re interested. Of course, the outcome we’ve got now is the Electoral College overruled the good judgement of the popular vote and gave us the conman.
The possibility of a corrupt prez corrupting the legislative and judicial branches did occur to the founders, and some of the provisions are clearly attempts to guard against that. Which have proven inadequate to prevent the spinal dissolution and craven capitulation of almost all the other Repugs.
Hi Jenny I had understood that they weren’t using the charge of terrorism, because it is largely untested and they don’t want to risk this fucker getting off on a technicality. That what I heard, but I could be wrong
The esteemed and learned Professor Geddis discusses pros and cons of terrorism and murder charges over at https://www.pundit.co.nz . Sorry you’ll have to scroll down to find it; the URL contains the fuckwit’s name so linking directly to the page would send this comment straight to trash here.
The campaign not to name the terrorist, (who apparently is not a terrorist according to the police prosecution), was also played out in Norway during the trial of the fascist mass murderer Andre Brevik. TV One tonight, said in Norway this policy had to be dropped. “He is not Voldemort” said one Norwegian woman interviewed. The campaign not to refer to the Brevik by name only created and air of mystique around Brevik and encouraged like minded extremists to invent and then circulate conspiracy theories.
Brenten Terent is no supernatural being. where the mere spoken (or written), utterance of his name brings an evil curse. We need to fully understand what made him into what he is.
This cannot happen under a blanket of secrecy, and secret dread to speak his name. Conspiracy thrives in the shadows.
As the saying goes ‘Sunlight is the best disinfectant, electric light is the best policeman’
In Norway they found it was better to forensically dissect and publicly demolish Brevik’s manifesto, than censor it.
Terrent like Brevik sees himself as a hero.
Benten Terent is a miserable little fascist terrorist. He must be firmly identified as such by our authorities. He and his (admirers) need to be made to own this label of shame, in court.
I don’t believe for one minute the argument that such charges would allow Torrent to get off on a technicality.
The police had no trouble at all charging Tama Iti under the Suppression Of Terrorism Act. Despite the fact that Iti had not killed anyone, or was even involved in plotting to kill anyone.
If the charge of terrorist cannot be made to stick to someone like B****** T***** who plotted and then executed the murder of 50 innocent people to further his white Supremacist political views, then there is something very wrong at the heart of the New Zealand Suppression Of Terrorism Act.
As well as being charged with murder and attempted murder BT* needs to be charged as the terrorist he is.
Am I to take any message from your misspelling of the Norwegian fuckwit’s first name?
Although I’m fine with referring to the fuckwit as the fuckwit, I actually had nothing to do with this site’s decision to make the fuckwit’s real name a direct line to the trash folder, to be retrieved only if a mod happens to look there and decides it’s worth fishing out.
In any case, it’s not dread or an attempt to toss him down the memory hole that’s the motivation for minimising the use of his name. It’s just denying him the personal recognition that was likely a partial motivation for his fuckwittery.
As for whether the fuckwit’s a terrorist or not, Geddis’ piece explains why there’s probably no legal upside to charging him under the terrorism laws. That those terrorism laws were grievously misused and shown to be badly flawed the one time they actually were used, and are useless in this current case where we have actual terrorism, might actually prompt a clean-up of those laws. Or not.
If the situation had been reversed and the terrorist had a Arabic or Asian, or Maori name. To make certain that we knew his ethnicity, to demonise a whole race or culture or religion, his name would be on every news feed.
This guy has a regular European name.
Let’s suppress it.
Let’s distance ourselves from it.
Let’s deny that he is one of us. That he is a product of our culture, and of our race and yes even of our religion.
Acting like he did, covers for the fact that he is a product of our post colonial society.
No matter how much we try to distance ourselves from him.
He is us.
The British Empire, The US global hegemon, white supremacy, global policeman, gun culture, justified violence, the rightful avenger, cultural genocide, actual genocide, unending war, war, war war.
No meaning in the misspelling of Anders Brevik’s first name. I didn’t look up the exact spelling. However, his surname is burned into the collective conscience as a synonym for fascist hate. As this terrorists name should be.
I’m picking that they are going to offer him a deal, in which he pleads guilty to 40 counts of murder in return for no terror charges being laid (and possibly life without parole off the table).
Don’t get me wrong. I admire the Prime Minister’s personal decision, for her to not personally say his name. It was dignified and apt as fitting our premier, and leading citizen.
But it is not writ.
Our Premier is not Kim Jong Un, her personal preference should not be imposed or self imposed on us.
If Kim Jong Un started wearing miss-matched socks tomorrow the whole nation would be wearing miss-matched socks the next day.
While I admire the Prime Minister’s stand.
What we must avoid is the personality cult. What may be right for her, may not be right for us.
When the Prime Minister of New Zealand says, “the terrorist” just by her position we know who she means.
But for the rest of us it is not so clear, there have been so many terrorists. Saying the “the terrorist” elevates this terrorist to a special rank.
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
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Some spend their time worrying about what the opposition is or not doing and having a laugh at these goings on
YET, what is happening by those who currently have the power to make changes ?
Have you say regarding New Zealand’s future regarding Education is about to close on the 7th April
And the changes suggested by the “independant” task force gives no evidence based on what it is proposing will work, no overseas experience to see what they propose has achieved, just what they think.
