There's a dark cloud hanging over the government, according to the AM newsreader. Gosh, I wonder who put it there!
Luxon’s explaining his poll boost as due to cost of living increases. Govt spending on “middle management & bureaucrats & consultants”. Didn’t say he would target those three groups for emasculation though…
I've been looking through the US media about the Supreme Court and the abortion issue.
The state apparently will have the power to dictate to women about their bodies. Conservative people seemingly love that.
Not so long back, a lot of people, including conservatives I presume, were very upset about the idea of the state imposing on what they should do with their bodies. When mandates to wear masks were mooted and introduced, "my body, my choice" became a mantra.
Thank you for discussing this Peter (though I have to assume it was a topic on yesterday's OM, I am a bit short on time these days). I haven't yet read the original Politico piece which published the leaked draft, but this Guardian piece has been useful. Got to agree with Sanders on this one!
Politico said it received a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the court’s proceedings in the Mississippi case. The draft opinion runs 98 pages, including a 31-page appendix of historical state abortion laws, and includes 118 footnotes.
The supreme court declined to confirm what would be the worst security breach in its history – regarding one of its most consequential rulings in decades that is sure to enflame America’s deep political divisions. After the Politico story broke, footage posted to social media showed a crowd of protesters gathering outside the supreme court late on Monday night, waving signs and chanting “my body, my choice.”…
“This decision is a direct assault on the dignity, rights, & lives of women, not to mention decades of settled law,” said the former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. “It will kill and subjugate women even as a vast majority of Americans think abortion should be legal. What an utter disgrace.”
Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted the the news showed “Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW”.
This will only affect birthing bodies, and if you are not a birthing body it will not affect you. 🙂
Well it will affect birthing bodies who would rather not do the birthing thing, but then who cares about these bodies…..really?
Also the democrats could codify RvsW into law, bugger the filibuster, but then they won’t let go of the filibuster, so rather then make this ‘law’ law, they will use it to grandstand, cry woe betide the bodies we can not define as anything, and please send us money much money for the mid term elections.
Never mind the last person appointed to the supreme court could not define a birthing body as a thing because they are not a biologist. Maybe instead of hiring supreme court justices they should hire biologists, they would then make more sense.
thought of you this morning when I saw this tweet (2nd one)
Idea: let's just call everyone "men," as in the older English for "human." Then to designate the men with wombs when clarification is required, we can designate them specifically as "womb men," or something similar. It's a flawless system, can't believe nobody's thought of it b4
Deciding if or when to become a parent is one of the most personal, life-changing decisions. Access to abortion & reproductive care is a decision we must trust each person to make based on what’s best for their health & their future.
— Rep. Francesca Hong 홍윤정 (@StateRepHong) May 3, 2022
Why would you think that? that is the same left that nominated a person to the US Supreme Court as the 'first black woman' who then could not define what a “woman” was as that nominated cervix haver was not a biologist.
At some stage one must come to the conclusion that the left and the right are working hand in hand to dismantle womens rights and to redefine just who is a woman.
And the birthing bodies are not woman and i would assume in the eyes of many left and right are not even human. Just a thing that makes babies, sandwiches and which is nice to have around for ‘sex’.
A person trying to be on the US Supreme Court as the 'first black woman' defining what a “woman” was would have been pilloried, sneered at and treated with absolute contempt.
So she said what she said (or didn't say) and was attacked, pilloried, sneered at and treated with absolute contempt.
What should she have said to Ted Cruz when he asked the questio? "Fuck off you low-life wanker."
For that she would have been attacked, pilloried, sneered at and treated with absolute contempt. And everyone would have got on and voted as they eventually did. (Although some Republicans may have changed to vote for Jackson for boldly and accurately describing Cruz.
She could have said to much laughter ( and of that i am actually sure) something like this:
I am the first black 'woman' nominee to the Supreme court and last i checked i was / still am a 'woman', and also i am black.
or this
The President and the Democratic Party who support my nomination seem to believe that i am a woman. 🙂
Anything but ' I don't know'. I guess the biologist part was to be the fun part but that did not work.
So yeah, the left can't, won't define woman because they are scared of men who identify as 'woman' (what ever that means considering that we can't define the word anymore) or the lobby that pulls the TWAW and thus will lose. You can not defend what you can't name, and you can not cry 'sex based rights' if you want to pretend that sex is not important and that only an imagined gender needs to be promoted/respected/given privileges too.
And this Supreme Court is now seated with people who are there to abolish womans right and with a few people who don't know what women are in the first place. And this is by the choices of both parties.
Yeah, i guess the men in the US will have to get used to having many more children, or to wear condoms, or get vasectomies, or shoot in the air in order to prevent pregnancy, oh and abstinece of course that too will prevent unwanted children. Or find partners for sex that are not birthing bodies.
It is not as if the the birthing bodies are going to be the ones deciding how many times that body is gonna give birth to.
Good to see you sticking up for a women, who was the first black Supreme Court Judge. Really it is.
but for us ordinary women and the likes of the women in Speak Up for Women, we face abuse and the ridiculous smear that we are bigots and transphobes. Some of us have even been cancelled from Pride (lesbians I am talking about here) and even had the police called on them by the Pride organisers.
I know it is hard for women in this climate to speak up for biological reality. Some of us have the courage of our convictions. Given the new Supreme Court judge was going to be pilloried anyway, she had some choices about what she would be pilloried about.
re the tweet, all she had to do was say women and non binary people. Birthing bodies is demeaning and dehumanising, there’s just no way around objectifying women like that
But that is not what a birthing body wants, they do not want to birth – they want an abortion- which makes them 'non-birthing' bodies aka men, and as a result men gets to decide on abortions
And to continue the institutional confusion of sex and gender identity, and the contortions some will go to in an attempt to avoid using the word women to mean… women.:
Students of midwifery at Edinburgh Napier University are being taught that they may need to assist a ‘birthing person’ who has male genitalia and a prostate gland.
A module guide about providing safe care in childbirth told students, “It is important to note that while most times the birthing person will have female genitalia, you may be caring for a pregnant or birthing person who is transitioning from male to female and may still have external male genitalia”.