And the cost to implement this ??
Remember we are in a situation whereby teachers are paid below min wage and the min has told us there is no more money available. !!!
https://conversation.education.govt.nz/conversations/tomorrows-schools-review/have-your-say-today/
https://www.education.govt.nz/news/tomorrows-schools-report-released/
Imposing the hubs (yes, they need to be imposed) will ensure that education goes back to being a public service run by civil servants for the public good.
Currently, education is run by rotarian hacks as a tradeable commodity, with parents as passive consumers, and schools pushing out pipils seen as hard work and pandering to international students.
It will probably also ensure that schools are constrained by rigid ‘one size fits all’ ideologically driven education policies; by the inability of parent communities to be meaningfully involved in the running of their local schools; by stifling creativity for local schools in devising situation specific solutions to educational issues they face; and so on.
Rather than assist students to be prepared and ready for the challenges of the future; especially in relation to transforming the economy so desired by Grant Robertson, these regressive ideologically driven reforms will produce decidedly average educational outcomes that won’t help students adjust to a changing world, and won’t achieve the outcomes ministers such as Robertson want vis a vis transforming the economy.
Repeating the same talking points as the NZ Inititave I see, while education goes down the toilet.
Wrong reforms.
Nationals back to the 1800’s 3 Rs, were the ideologically stultifying reforms.
Teachers are leaving because of the inability to Teach under the current rules.
So we de construct what works for 80% of students and schools to blindly experiment and go where no one has gone before ??
No mention of what any changes are to achieve only “we believe …” prefixing all Bali Haque statements
There are successes out there why not see why those schools that are succeeding with Māori and Pacific students and implement that to other schools “Local Focus: How this Māori principal turned a failing school into one of the top schools in the country” – I note that such innovation would not be feasible under the newly proposed system 🙁
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12210181
Imposing the hubs (yes, they need to be imposed) will ensure that education goes back to being a public service run by civil servants for the public good. – That wasn’t mentioned in the report as a reason or desired outcome.
I really don’t like the hub model because it just imposes another layer of beuracracy that will suck up tons of funding. It just adds another layer between the MoE and schools to which the MoE can shift blame.
😥
Totally agree with you👍🏾
Pity there is no other means to show agreement with a comment.
At least these hubs will allow in part some growth in employment within the regions, so Min Jones will be happy – growth in the regions. As you comment money being diverted to these hubs will mean funding cuts elsewhere within the ministry – As corporate offices are a necessity will this mean front line cuts ?? 🤔
And what would you do then? Keep having schools competing? The good schools prospering and then rest sinking.
People need to start getting on board with the hubs, forcing schools to collaborate with with each other for the common good.
No to privatisation. Yes to public services.
Funny if not machiavellian, if that post submissions are closed we have this ….
“Next Steps
23 When I report back to the Committee in May 2019, the report-back will also
include:
23.1 the relative costs and benefits of the proposals that the Minister intends to
progress or consult further on, and
23.2 the estimated fiscal costs and regulatory impacts of those proposals
And where under the hub system will success come it is all a 1 fit “”solution””
You ask these questions of me yet none are addressed within the report.
Our overall findings
On some outcome measures, many of our students do well at
school. However, the system is not working well enough for our
most disadvantaged children and young people
So our education system is working – Yet to solve a very long existing issue we destroy everything !! And why not examine schools where “the most disadvantaged .. ” are bucking the norm . Refer link above in the NZ herald ??
“Local Focus: How this Māori principal turned a failing school into one of the top schools in the country”
The hubs will use existing money and staff.
They will provide a much needed support to school, and provide assistance for parents who are currently getting shafted.
How do you know that as the report regarding costs and resources will not be out until NEXT month. Unless you are in the know, and the whole process has been manipulated to achieve a predetermined outcome.- that is not open and honest government !!!
I would recommend you take some time to read the report.
And take not of the over used phase (IMO) of “In our view” is used –
https://conversation.education.govt.nz/assets/TSR/Tomorrows-Schools-Review-Report-13Dec2018.PDF
And what would you do then? Keep having schools competing? The good schools prospering and then rest sinking.
People need to start getting on board with the hubs, forcing schools to collaborate with with each other for the common good.
No to privatisation. Yes to public services.
They only succeeded by purging the schools of students that were likely to drag them down.
That the opposition to change consists of 40 out of 2500 schools, who have been able to cherry pick white wealthy students, and, Mike Hosking, says it all.
We have 3 great schools within 5kms
One offer Cambridge, the other 2 ncea, but one has an outdoors facility and sports centre. Between them they offer the flyers sports but each offers a uniqu sport league, baseball and rowing (no polo ☹️)
I see these 3 being complementary , others will see them in competition and stealing out of zone students . I suppose it is all how you perceive the world 😉
Rich white retired dairy farmers village. Need I say more.
No middle class traditional suburbia, thou my typos on the phone may have added some confusion some how: traditional sports became “flyers sports” and outdoor pursuits became facility. Perhaps my intended sarc/funny “polo” was missed by you !! But given the contect I can understand the comment 😉
So you support what is a privatisation and deregulation policy, where parents have no support,and schools can force parents to pay through the nose in donations and buy expensive devices
Are you for real and have you read the report all 148 pages ??
So you are happy for a 1 size fits all system, and we don’t even know if the 1 size will even work ?
And with a minister and a hand picked task force that has no links to success from what they are proposing, what outcomes we should expect ??
OUR CHILDREN DON’T DESERVE TO BE LAB RATS
No school forces parents – Perhaps you should go and experience the real world and not scare monger. And why do schools request donations and fund raise ??
Because the govt inadequately funds education. Our minister has been caught out pay below min wage to teachers and support staff. And when they are found out breaking the law –
“The rise in the minimum wage on 1 April will see a 7.3% increase for some education workers – but with no funding to pay the new rates.”
https://www.nzei.org.nz/NZEI/Media/Releases/2019/03/Urgent_funding_needed_to_lift_education_workers_to_legal_minimum_wage_next_week.aspx
Herodotus (pretentious ancient Greek pseudonym)
Stop boring us with your ‘one size fits all’ clichés and your faux concern.
I started teaching in 1970, and I laugh to scorn your silly pretence that Tomorrow’s Schools reforms brought anything much that should not now be rescinded.
Who are you to judge?
In Vino
I have taken time to read what was produced from this task force seen the video and the road show. I have concern, who are you to throw away cheap comments with the express intent of insulting comments regarding “faux concern”.
“.. laugh to scorn your silly pretence that Tomorrow’s Schools reforms brought anything much that should not now be rescinded.” Funny how a previous govt made radical changes to the education system that you find have no value. Yet this is what is currently happening, another govt is using our children as lab rats to shake up the education system, for what ?
I am yet to see any links from anyone supporting the changes with what outcomes we should expect.
Another link regarding commentary – I await some sound responses NOT insults. But that is the way of today 😤
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/111723690/terrifying-words-for-schools-the-ministrys-here-to-help
The whole premise of “competing” schools, run by “Managerial” principals, with a business type “board” of, mostly self selected “representatives”, has been an entirely predictable cluster fuck, right from the start.
Exacerbated recently by National dumping the well researched and consulted on, NZ curriculum, which was flexible and student centred, by an ideological return to producing cannon fodder, for employers.
Schools in well off areas, have been able to go around the narrow education National desired, with extra funding and help from their communities.
They have no desire, for equality of opportunity to return.
“Can’t have poor brown kids competing with our spoilt brats for the best jobs”.
Some are perfectly happy with a two tier education system.
Meanwhile. The system is, failing most children.
Not least because of all the current micro-management, bumf production and control, our “managerial model”, requires. Currently about two hours paperwork is required for every hour of contact time.
Then, there is actually finding time for lesson planning, teaching and helping the many left behind.
Well said, KJT.
I could add a lot more of my own sour feelings about the crassly stupid ‘reforms’ made to our education system under what is now ‘Yesterday’s Schools’, but the thread is old, unlikely to be read, and I think Herodotus a determined right-wing ideologue anyway.
The national permaculture hui begins today in Riverton, with a powhiri in the big Mongolian yurt followed by afternoon tea in the tunnelhouse wharekai. The 150 or so attendees will then weave their way through the forest garden, back to the yurt for the first of the key note talks, this one from me, talking about the history of the area and our garden, surrounding orchards, growing community and projects. Over the next 3 days, we’ll hear from all manner of interesting permaculturalists, Nandor Tanczos is speaking tomorrow, on topics as wide as imaginable; we’ll enjoy bonfires each night, a hangi on Saturday and the delicious food from the talented Green Cuisine crew, serving from their food van on our driveway. We’ve as many musicians as you could ever hope for, enough Jacks and Jills of all trades to cope with any technical hitch, enough fruit on the trees; red-fleshed peaches in particular and more apple varieties than you could name. Our bakers have made and stored treats galore; and this is all I have time to write, as the house is stirring and we’ll be in full-on mode shortly; there are preparations to make; Hollie’s running a Country Mouse market and there are hazels and acorns to polish 🙂
I’ll report back on Sunday, in How to get there and hopefully have something to say on that topic in real-time.
honestly, i wish i could be there. Maybe next year? (hopeful much?)
Go well Robert. And well done getting all that organised!
Gee, that sounds heavenly!
I will look forward to that Robert. You sound so upbeat and happy. Cheers
Sounds superb Robert. Will the hui be at the same venue next year.
Sounds like a good model of where we might be in a decade or so when energy problems and global warming problems force us all to becoming much more self sufficient. Do we really need exotic foods and goods to be imported, and do we need to depend on vast numbers of tourists?
Sounds great Robert.
I concur. Thanks ianmac. So much lost in this crazy world of consumerism, materialism and commercial tourism.
All the best Robert. Sounds like an interesting day.
That does sound wonderful.
Enjoyable to read the updates leading into the hui…
Kia ora, all. Just a quick update on a matter raised earlier in the week. Yesterday, I went to a WINZ office to act as support for someone who found themselves needing urgent financial help.
A couple of Standarnistas gave me some tips and advice on what to ask for and I’m pleased to report that the staff at the WINZ office were helpful, understanding and empathetic. We will meet again early next week to provide some more paperwork, which will confirm the total entitlements, but in the meantime, accommodation supplement is already OK’d and it has been indicated that Temporary Additional Support will likely be granted.