It went on, “You need to be familiar with the catheterisation procedure for both female and male anatomy… Male persons should be warned of discomfort as the deflated balloon passes through the prostate gland”. It also talks about “Ensuring the scrotal area is covered”.
Since the story was first published by Reduxx, the guide has been edited. Now, however, it is even more confusing as it suggests that midwives may be caring for biological females who have a penis.
Several experts have criticised the university, describing this course material as ‘remarkably ignorant’ and ‘dangerous’.
Kat Barber, the co-founder of the Sex Not Gender Nurses and Midwives group told The Telegraph, “This policy reads to me as though it is inclusive to the point of nonsense…What's more concerning is that the students have had to take to journalism to ask questions about it, which tells me a lot about the state that our nursing and midwifery institutions are in, who should be able to ask questions”.
You could not make this stuff up – could you? See the recently released paper on Perinatal Mental Health from the Helen Clark Foundation. I know that kissing up to Gender Ideology is now a requirement for obtaining any sort of public or private $$$$ – but this paper indulges in some extraordinary linguistic contortions to avoid using the heretical word "woman" in any sort of discussion about actually having babies.
The state apparently will have the power to dictate to women about their bodies.
You might wish to explain what the problem is with the State having so much power. In New Zealand, the State introduced vaccine mandates. Experienced professionals lost their jobs as a result of declining the vaccine. The right to an abortion, like the right to speak freely, isn’t absolute.
You could. But ties could also be considered useless, and yet people wear them still.
I had the experience of being in a waiting room at hospital with a woman loudly declaring she didn't need a mask. She was in a waiting room with people undergoing chemotherapy. No concern for elevating their already high anxiety and stress levels by adding another possible risk factor to their health. No consideration of the fact that even a normal cold or infection may be hindered from transmission.
You have no idea of the health or immunity of others in the hospital environment by looking at them. They are often vulnerable to any infection – not just Covid.
If you think of it as a courtesy, then perhaps you will not have to justify it to yourself in such black and white terms. A hospital appointment is not necessarily a long time to wear a mask in most cases.
An anti-vaxx loon's un-reviewed pre-print concluded that a prior study was flawed.
FIFY.
/
Academics from large British universities have put their names to an “extremely irresponsible” document that claims the spike in second wave deaths may have been caused by vaccines.
[…]
The report, described as “ridiculous” and “bizarre” by other senior scientists, is produced by Hart, a lockdown-sceptic group whose members include four academics at Queen Mary University of London, and three from the University of Nottingham.
Among the 41 academics named in its foreword, several of whom subsequently promoted it on social media, are Ellen Townsend, professor of psychology at Nottingham University, and the group’s spokeswoman, Marilyn James, professor of health economics at the University of Nottingham, and Norman Fenton, professor of risk information management, Queen Mary University of London.
Strictly speaking – vaccine mandates did not affect people's bodies – nobody was absolutely required to have a vaccine or not have one. In certain occupations it would affect your livelihood (not your body) if you didn't have one – because you were deemed an unacceptable risk to others. So I find the comparison with pregnancy & childbirth a bit unserious or frivolous.
You are correct though that the right to an abortion is not unlimited – just about everyone recognises that at some point the rights of the foetus come into play. The more conservatively this point is set by the law, then the greater the obligation of the state to help women avoid ending up in terrible situations, However, what we observe in reality is that strict the abortion laws are usually accompanied by minimal social support – and we can interpret this particularly vicious combination only as a deliberate form of enslavement and subordination.
nobody was absolutely required to have a vaccine or not have one.
To continue in their employment, some workers were required to be vaccinated. Some workers were terminated because they refused to do so. Women who want an abortion don’t have an absolute right to an abortion. Nevertheless, those wanting an abortion will likely be able to get one.
“it would affect your livelihood (not your body)“
But for some it did affect their body. The medical profession and ACC can attest to that.
The state apparently will have the power to dictate to women about their bodies.
The state already has that power, which is why we have abortion laws in the first place. If women had sovereignty over their own bodies, abortion would be like any other medical procedure not needing special legislation.
Women's rights are still up for debate and we are a long way from them being safe.
Not all medical interventions/procedures are equal. Abortion is not like a wisdom tooth extraction. Even a flu shot requires filling out and signing a consent form. Some people (F & M) consider abortion a life-or-death decision and if one considers for a moment the hoops & hurdles for another life-or-death decision such as medically-assisted euthanasia one can fairly easily see that abortion is and cannot be simply (!) viewed as a decision by the woman alone, i.e. strictly and purely as a woman’s sovereignty over her own body.
Another issue is the quality of life, of both the child and the mother; the latter usually has the responsibility of primary caregiver. These are definitely secondary arguments, but a neoliberal (and utilitarian) argument may include QUALYs too (although not necessarily viewing life as a disease!).
I do have fairly close-up experience with abortion and suffice to say it is complex and an emotional rollercoaster – the emotional burden (scars) of either decision (to abort or not to abort) can last a lifetime and negatively affect multiple people.
John Herlihy was re-elected for a third term as president of the Republic of Whangamōmona (population 126) in 2021.
The BBC article features Whangamōmona’s Republic day, which takes place every other January after a ‘revolt’ in November 1989 over Government boundary changes that riled locals up enough to declare themselves independent… Herlihy said residents love sharing a beer with new tourists. The Whangamōmona hotel and bar can sleepup to 34 people and its lodge can host up to10.
Republicans hot to trot ought to put it on their calendar: "the next Republic day, which is set for January 2023." Pre-book!
Vicki Pratt, who owns the Whangamōmona Hotel with her husband, Richard, said the BBC article would advertise the republic at a scale that money couldn’t buy to an audience outside New Zealand.
The BBC publicity is the biggest boost for the area since travel authority Lonely Planet named Taranaki as the second-best region in the world to visit in 2017.
So what is the lead story and most of Daily Review (haven't looked at yesterday's OM yet) on TS about? Poll results. It's more than a year to the general election, and the area where political action is likely to be effective this year will be the local body elections. Polling about that, I would be interested in seeing,
The horse-race coverage of parliament's up and downs is a bit irrelevant and tedious – to me, at least.
Progress = tech + economy. That's a formula proven by history. However, the key driver is only evident in the tacit psychological sub-text – incentive structures. Inventors produce new tech when they get incentivised to do so. For example, the genesis of mass production, and the instance provided here:
In 1798 Congress authorized an extraordinary purchase of muskets from the inventor Eli Whitney, who was at the time struggling and in debt. Congress offered him an unprecedented contract to provide 10,000 muskets within twenty-eight months. This was at a time when the average production rate was one musket per worker per week.
Getting the muskets was only part of what Congress accomplished: this was a way to induce, and to finance, a mass-production industry for the United States. Whitney worked round the clock, developed America's first mass-production equipment, and put on a show for the congressmen. He brought a set of disassembled musket locks to Washington and invited congressmen to fit the pieces together themselves—showing that the age of standardized parts had arrived.
"The nascent American arms industry led where the rest of manufacturing followed," Perret concluded. "Far from being left behind by the Industrial Revolution the United States, in a single decade and thanks largely to one man, had suddenly burst into the front rank." America took this step not by waiting for it to occur but by deliberately promoting the desired result.
Call it a public/private partnership and you won't be wrong. But the key point is motivation to generate the required result. And the tech produced that result by design of a system: organised labour = info + materials + energy x time (process).
Should the govt get out of the way & let industry do it's thing? Hell no! The example given shows why not. All you'd get is bau – moronic neoliberalism. Instead, the positive alternative is intelligent design. Labour & National will have to break with tradition and recruit intelligent designers instead of morons. To make progress happen.
So looks like the Greens have done something interesting for a change:
Other changes to the constitution included adopting a te ao Māori organisational framework, and establishing a new kaunihera (council) and member assemblies to provide democratic input for internal decisions, while disestablishing the party's executive.
Points to the media headline you didn't see: Greens kill own governance structure! The Exec has maintained hegemony over the party for 30 years, since it replaced the Green Council. That group was democratically elected to do strategic guidance, and it established the Executive to do admin & governance.
Quite why the GC became defunct was never clear to me at the time – I was in charge of the rules process but most of the other activists were busy steering the Greens into the Alliance. I suspect the GC suffered from leftist destabilisation in consequence. Anyway, looks like a belated recognition of the lack has prompted a strategic reversal.
Since the Exec has been operating like a leftist cabal in recent years, alienation in the ranks seems to have produced a democratic rebellion. Good luck with that – control freaks are good at jumping horses in mid-ride so it could just rearrange the deckchairs.
Somewhere in a 1970’s issue of Craccum I recall reading a droll line about the ideal person according to intersectional theory was a one-legged, Maori, lesbian ditch-digger. Seems the Greens are well on their way to nirvana.
Plenty of stuff from early '70s Craccum in my archives, all rather high-brow! But could be that Muldoon's accession in '75 killed that culture & reduced the students to mumbling incoherence…
You mean intersectional theory? Wasn't around back then. Does seem somewhat intellectual though. I suspect an academic dreamt it up.
Or did you mean "a one-legged, Maori, lesbian ditch-digger"? Somewhat hypothetical, perhaps, but employing multi-dimensional categorisation as a nexus of identity politics for illustrative purposes does seem high-brow…
You're right to suggest that a person with one leg is disabled, and that noting the fact is merely common sense. Not high-brow in itself. It's the holistic usage of the example via postmodernism that seems cerebral.
Realistic inasmuch as the schism between the authentic Greens & the leftists that killed Values back then is still causing problems. The first bunch want to build consensus and the second bunch just wannabe partisans.
The Green Party constitution no longer requires a male co-leader, instead requiring one woman and one person of any gender, plus a requirement that one must be Māori.
The finer details of the review of the party's constitution are yet to be revealed after the changes were voted in by party members at a special meeting over the weekend… [deleted]
Personally I am not that keen on Shaw remaining as coleader. But I am not currently a GP member either. It seems that Davidson deserves a crack at being senior coleader before the 2026 (maybe 2027 if Labour gets a 4year term ammendment through). The 2017 debacle with Clendon (good riddance) & Graham (more of a loss) leaving the party before Turei stood down goes a long way to explaining the current gender imbalance in GP MPs.
Yes, the list rankings are technically influenced by gender and ethnicity (plus location – minimum 10% from Te Wai Pounamu from memory, which was mooted as requirement for coleader last year, but must have been too tricky to implement), but by far the biggest determinant of list ranking is who is currently an MP, with the public profile that brings, at the time of the vote.
I've cut out some of your long copypasta. Please don't make them so long, it's a hassle for scrollers esp on phones. Selected copy and pastes to support your points works better. ka pai the link.
The link was from RL above (@ 6.1), I was quoting from it mainly because they hadn't. I was going to trim and tie the quote to the comment more, but then my number got called in the waiting room and I pushed publish without properly proofreading. I have no idea what those grey slashes at the bottom of the comment are doing there. Also I omitted the age criteria in party list ranking; with some proportion having to be under 35, but can't recall the details off the top of my head.
My conclusion was going to be that the GP should ditch Shaw (with due recognition for his work these past 7 years) and get Tuiono in his place. Though I think I have said as much before, if not on this site, then elsewhere.
Scratching my head at your commentary. The changes you quote look entirely consistent with GP values, policy and direction around democracy. But we are working off very little information. Need to see the new constitution.
It would be helpful. If they intend to prove the operation is democratic, they will put it on the public part of their website. Don't hold your breathe.
I'm just being sceptical though. Wouldn't surprise me if they're motivated by a spirit of authenticity in configuring the new process. Perhaps some journo will attempt an in-depth description of these changes…
Political party constitutions get published on the Electoral Commission's website. I expect the GP one will be updated at some point. Democracy would be explaining that process to the public and giving a timeframe.
What a load of crap. If people don't like the Exec then they should get along to their province AGM and vote for a different Executive Networker, or even run for that office themselves.
(The only voting positions on the Green Party Executive are the Executive Networkers who are elected by and responsible to the Province. The Co-convenors of the Exec do not even get a vote. Any Exec Net can force a vote on any issue and the status quo stands unless a 75% vote can be achieved.)
I've been taking a break so not directly engaged at the moment, but i have been aware that these proposed changes have been going through the process. An email sent on Sunday said that they are "working on a publishable version of the final new constitution and will make that available as soon as it is ready." It says that there were some minor changes made at the SGM.