This is a significant matter for the person I represented, who has been left with no income for over a month due to a weakness in the ACC system.
So, thank you to those who pointed me in the right direction. It might have only been a few words on a blog, but you’ve made a huge difference to a young man in a desperate situation.
That’s really good, TRP.
Same to those who gave tips for navigating winz…
Knowing the in’s and out’s is crucial to getting good outcomes…
fantastic news. Keep fighting the good fight!
TRP, I’m glad he had someone like you to help him. You are right that the service gaps of weeks to change over can be traumatic to someone already stressed. Pleased to hear there was a helpful attitude at WINZ.
Wonder if there has been a real change of Heart at WINZ because your current contact sounds reasonable. If so it makes you wonder what made WINZ previously sound so threatening. Was it really a deliberate policy from previous Government to make it as hard as possible?
The Nats certainly enabled a nasty culture to fester in WINZ and ACC. Always worth remembering that Paula Benefit publicly bullied and humiliated a couple of beneficiaries who stood up to her. If the boss is an unrepentant bully, it gives the green light for poor behaviour from all staff. Happily, I’ve got the feeling that the new culture of kindness has taken root in at least one WINZ branch.
ACC needs a top down overhaul. It’s not focused on getting people well again just it’s numbers using case workers dishing out ‘youre on your own sweetie ‘ type advice.
The DHB’S also. Watching clinicians wait for Windows 7 to go through the motions in 2019 is a sign they’re way off the pace. They are visibly frustrated by it and MS stopped mainstream support 4 years ago…….Tick tick tick
I think maybe a culture change is underway.
I was speaking to someone last weekend who has had to give up work to be a full time carer for her son who has been diagnosed with cancer and she was treated with respect. The WINZ meeting was friendly and she was not put through hoops like she was expecting.
Long may this continue.
So the silly gun lobby cry… “wah wah, all this ban does is make criminals of law-abiding people and responsible gun-owners, and has no effect on actual criminals”
Is it not apparent to them that the mosque-murderer was a “law-abiding person and responsible gun-owner” ?
The argument is a total nonsense.
Do gun lobby people ever think through things?
If only there was a pithy phrase that covered the approach of the gun lobby. Something like shoot first, don’t ask awkward questions later.
We have this gun lobby not identifying the target correctly and firing shots at shadows and movement instead. And they will end up shooting their mates.
The NRA talking points are being repeated hard core on Facebook these days.
Oh Soimon ! The gift that just keeps on giving. Please Nats FFS don’t change him.
Although it does sound like his staff are equally as stupid as he.
It’s called the Peter principle. Peter and hulls 1969 book intended as satire.
Maduro’s kangaroo court is working with his fake parliament to remove Guaido’s civil rights. The practical exercise of stalinism as state policy is meant to signal that no dissent will be tolerated, and democracy is only good when preached – bad when practiced. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47799263
“Why was his immunity lifted? Under the Venezuelan constitution, lawmakers cannot be arrested or put on trial unless they are stripped of their parliamentary immunity first. On Monday, the Supreme Court asked the National Constituent Assembly to end Mr Guaidó’s immunity because he defied a travel ban the Supreme Court had imposed on him.”
Freedom of movement is a civil right in a democracy. To a stalinist, it is intolerable. And it is absolutely essential to strip legislators of their legal protection!
“Why is this move controversial? According to article 200 of the Venezuelan constitution, the Supreme Court has the power to order the arrest or prosecution of a lawmaker “subject to authorisation in advance from the National Assembly”.”
Will leftist commentators onsite here once again retreat into denial or perform backflips & other mental contortions to evade the moral point? I await their performance with eager anticipation…
Dennis, you can do better than this. Straight from the BBC I see…
You care more about the rights of one instigator than the people or the democracy of Venezuela! Says a lot…
First of all, the elections in Venezuela are probably better run than the ones in the United States, the idea that Maduro has no legitimacy as leader is a straight propaganda lie.
Secondly, if David Seymour declared himself prime minster tomorrow, incited gun owners and farmers and ACToids to riot, destroy property and encouraged foreign agent provocateurs to cripple the elctricity system and fire on the police and agitated for his big business mates to launch a capital strike to cripple the economy I am pretty sure he would be facing arraignment and a treason trial a lot quicker than Guaido will.
Thirdly, his human rights are not – yet – being violated. All that is happening is via a legal process his immunity to prosecution is being removed. Given that Guaido has basically committed treason, that seems fair enough to me.
Exactly. Well said.
The propaganda war has been in full swing for years and won’t let up until Abrams and his like achieve their goal of regime change. This time it’s a little different. The other players on the periphery – Russia and China – are not going to let Venezuela slip away into the hands of the USA.
Guido is part of a group that tried an armed insurrection against an elected Government.
Try conspiring to overthrow our Government by force, and see how long you stay out of jail.
This is the guido who’s conspiring with a forn par to bring down an elected government is it franky? Parfle crtique there praxisman, parfle.
Dennis. You have imbibed a near fatal dose of right wing Fox news.
I suggest a course of ingesting actual journalism.
If Maduro was a totalitarian dictator, the armed rebellion would have been all shot already. Even here Guido, and his violent coup supporting mates, would be in jail. How many coup attempts against an elected Government are you allowed. If you are a US supporting, Fascist!
Actually, I don’t watch Fox. Not to say that I wouldn’t, if it became free to air here, for the entertainment value.
As regards journalism, the only type of relevance would be investigative, but media owners have disposed of that in the new millennium. That’s why I had to do it myself, to expose the suppression of democracy in Venezuela, and publish the facts here several months ago.
I agree that Maduro is being careful not to go full Stalinism as yet. Happy to give him credit for that. Equally, there is no coup happening so far. Other countries in the region refer to Maduro’s “self-coup” and I published the quote for that back then too. I oppose any unilateral intervention by the US.
Total bullshit.
Just blown what remaining credibility you had.
Supporting the return of fascist, Banana republic, in South America.
Don’t be silly. Nuanced view of complex situations aren’t as difficult as you seem to think! I don’t like Maduro’s class warfare agenda. If the middle class can do peaceful coexistence with the working class in other countries, why not in Venezuela too?
I don’t believe US control needs to be imposed. I’ve opposed US foreign policy since the Vietnam War era, and specifically that banana-republic part since I learnt about it in the mid-80s. I believe their oil money ought to be distributed to all Venezuelan people – not captured by corporations or Maduro’s stalinists.
Loaded bs like “Stalinist”, now. I suppose at least your propaganda is subtle, as well as ignorant.
I am ready to think, from observation, and reading, that Maduro is struggling with running the country.
But the opposition, and the USA, have thrown up every obstacle they can.
I certainly don’t think any of our politicians could do better.
The “class warfare”, it seems, stems from the other sides reluctance to give the poor, and coloured, a share.
Nowhere near as bad as the Trump republicans, however.
Should the West invade the USA, and change the Government?
Give franky credit, he hasn’t gone full franco yet, in praxis.
He is learning.
Technology trends in farming…
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/03/future-farms-agritech-innovations-to-feed-a-changing-planet/
This would fit with Robert’s comment @ 2.
Given that many of the things talked about go off in a very different direction to the values and methods in Robert’s post, I kinda figured it would be derailing or even trolling to put it as a reply there.
The thing is we dont gave a food shortage. If the food grown wasn’t wasted and people only ate the amount required to stay healthy and we found a way for poorer nations to buy the excess created it would be solved tomorrow.
In a world that’s on its way to 10 or 11 billion people, any surplus we might create from reducing waste and distribution inefficiency is going to disappear really quickly. That’s even before climate change and soil depletion start seriously reducing potential yields. And before considering the way most people start overconsuming food when it becomes easy to do so, in a rush to emulate the worst of porky westerners.
Someone posted the latest projection here a few months back. It supported the prognosis published by Fred Pearce a few years ago in Peoplequake, that global population is likely to top out at 9.5 billion then subside due to demographic trends.
So unless you have a contradictory source, looks like non-replacement is now becoming so prevalent in so many different countries as to cancel out the third world boom effect…
The UN projection from 2017 says 9.8 billion by 2050 then 11 billion by 2100
https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2017.html
However:
Given what climate change is going to do most of those countries, I’m guessing those projections will end up being high. I suspect there’s going to be a shitload of suffering creating that difference between projection and actual.
Four horsemen? Even putting that effect to one side, subsidence of population due to culture change, due to economic lifting of the third world out of the poverty trap, could be understated currently.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/06/22/the-problematic-assumption-in-the-uns-9-8-billion-people-projection/#325372cb3291
I think Pearce & others are using this cascade effect as rationale for their rosier picture of the future. Upside of globalisation…
Getting back to the starting point of this thread, even if we didn’t have population growth worries, we’d still have a lot of incentive to increase agricultural productivity by whatever means we can, including technological. To get more output from less input and smaller footprint.
Maybe so foods that now are occasional luxuries become more frequent. Maybe further reduce the numbers of us suffering hunger and malnutrition. Maybe we can stop destroying what few wild places remain, and maybe, just maybe, even start rewilding some areas currently used for agriculture.
With regard to the current or recent huuhaa in Parliament I would point out that Guns do not kill people but the humans pulling the trigger or careless handling.
It is easy to ban guns but what is being done about and for the human element in the problem?
jcuknz it is a reasonable question. Severely restricting the sale of semi automatics etc will help as the countries (such as japan) with the strictest guns laws have the less gun crime. It is a bit like the suicide rate. One of the only ways it has been significantly reduced was when we changed the house hold gas supply from toxic to benign. Did that deal with the issue of people feeling suicidal and wanting to end their life, of course not. That is the really tough bit. Same with stopping people who want to kill others or commit extremist crimes.
I listened to an interview on Radio NZ with a Professor Gill who has studied “lone wolf” terrorists. I have to say, the interviewer was very disappointing, but I followed up by reading some of his research.
The most helpful thing seems to be that these guys often tell people what they are going to do, or publicize it. Interestingly enough there is a case reported today of a right wing extremist who was going to stab a Labour MP and policewoman and was dobbed in by someone he talked to…………………..
“Guns do not kill people but the humans pulling the trigger ”
This argument has always been complete bollocks.
In evidence try this exercise without gun: make a trigger-pulling movement with your finger right now in front of your computer screen. What happened?