(The only voting members at an SGM or AGM are delegates from branches.)
it's a shame the party isn't front footing this and is leaving it to Hooton and the Herald to establish the narrative. Shaw's corridor statement yesterday nonetheless.
Winston's play to re-enter parliament as the spearhead of the Rebel Alliance:
Former deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says he will seek a judicial review of the decision to trespass him from Parliament.
"This is not about whether former Members of Parliament should be treated differently to others who were at the protest – they should not. This is about fairness, freedoms, democracy, and one law for all New Zealanders," he said in a statement. "It is my intention to seek a precedent on behalf of the hundreds of others who were unreasonably and therefore unlawfully trespassed for peacefully protesting."
"One of the big problems is that Parliament and politicians are seen as out of touch, elite, and aloof. To get a better understanding of the problem, in 2018 Parliament actually commissioned a Colmar Brunton survey into how the public feels about Parliament. The results were so bad they were buried.
Here’s what New Zealanders think of Parliament:
21% “feel a sense of ownership of Parliament”
16% “feel connected to Parliament”
13% “would speak highly of Parliament”
7% “would speak highly of MPs”
27% trusted Parliament, compared to 29% who expressed distrust, and 41% who declared trust in the “civil service”
60% “believe big business and vocal minorities are the ones who influence Parliament”
37% “feel there’s no point in trying to influence Parliament as nothing will change”
So sheeple have a balanced view of parliament: "27% trusted Parliament, compared to 29% who expressed distrust", and presumably the other 44% felt that the question made their head hurt so much they couldn't decide.
Over the course of the weeks of the protest, the site was visited by dozens, if not hundreds, of journalists, politicians, academics, public servants, and so forth. I was one of these – visiting as an academic researcher of politics and political commentator.
Like many others, I wasn’t there to support the protest in any way but to observe and try to understand what was occurring. In my case, I made it clear that I opposed the politics of those protesting.
To what extent Winston Peters was opposed to the protesters is less clear. But there has been no attempt for Speaker Mallard to explain why Peters is being legally banned from the place. Was he considered part of the protest? Or in some way encouraging it? We don’t know.
Could be Mallard's spies were secretly monitoring the heavyweight visitors to assess their stance. If Winston failed to assert his disapproval like Dr Bryce, they would have put a black mark alongside his name.
All this hooha about the trespass has failed to specify if Mallard's job description includes the power to do that. Perhaps his contract uses vague clauses (as if written by a lawyer seeking to create employment opportunities downstream) and Winston wants a day of judgment.
If not funded by the NHS, the cost of a phalloplasty performed in the UK is approximately £40,000-£70,000 (last updated July 2020).
And that is just for hte surgeries, no estimate on costs for all the jazz before surgery and after, and certainly no costs for the several after operations on vagina to keep it from closing up or liposuctions on the fake dick cause the leg material they took tends to grow fat cause females.
But yeah, someone should ask these dears how many carbon credits they are happy to waste on some fake genitals and hrt for boys to grow tits.
Well, at least the NHS is swimming in money, and so the high cost of not clinically necessary, and perhaps damaging cosmetic surgery, doesn't impact on the health and wellbeing of all British people.
"Clitoroplasty"? Don't make me laugh. The clitoris has thousands of nerve endings and a whole structure behind its "head". Sewing the head of a penis onto the approximate place does not construct one of those. Plus there is a high rate of failure – they get necrotic and fall off. Neo vaginas are inverted penis offcuts – plus bits of intestine. They do not self clean, so require regular douching. They also require lubrication, and to be kept open by regular use of a "former" to keep them from healing up. Basically, one needs to sit on a dildo for hours every day to keep it open. There is a very high failure rate and expensive correction surgery is frequently required. Jazz Jennings vaginoplasty was done by Dr Marci Bowers who is one of the best in the business, but it still split,
RBNZ financial stability report ,highlights an unsustainable housing market ( in a high inflation regime) with higher interest rates coming due to excessive building costs.
RBA yesterday,Fed tomorrow (likely .5) RBNZ another .5 ( as it does not affect the nz$) and already being priced in.
Highest yield in the developed world in government bonds and increasing.
How far will Greek & Italian sovereign bond yields rise without ECB QE? Greek 10-year yield is near Australia, which has far lower debt. Same goes for Italy, which has yields similar to Norway, where debt is far lower. In short, Italian and Greek yields will need to rise a lot… pic.twitter.com/vdw4x15rIv
So it just means the afore-mentioned threat assessors changed their mind about Winston being a threat. No big deal. Not a hanging offence. Trev ought not to resign just because someone else changed their mind – it would set a serious precedent.
Ardern, for instance, might feel obliged to resign because Hipkins changed his mind about mask-wearing being govt strategy recently. Everyone might get palpitations due to anxiety about who was going to change their mind next.
"Mallard said that the actual decision to trespass Peters and King was not made by him," Jacinda said "I see it as entirely as a matter for the Speaker how he chooses to deal with the aftermath of the protest and the attendance of protesters," the Prime Minister said.
It's absolutely standard operating procedure for ministers and CEs to delegate powers under legislation to staff, and the Speaker's powers are no different in that regard.
I would be very surprised if a minister or CE was personally involved in issuing trespass notices anywhere else, so I don't expect that of the Speaker either.
Probably need to rewrite the delegation instrument however to change who makes decisions on trespassing former MPs. A lack of nous on the part of whoever drafted that, and obviously the Speaker for agreeing to it (also a lack of nous shown by whoever did issue the trespass notices in not at least checking in with the Speaker).
One of National's attack lines has been dismissed by Adrian Orr today:
(Orr) told a press conference this morning that the fiscal impulse, which measures the inflationary effects of Government spending, was currently negative, showing the effect of Government spending was contractionary, relative to previous years.
It seems current Government spending has nothing to do with inflation. Covid relief in 2020 and 2021 certainly added to it but the electorate was very supportive of that.
So, nowhere for Willis and Luxton to go on this unless they continue to push false narratives.
The herald reporting however doesn't really note that the oppositions main theory of inflation has it that NZ is presently functioning as high wage economy. If you get your news from the Herald its possible to believe that Willis has a lucid plan for dealing with NZ inflation.