Look forward to replies
People with guns kill people, no matter how much the gun lobby repeats that BS. I hope the public at large are motivated enough to make a quick submission today. Every recommendation of the Thorp Report needs to be enacted. Now.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It is easy to ban guns but what is being done about and for the human element in the problem?
Well, you see, there are inherent problems in banning humans that should become obvious after even brief reflection on the subject.
One thing to be done is to take away their guns jockey.
OK. Weapons “don’t kill people, people do”.
Fine, then let’s legalise RPG’s, main battle tanks and cruise missiles, for citizen use.
After all they “don’t kill people, people do”.
I support the the Arms (Prohibited Firearms, Magazines, and Parts) Amendment Bill in its entirety.
… into the form on this page (scroll down to the bottom)
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/make-a-submission/document/52SCFE_SCF_BILL_86423/arms-prohibited-firearms-magazines-and-parts-amendment
This is how to make a submission in support of the Arms Bill
“The “emotional staffer” who National Leader Simon Bridges said was responsible for deleting a controversial petition on the party’s website is said to be in dispute with National.”
Oh dear. Simon has upset one of his own. Lawyers involved.
Another one?
“Stuff reported that the staffer, who has worked for National MPs in a number of different roles over the years, has retained Kensington Swan lawyer Linda Clark to represent their interests.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12219133
Sanders isn’t a Democrat. He’s never run for office in Vermont as a Democrat. But the Fox/Trump/NRA Axis of Evil is determined to make Sanders a Democrat because they think he’s the candidate Trump can most easily beat.
Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum will host a town hall with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders on April 15 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with a focus on the economy and jobs.
Why it matters: Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee barred Fox News from hosting any of its primary debates, after a New Yorker investigation shed light on the extent of the network’s ties to the Trump administration.
https://www.axios.com/2020-presidential-election-bernie-sanders-fox-news-town-hall-382d3b77-452b-4c5e-8073-672863350433.html
Are you claiming that Bernie was lying last month then, Joe?
He signed a statement that he was a member of the Democratic Party on 6 March this year.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-signs-dnc-loyalty-pledge-i-am-member-democratic-n979696
I wouldn’t have thought that a town hall meeting with one candidate present could be considered to be a party debate of course.
He’s never lifted a finger to fund raise for the party but because he needs access to their data, staff, and volunteer base, he had to join and pledge allegiance.
Dude’s a carpetbagger.
Dude’s got principles
Principles like supporting a plan to ship his state’s nuclear nuclear waste across the continent to be dumped in a poor, mostly Latino community?
Or, principles like being the 2016 cycle’s top senatorial recipient of defence industry money?
You’re not wrong. Such apalling principles – grind Bernie into the dust.
“As an Independent member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Vermont, Sanders was one of 23 co-sponsors of House Resolution 629, which called for Congress to give its consent to the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact — an agreement between the states of Texas, Maine, and Vermont.
Speaking on the floor of the house in October 1997, Sanders said he was in “strong support” of the resolution for environmental reasons, and stressed that he personally was opposed to the use of nuclear power, but that the waste it produces had to be disposed of as safely as possible.”
Congress passed the resolution comfortably by 305 votes to 117, as did the Senate, by 78 votes to 15.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bernie-sanders-sierra-blanca-nuclear-waste/
“Within that tab, we can click “All Senators.” Up top, receiving $420,000 from the defense industry, is Bernie Sanders. Then Ted Cruz. Both ran for president, so it’s not a surprise they received a lot of money. Sanders hung on longer than Cruz. And, notably, their main rivals (Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, respectively) were not in Congress, so they would not be listed here even if they had received more. Instead, we go to the “Recipients” tab and see Clinton received over $1 million from the defense industry; Trump received about $319,000.”
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/politics/finance-lobbying/writing-campaign-finance-tip-sheet-tools-examples/
““I just feel he’s honest, he’s straightforward, dependable, trustworthy and doesn’t change his tune to get votes,” said Connie Whalley, a nurse practitioner who left her job three years ago to spend more time with her family.
The 66-year-old Topanga resident has contributed $622 to Sanders’ campaign in 22 separate donations because she was impressed by his calls for a $15 minimum wage, tuition-free public college, campaign-finance reform and most of all, single-payer healthcare.
“I honestly believe everyone has the right to free healthcare and… I just think it is unspeakable we have insurance companies that are making profits off people’s health,” she said.
Not surprisingly, Sanders gets very little money — 2% of his overall haul — from Wall Street, which he frequently criticizes as “corrupt” and responsible for creating a “rigged economy.””
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-pol-sanders-donors/
NZ Journos jailed
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/04/04/521015/newsroom-journalists-detained-in-fiji
Newsroom co-editor Mark Jennings, investigations editor Melanie Reid and cameraman Hayden Aull are in a holding room at the Totogo police station after developer Freesoul Real Estate accused them of criminal trespass. While they have not been charged, they were locked up ahead of likely police interviews this morning.
Fiji…..No surprises there. Police are extension of that abhorrent govt that seems to do as it pleases.
Well, if our lot go ahead with the laws Andrew Little seems to be planning I imagine there will be a few journalists ending up in jail here as well.