And even to me (knowing the lingo quite well) some of the governments responses to Willis and Luxon in parliament seemed a bit tangential. It would be much simplified to cotton onto the understanding that
a) the government can legitimately buy public services in the public interest.
b) when it does that its employing NZers and residents while paying them income.
c) aiming for surpluses reduces both the available public services and the income earned in providing those.
d) unless the public services are directly competing with private goods and services (see Kiwibuild) this has negligible impacts on inflation.
From the article, other than reducing government spending, Willis offered two other suggestions:
Relieving costs from the economy (and) reducing supply bottlenecks.
Relieving costs from the economy presumably means tax cuts and throwing open the borders in order to push wages down. Reducing supply bottlenecks probably also means importing huge amounts of cheap labour.
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THE (new) Prime Minister said nobody understands what co-governance means, later modified to that there were so many varying interpretations that there was no common understanding. BRIAN EASTON writes: Co-governance cannot be derived from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It does not use the word. It ...
A brief postscript to yesterday’s newsletter…Watching the predawn speeches just now, the reverence of those speaking and the respectful nature of those listening under umbrellas in the dark. I felt a great sadness at the words from Christopher Luxon last evening still in my head. The singing in the dark accompanied ...
by Don Franks While on holiday,I stayed a few days in Scotland with a friend who showed me one of the country’s great working-class achievements. It was a few miles out of central Edinburgh, a huge cantilever bridge across the river Forth. The Forth Bridge was the first major structure ...
Time To Call A Halt: Chris Hipkins knows that iwi leaders possess the means to make life very difficult for his government. Notwithstanding their objections, however, the Prime Minister’s direction of travel – already clearly signalled by his very public demotion of Nanaia Mahuta – must be confirmed by an emphatic and ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 29, 2023 thru Sat, Feb 4, 2023. Story of the Week Social change more important than physical tipping points1.5-degree Goal not plausible Photo: CLICCS / Universität Hamburg Limiting global ...
So Long - And Thanks For All The Fish: In the two-and-a-bit years since Jacinda Ardern’s electoral triumph of 2020, virtually every decision she made had gone politically awry. In the minds of many thousands of voters a chilling metamorphosis had taken place. The Faerie Queen had become the Wicked ...
Look at us here on our beautiful islands in the South Pacific at the start of 2023, we have come so far.Ten days ago we saw a Māori Governor General swearing in our new PM and our first Pasifika Deputy PM, ahead of this year’s parliament where they will be ...
The Herald’s headline writers are at it again! A sensible and balanced piece by Liam Dann on the battle against inflation carries a headline that suggests that NZ is doing worse than the rest of the world. Check it out and see for yourself if I am right. Is this ...
Photo by Anna Demianenko on UnsplashTLDR: Here’s my longer reads and listens for the weekend for sharing with The Kaka’s paying subscribers. I’ve opened this one up for all to give everyone a taste of the sorts of extras you get as a full paying subscriber.Subscribe nowDeeper reads and listens ...
Hello from the middle of a long weekend where I’m letting the last few days unspool, not ready, not yet, to give words to the hardest of what we heard.Instead, today, here are some good words from other people.Mother CourageWhen I wrote last year about Mum and Dad’s move to ...
Workers Now is a new slate of candidates contesting this year’s general election. James Robb and Don Franks are the people behind this initiative and they are hoping to put the spotlight on working people’s interests. Both are seasoned activists who have campaigned for workers’ rights over many decades. Here is ...
Buzz from the Beehive Politicians keen to curry favour with Māori tribal leaders have headed north for Waitangi weekend. More than a few million dollars of public funding are headed north, too. Not all of this money is being trumpeted on the Beehive website, the Government’s official website. ...
Insurers face claims of over $500 million for cars, homes and property damaged in the floods. They are already putting up premiums and pulling insurance from properties deemed at high risk of flooding. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: This week in the podcast of our weekly hoon webinar for paying subscribers, ...
Our Cranky Uncle Game can already be played in eight languages: English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. About 15 more languages are in the works at various stages of completion or have been offered to be done. To kick off the new year, we checked with how ...
The (new) Prime Minister said nobody understands what co-governance means, later modified to that there were so many varying interpretations that there was no common understanding.Co-governance cannot be derived from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It does not use the word. It refers to ‘government’ on ...
It’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kaka. Jump on this link for our chat about the week’s news with special guests Auckland Central MP Chloe Swarbrick and Auckland City Councillor Julie Fairey, including:Auckland’s catastrophic floods, which ...
In March last year, in a panic over rising petrol prices caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the government made a poor decision, "temporarily" cutting fuel excise tax by 25 cents a litre. Of course, it turned out not to be temporary at all, having been extended in May, July, ...
This month’s open thread for climate related topics. Please be constructive, polite, and succinct. The post Unforced variations: Feb 2023 first appeared on RealClimate. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two fresh press releases had been posted when we checked the Beehive website at noon, both of them posted yesterday. In one statement, in the runup to Waitangi Day, Maori Crown Relations Minister Kelvin Davis drew attention to happenings on a Northland battle site in 1845. ...
It’s that time of the week again when I’m on the site for an hour for a chat in an Ask Me Anything with paying subscribers to The Kaka. Jump in for a chat on anything, including:Auckland’s catastrophic floods, which are set to cost insurers and the Government well over ...
Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers (left) has published a 6,000 word manifesto called ‘Capitalism after the Crises’ arguing for ‘values-based capitalism’. Yet here in NZ we hear the same stale old rhetoric unchanged from the 1990s and early 2000s. Photo: Getty ImagesTLDR: The rest of the world is talking about inflation ...
A couple of weeks ago, after NCEA results came out, my son’s enrolment at Auckland Uni for this year was confirmed - he is doing a BSc majoring in Statistics. Well that is the plan now, who knows what will take his interest once he starts.I spent a bit of ...
Kia ora. What a week! We hope you’ve all come through last weekend’s extreme weather event relatively dry and safe. Header image: stormwater ponds at Hobsonville Point. Image via Twitter. The week in Greater Auckland There’s been a storm of information and debate since the worst of the flooding ...
Hi,At 4.43pm yesterday it arrived — a cease and desist letter from the guy I mentioned in my last newsletter. I’d written an article about “WEWE”, a global multi-level marketing scam making in-roads into New Zealand. MLMs are terrible for many of the same reasons megachurches are terrible, and I ...
Time To Call A Halt: Chris Hipkins knows that iwi leaders possess the means to make life very difficult for his government. Notwithstanding their objections, however, the Prime Minister’s direction of travel – already clearly signalled by his very public demotion of Nanaia Mahuta – must be confirmed by an emphatic ...
Open access notables Via PNAS, Ceylan, Anderson & Wood present a paper squarely in the center of the Skeptical Science wheelhouse: Sharing of misinformation is habitual, not just lazy or biased. The signficance statement is obvious catnip: Misinformation is a worldwide concern carrying socioeconomic and political consequences. What drives ...
Mark White from the Left free speech organisation Plebity looks at the disturbing trend of ‘book burning’ on US campuses In the abstract, people mostly agree that book banning is a bad thing. The Nazis did us the favor of being very clear about it and literally burning books, but ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has undergone a stern baptisim of fire in his first week in his new job, but it doesn’t get any easier. Next week, he has a vital meeting in Canberra with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, where he has to establish ...
As PM Chris Hipkins says, it’s a “no brainer” to extend the fuel tax cut, half price public subsidy and the cut to the road user levy until mid-year. A no braoner if the prime purpose is to ease the burden on people struggling to cope with the cost of ...
Buzz from the Beehive Cost-of-living pressures loomed large in Beehive announcements over the past 24 hours. The PM was obviously keen to announce further measures to keep those costs in check and demonstrate he means business when he talks of focusing his government on bread-and-butter issues. His statement was headed ...
Poor Mike Hosking. He has revealed himself in his most recent diatribe to be one of those public figures who is defined, not by who he is, but by who he isn’t, or at least not by what he is for, but by what he is against. Jacinda’s departure has ...
New Zealand is the second least corrupt country on earth according to the latest Corruption Perception Index published yesterday by Transparency International. But how much does this reflect reality? The problem with being continually feted for world-leading political integrity – which the Beehive and government departments love to boast about ...
TLDR: Including my pick of the news and other links in my checks around the news sites since 4am. Paying subscribers can see them all below the fold.In Aotearoa’s political economyBrown vs Fish Read more ...
TLDR: Including my pick of the news and other links in my checks around the news sites since 4am. Paying subscribers can see them all below the fold.In Aotearoa’s political economyBrown vs Fish Read more ...
In other countries, the target-rich cohorts of swinging voters are given labels such as ‘Mondeo Man’, ‘White Van Man,’ ‘Soccer Moms’ and ‘Little Aussie Battlers.’ Here, the easiest shorthand is ‘Ford Ranger Man’ – as seen here parked outside a Herne Bay restaurant, inbetween two SUVs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / ...
In other countries, the target-rich cohorts of swinging voters are given labels such as ‘Mondeo Man’, ‘White Van Man,’ ‘Soccer Moms’ and ‘Little Aussie Battlers.’ Here, the easiest shorthand is ‘Ford Ranger Man’ – as seen here parked outside a Herne Bay restaurant, inbetween two SUVs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / ...
Transport Minister and now also Minister for Auckland, Michael Wood has confirmed that the light rail project is part of the government’s policy refocus. Wood said the light rail project was under review as part of a ministerial refocus on key Government projects. “We are undertaking a stocktake about how ...
Sometime before the new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced that this year would be about “bread and butter issues”, National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis decided to move from Wellington Central and stand for Ohariu, which spreads across north Wellington from the central city to Johnsonville and Tawa. It’s an ...
They say a week is a long time in politics. For Mayor Wayne Brown, turns out 24 hours was long enough for many of us to see, quite obviously, “something isn’t right here…”. That in fact, a lot was going wrong. Very wrong indeed.Mainly because it turns ...
One of the most effective, and successful, graphics developed by Skeptical Science is the escalator. The escalator shows how global surface temperature anomalies vary with time, and illustrates how "contrarians" tend to cherry-pick short time intervals so as to argue that there has been no recent warming, while "realists" recognise ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Here’s a quick roundup of the news today for paying subscribers on a slightly frantic, very wet, and then very warm day. In Aotearoa’s political economy today Read more ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Here’s a quick roundup of the news today for paying subscribers on a slightly frantic, very wet, and then very warm day. In Aotearoa’s political economy today Read more ...
Tomorrow we have a funeral, and thank you all of you for your very kind words and thoughts — flowers, even.Our friend Michèle messaged: we never get to feel one thing at a time, us grownups, and oh boy is that ever the truth. Tomorrow we have the funeral, and ...
Lynn and I have just returned from a news conference where Hipkins, fresh from visiting a relief centre in Mangere, was repeatedly challenged to justify the extension of subsidies to create more climate emissions when the effects of climate change had just proved so disastrous. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
Lynn and I have just returned from a news conference where Hipkins, fresh from visiting a relief centre in Mangere, was repeatedly challenged to justify the extension of subsidies to create more climate emissions when the effects of climate change had just proved so disastrous. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
A new Prime Minister, a revitalised Cabinet, and possibly revised priorities – but is the political and, importantly, economic landscape much different? Certainly some within the news media were excited by the changes which Chris Hipkins announced yesterday or – before the announcement – by the prospect of changes in ...
Currently the government's strategy for reducing transport emissions hinges on boosting vehicle fuel-efficiency, via the clean car standard and clean car discount, and some improvements to public transport. The former has been hugely successful, and has clearly set us on the right path, but its also not enough, and will ...
Buzz from the Beehive Before he announced his Cabinet yesterday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced he would be flying to Australia next week to meet that country’s Prime Minister. And before Kieran McAnulty had time to say “Three Waters” after his promotion to the Local Government portfolio, he was dishing ...
The quarterly labour market statistics were released this morning, showing that unemployment has risen slightly to 3.4%. There are now 99,000 people unemployed - 24,000 fewer than when Labour took office. So, I guess the Reserve Bank's plan to throw people out of work to stop wage rises "inflation", and ...
Another night of heavy rain, flooding, damage to homes, and people worried about where the hell all this water is going to go as we enter day twenty two of rain this year.Honestly if the government can’t sell Three Waters on the back of what has happened with storm water ...