Almost anything that describes the perpetrator of a crime would seem to qualify.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/111661809/hate-crime-law-review-fasttracked-following-christchurch-mosque-shootings
Mind you I am tempted to suggest it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch that the schmucks in the MSM.
Difficulties for the poor in the USA – similar here?
Oct 15 2015
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/if-the-us-government-treated-poor-people-as-well-as-it-treats-banks/410614/
One of the great ironies in modern America is that the less money you have, the more you pay to use it. The country’s “unbanked” must pay high fees to fringe banks to turn their paychecks into cash, pay their monthly bills, or send money to a spouse or a child.
The unbanked pay much of their income—up to 10 percent—just to use their money. For these families, the total price of simple financial services each month is more than they spend on food. Indeed, it is very expensive to be poor.
This problem, however, reaches well beyond those traditionally considered poor. More than 70 percent of Americans consider themselves “middle class,” yet anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of the population must rely on check cashing or payday lending services.
Bill Maher’s take on socialism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6e4mOit0Rc
There seems to be some misunderstanding and misapplication of the term Postmodernism. In this video, the tension between identity politics and the work of postmodern theorists is addressed.
Yeah, was worth a listen. Too academic for most punters, I suspect. Got better around 12 mins in. Ivory-tower syndrome is a terrible affliction which imposes a crippling handicap on the intellect. No reference to shapeshifters (that would require both lateral-thinking and reference to the big-picture context outside acadaemia).
Even worse, no acknowledgement of those with multiple personalities. Presumably, the speaker believes discriminating against that minority is cool. I think those with multiple identities deserve inclusion, not exclusion. I learnt much about human nature from reading several dozen books about them. Cohabitation of a human body by a crowd of identities is a thing. Denial of this part of life is bad.
Would you look at this! This video covers that:
Given continued misunderstanding of what postmodern theory is even about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmYegIGhwtc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4hS5NSzPxw
Good result for a rotten commentary.
“Newstalk ZB broadcaster Heather du Plessis-Allan has been censured over comments made on air last September.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) found comments made by du Plessis-Allan, referring to Pacific Islands as “leeches”, breached broadcasting standards.
The BSA ordered broadcaster NZME Radio to pay $3000 in costs to the Crown and also broadcast a statement during du Plessis-Allan’s show summarising the decision.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12219199
Good!
That sort of commentary has no place in this country, or any other, for that matter.
$3000 will not discourage red neck radio zb from repeating it if it gets them audience points to upsell ads.
Over 6 months between offence and wet busticket slap. The beancounters will advise on its value for money.
Crosby Textor have their grubby little hands over everything don’t they. Not content with stuffing up NZ social justice for over a decade promoting the right wing agenda of Key and co, they have now been found out to be behind a multitude of pro-leave adverts directed at chosen Facebook uses to pressure MP’s on voting to leave. Oh and they are also buttering up the same facebook users to accepting dipstick in chief Boris as PM! Their mission (as was exhibited by Key) is to leave the world as f**ked up as possible – including the promotion of burning more coal.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/03/grassroots-facebook-brexit-ads-secretly-run-by-staff-of-lynton-crosby-firm
my bold
Astroturfer in chief.
https://twitter.com/DavidLammy/status/1113346710816862208
Nobody coulda seen this one coming: maybe Mueller’s report was a teensy tiny bit not quite so positive for Agent Orange as Barr’s
summaryletter made it out to be.https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/03/politics/mueller-investigators-report-worse-for-trump/index.html
I liked this early response from Devin Nunes:
That’s what you do with exonerating documents right?
As the chief investigator, does not Mueller have a right to speak up if his report is not being accurately summarised to the American people?
AFAIK, no. He was commissioned to investigate and report to the DOJ, which would then decide what to do with it from there. If he did publicly talk about it, he would be breaking the same general protocols and norms Comey broke by talking about her e-mails, let alone possibly breaking laws buried in the statutes that allowed his Special Counsel investigation to be set up.
Well, all I can say is: what a f****d up country America is. It means a corrupt president and his equally corrupt administration lackeys can lie to the people with total impunity and never be brought to account. It beggars belief!
Yeah. Some of it goes all the way back to the founding.
Some of the justification for the Electoral College rather than directly electing the prez was so the electors would be able to examine the character and fitness for office of the leading candidate. If the popular vote barfed up some loser grifter, they would exercise their better judgement to overrule the popular vote and choose someone who actually was suitable. It was supposed to be a line of defense against someone like Don Drumpfeone becoming prez. Look up Federalist 68 if you’re interested. Of course, the outcome we’ve got now is the Electoral College overruled the good judgement of the popular vote and gave us the conman.
The possibility of a corrupt prez corrupting the legislative and judicial branches did occur to the founders, and some of the provisions are clearly attempts to guard against that. Which have proven inadequate to prevent the spinal dissolution and craven capitulation of almost all the other Repugs.
‘
Fifty counts of murder and 34 counts of attempted murder.
No terrorism charges
Apparently only Maori and brown people can be terrorists.
Hi Jenny I had understood that they weren’t using the charge of terrorism, because it is largely untested and they don’t want to risk this fucker getting off on a technicality. That what I heard, but I could be wrong
The esteemed and learned Professor Geddis discusses pros and cons of terrorism and murder charges over at https://www.pundit.co.nz . Sorry you’ll have to scroll down to find it; the URL contains the fuckwit’s name so linking directly to the page would send this comment straight to trash here.