* Dr Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Chris Hipkins continues to be the new broom in Government, re-setting his Government away from its problem areas in his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, and trying to convince voters that Labour is focused on “bread and butter” issues. The ministers responsible for unpopular ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins continues to be the new broom in Government, re-setting his Government away from its problem areas in his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, and trying to convince voters that Labour is focused on “bread and butter” issues. The ministers responsible for unpopular reforms in water and DHB centralisation ...
Hi,It’s weird to me that in 2023 we still have people falling for multi-level marketing schemes (MLMs for short). There are Netflix documentaries about them, countless articles, and last year we did an Armchaired and Dangerous episode on them.Then you check a ticketing website like EventBrite and see this shit ...
Nanaia Mahuta fell the furthest in the Cabinet reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: PM Chris Hipkins unveiled a Cabinet this afternoon he hopes will show wavering voters that a refreshed Labour Government is focused on ‘bread and butter cost of living’ issues, rather than the unpopular, unwieldy and massively centralising ...
Nanaia Mahuta fell the furthest in the Cabinet reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: PM Chris Hipkins unveiled a Cabinet this afternoon he hopes will show wavering voters that a refreshed Labour Government is focused on ‘bread and butter cost of living’ issues, rather than the unpopular, unwieldy and massively centralising ...
Shortly, the absolute state of Wayne Brown. But before that, something I wrote four years ago for the council’s own media machine. It was a day-in-the-life profile of their many and varied and quite possibly unnoticed vital services. We went all over Auckland in 48 hours for the story, the ...
Completed reads for January Lilith, by George MacDonald The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Christabel (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, by Anonymous The Lay of Kraka (poem), by Anonymous 1066 and All That, by W.C. Sellar and R.J. ...
Pity the poor Brits. They just can’t catch a break. After years of reporting of lying Boris Johnson, a change to a less colourful PM in Rishi Sunak has resulted in a smooth media pivot to an end-of-empire narrative. The New York Times, no less, amplifies suggestions that Blighty ...
On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth.Genesis 6:11-12THE TORRENTIAL DOWNPOURS that dumped a record-breaking amount of rain on Auckland this anniversary weekend will reoccur with ever-increasing frequency. The planet’s atmosphere is ...
Buzz from the Beehive There has been plenty to keep the relevant Ministers busy in flood-stricken Auckland over the past day or two. But New Zealand, last time we looked, extends north of Auckland into Northland and south of the Bombay Hills all the way to the bottom of the ...
Kia ora e te whānau. Today, we mark the anniversary of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi - and our commitment to working in partnership with Māori to deliver better outcomes and tackle the big issues, together. ...
We’ve just announced a massive infrastructure investment to kick-start new housing developments across New Zealand. Through our Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, we’re making sure that critical infrastructure - like pipes, roads and wastewater connections - is in place, so thousands more homes can be built. ...
The Green Party is joining more than 20 community organisations to call for an immediate rent freeze in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, after reports of landlords intending to hike rents after flooding. ...
When Chris Hipkins took on the job of Prime Minister, he said bread and butter issues like the cost of living would be the Government’s top priority – and this week, we’ve set out extra support for families and businesses. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to provide direct support to low-income households and to stop subsidising fossil fuels during a climate crisis. ...
The tools exist to help families with surging costs – and as costs continue to rise it is more urgent than ever that we use them, the Green Party says. ...
New Zealand will immediately provide humanitarian support to those affected by the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. “Aotearoa New Zealand is deeply saddened by the loss of life and devastation caused by these earthquakes. Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones affected,” ...
An historic Northland pā site with links to Ngāpuhi chief Hongi Hika is to be handed back to iwi, after collaboration by government, private landowners and local hapū. “It is fitting that the ceremony for the return of the Pākinga Pā site is during Waitangi weekend,” said Regional Development Minister ...
The Government is investing in a suite of initiatives to unlock Māori and Pacific resources, talent and knowledge across the science and research sector, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Two new funds – He tipu ka hua and He aka ka toro – set to ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta departs for India tomorrow as she continues to reconnect Aotearoa New Zealand to the world. The visit will begin in New Delhi where the Foreign Minister will meet with the Vice President Hon Jagdeep Dhankar and her Indian Government counterparts, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and ...
Over $10 million infrastructure funding to unlock housing in Whangārei The purchase of a 3.279 hectare site in Kerikeri to enable 56 new homes Northland becomes eligible for $100 million scheme for affordable rentals Multiple Northland communities will benefit from multiple Government housing investments, delivering thousands of new homes for ...
The Government is supporting one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most significant historic sites, the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, as it continues to recover from the impacts of COVID-19. “The Waitangi Treaty Grounds are a taonga that we should protect and look after. This additional support will mean people can continue to ...
A memorial event at a key battle site in the New Zealand land wars is an important event to mark the progress in relations between Māori and the Crown as we head towards Waitangi Day, Minister for Te Arawhiti Kelvin Davis said. The Battle of Ohaeawai in June 1845 saw ...
More Police officers are being deployed to the frontline with the graduation of 54 new constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. The graduation ceremony for Recruit Wing 362 at Te Rauparaha Arena in Porirua was the first official event for Stuart Nash since his reappointment as Police ...
The Government is unlocking an additional $700,000 in support for regions that have been badly hit by the recent flooding and storm damage in the upper North Island. “We’re supporting the response and recovery of Auckland, Waikato, Coromandel, Northland, and Bay of Plenty regions, through activating Enhanced Taskforce Green to ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has welcomed the announcement that Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, will visit New Zealand this month. “Princess Anne is travelling to Aotearoa at the request of the NZ Army’s Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals, of which she is Colonel in Chief, to ...
A new Government and industry strategy launched today has its sights on growing the value of New Zealand’s horticultural production to $12 billion by 2035, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said. “Our food and fibre exports are vital to New Zealand’s economic security. We’re focussed on long-term strategies that build on ...
25 cents per litre petrol excise duty cut extended to 30 June 2023 – reducing an average 60 litre tank of petrol by $17.25 Road User Charge discount will be re-introduced and continue through until 30 June Half price public transport fares extended to the end of June 2023 saving ...
The strong economy has attracted more people into the workforce, with a record number of New Zealanders in paid work and wages rising to help with cost of living pressures. “The Government’s economic plan is delivering on more better-paid jobs, growing wages and creating more opportunities for more New Zealanders,” ...