The campaign not to name the terrorist, (who apparently is not a terrorist according to the police prosecution), was also played out in Norway during the trial of the fascist mass murderer Andre Brevik. TV One tonight, said in Norway this policy had to be dropped. “He is not Voldemort” said one Norwegian woman interviewed. The campaign not to refer to the Brevik by name only created and air of mystique around Brevik and encouraged like minded extremists to invent and then circulate conspiracy theories.
Brenten Terent is no supernatural being. where the mere spoken (or written), utterance of his name brings an evil curse. We need to fully understand what made him into what he is.
This cannot happen under a blanket of secrecy, and secret dread to speak his name. Conspiracy thrives in the shadows.
As the saying goes ‘Sunlight is the best disinfectant, electric light is the best policeman’
In Norway they found it was better to forensically dissect and publicly demolish Brevik’s manifesto, than censor it.
Terrent like Brevik sees himself as a hero.
Benten Terent is a miserable little fascist terrorist. He must be firmly identified as such by our authorities. He and his (admirers) need to be made to own this label of shame, in court.
I don’t believe for one minute the argument that such charges would allow Torrent to get off on a technicality.
The police had no trouble at all charging Tama Iti under the Suppression Of Terrorism Act. Despite the fact that Iti had not killed anyone, or was even involved in plotting to kill anyone.
If the charge of terrorist cannot be made to stick to someone like B****** T***** who plotted and then executed the murder of 50 innocent people to further his white Supremacist political views, then there is something very wrong at the heart of the New Zealand Suppression Of Terrorism Act.
As well as being charged with murder and attempted murder BT* needs to be charged as the terrorist he is.
*See you have got me doing it.
Am I to take any message from your misspelling of the Norwegian fuckwit’s first name?
Although I’m fine with referring to the fuckwit as the fuckwit, I actually had nothing to do with this site’s decision to make the fuckwit’s real name a direct line to the trash folder, to be retrieved only if a mod happens to look there and decides it’s worth fishing out.
In any case, it’s not dread or an attempt to toss him down the memory hole that’s the motivation for minimising the use of his name. It’s just denying him the personal recognition that was likely a partial motivation for his fuckwittery.
As for whether the fuckwit’s a terrorist or not, Geddis’ piece explains why there’s probably no legal upside to charging him under the terrorism laws. That those terrorism laws were grievously misused and shown to be badly flawed the one time they actually were used, and are useless in this current case where we have actual terrorism, might actually prompt a clean-up of those laws. Or not.
The delay in bringing charges under the Suppression of Terrorism Act is a studied insult to the victims and their families.
We all know, if the situation had been reversed the police would not have wasted one second in bringing a charge of terrorism.
The police fell over themselves to bring such charges against Tama Iti.
I mean what level of atrocity must be committed against innocent Muslims in this country before we consider it a terrorist act?
Why are we Umm-ing and Ah-ing about it.
If Muslims weren’t the victims we wouldn’t even be debating.
If the situation had been reversed and the terrorist had a Arabic or Asian, or Maori name. To make certain that we knew his ethnicity, to demonise a whole race or culture or religion, his name would be on every news feed.
This guy has a regular European name.
Let’s suppress it.
Let’s distance ourselves from it.
Let’s deny that he is one of us. That he is a product of our culture, and of our race and yes even of our religion.
This guy didn’t drop from outer space.
Acting like he did, covers for the fact that he is a product of our post colonial society.
No matter how much we try to distance ourselves from him.
He is us.
The British Empire, The US global hegemon, white supremacy, global policeman, gun culture, justified violence, the rightful avenger, cultural genocide, actual genocide, unending war, war, war war.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/93425398/education-minister-to-shut-down-guns-in-schools-after-army-gave-rifles-to-children
No meaning in the misspelling of Anders Brevik’s first name. I didn’t look up the exact spelling. However, his surname is burned into the collective conscience as a synonym for fascist hate. As this terrorists name should be.
I read on one news outlet it was 38 counts of attempted murder.
Stuffed sez 39. With other charges still being considered.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/111805695/further-murder-charges-for-man-arrested-over-terror-attack
I’m picking that they are going to offer him a deal, in which he pleads guilty to 40 counts of murder in return for no terror charges being laid (and possibly life without parole off the table).
[the terrorist] should be charged as a terrorist
Way to go to infantilise the debate
Don’t get me wrong. I admire the Prime Minister’s personal decision, for her to not personally say his name. It was dignified and apt as fitting our premier, and leading citizen.
But it is not writ.
Our Premier is not Kim Jong Un, her personal preference should not be imposed or self imposed on us.
If Kim Jong Un started wearing miss-matched socks tomorrow the whole nation would be wearing miss-matched socks the next day.
While I admire the Prime Minister’s stand.
What we must avoid is the personality cult. What may be right for her, may not be right for us.
When the Prime Minister of New Zealand says, “the terrorist” just by her position we know who she means.
But for the rest of us it is not so clear, there have been so many terrorists. Saying the “the terrorist” elevates this terrorist to a special rank.