The Government is providing a further $1 million to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced today. “Cabinet today agreed that, given the severity of the event, a further $1 million contribution be made. Cabinet wishes to be proactive ...
The new Cabinet will be focused on core bread and butter issues like the cost of living, education, health, housing and keeping communities and businesses safe, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has announced. “We need a greater focus on what’s in front of New Zealanders right now. The new Cabinet line ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will travel to Canberra next week for an in person meeting with Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. “The trans-Tasman relationship is New Zealand’s closest and most important, and it was crucial to me that my first overseas trip as Prime Minister was to Australia,” Chris Hipkins ...
The Government is providing establishment funding of $100,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced. “We moved quickly to make available this funding to support Aucklanders while the full extent of the damage is being assessed,” Kieran McAnulty ...
As the Mayor of Auckland has announced a state of emergency, the Government, through NEMA, is able to step up support for those affected by flooding in Auckland. “I’d urge people to follow the advice of authorities and check Auckland Emergency Management for the latest information. As always, the Government ...
Ka papā te whatitiri, Hikohiko ana te uira, wāhi rua mai ana rā runga mai o Huruiki maunga Kua hinga te māreikura o te Nota, a Titewhai Harawira Nā reira, e te kahurangi, takoto, e moe Ka mōwai koa a Whakapara, kua uhia te Tai Tokerau e te kapua pōuri ...
Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Social Development and Employment, has activated Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG) in response to flooding and damaged caused by Cyclone Hale in the Tairāwhiti region. Up to $500,000 will be made available to employ job seekers to support the clean-up. We are still investigating whether other parts ...
The 2023 General Election will be held on Saturday 14 October 2023, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “Announcing the election date early in the year provides New Zealanders with certainty and has become the practice of this Government and the previous one, and I believe is best practice,” Jacinda ...
Jacinda Ardern has announced she will step down as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. Her resignation will take effect on the appointment of a new Prime Minister. A caucus vote to elect a new Party Leader will occur in 3 days’ time on Sunday the 22nd of ...
A potential cyclone that could bring more severe wet weather to the upper North Island is now forecast to form a day earlier, Stuff reports. Due to ideal cyclone-formation conditions over the Coral Sea, a low south of the Solomon Islands has a high chance of turning into a cyclone ...
Author I.S. Belle reveals the top five influences on her debut LGBT horror/paranormal YA novel, Zombabe.Zombabe is a LGBT found family horror/paranormal YA about a group of friends putting down an ancient evil inextricably linked to their sleepy town of Bulldeen, Maine. Does all of that bring anything to ...
New Zealand prime minister Chris Hipkins and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese are holding a joint press conference in Canberra. Watch live here. ...
The New Zealand government is providing $1.5 million in humanitarian support to those affected by destructive earthquakes in Turkey and Syria last night, foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta has announced. The contribution of $1m to Turkey and $500,000 to Syria will be made via the International Federation of Red Cross and ...
In a state-of-the-nation-style lunchtime speech in Auckland today, the leader of the Act Party has taken aim at both major party leaders. “Throughout this speech,” David Seymour told supporters at the Maritime Museum, “I will do my best to differentiate between the Chrisses, but it may not be easy.” Seymour ...
In Canberra Chris Hipkins has met with Australia’s Anthony Albanese in Canberra, exchanging a few brief words to gathered reporters before heading inside for a closed doors meeting. Hipkins was driven into the courtyard of Parliament House, where he was greeted by Albanese in person. “Welcome prime minister,” said Albanese. A beaming ...
The acclaimed fashion designer has been crowned the ‘undisputed king of the frock’ – but with identical dresses widely available on fast fashion outlets, questions are being asked about his design practices.This story was first published on Stuff. He has been described as the “knight of New Zealand fashion”, his ...
In Canberra New Zealand’s media pack has arrived at Australia’s parliament ahead of this afternoon’s visit from prime minister Chris Hipkins. The PM will be met by his counterpart Anthony Albanese in the courtyard of parliament house, before heading inside for a closed doors meeting. Following the 45 minute meeting, ...
Two new funding initiatives, totalling $22 million, have been approved by Cabinet today to help ensure the cultural sector has the “certainty and support to thrive”, announced Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage. $10 million of Covid-19 recovery funding will support established arts, cultural and diversity festivals, while $12 ...
New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project. Items of interest and importance todayWAITANGI, CO-GOVERNANCE, THREE WATERS Thomas Cranmer: Waitangi Day and the quiet revolution Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Waitangi in 2023: Plenty ...
ACT leader David Seymour has delivered a speech painting National and Labour as two sides of the same coin, and calling co-governance a "culture war". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Quigley, Associate Professor of Earthquake Science, The University of Melbourne Mustafa Karali / AP A pair of huge earthquakes have struck in Turkey, leaving more than 3,000 people dead and unknown numbers injured or displaced. The first quake, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kalinda Griffiths, Scientia lecturer, UNSW Sydney Getty/Marianne Purdie Cancer figures provide stark evidence of the gap between the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous people in Australia. The difference is confronting – and it’s increasing over ...
NZ Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have used a joint media conference to affirm the nations' relationship is that of "family". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Alcohol bans are being reimposed on Northern Territory Indigenous communities, as the federal and territory governments grapple with intractable problems in Alice Springs and elsewhere in the NT. The situation in Alice Springs and the ...
I was told to avoid gluten. I was told it was all in my head. When 10% of women experience endometriosis, why does it take so long for its classic symptoms to be recognised? It was 2011 when I had my first period. It felt like a very exciting moment ...
In Canberra Chris Hipkins has touched down in Australia’s capital – his first overseas visit since becoming prime minister just three weeks ago. After disembarking from the Airforce Boeing, Hipkins was greeted by his former caucus colleague and current high commissioner to Australia, Dame Annette King. The pair hugged on ...
The rise of TikTok-inspired ‘algospeak’ is making online communication even more of a nightmare, writes SYSCA‘s Lucy Blakiston.This is an excerpt from the Shit You Should Care About daily newsletter – sign up here.Content warning: sexual assault The other day I was chatting with a friend about algospeak – ...
School, finally, is back this week in the nation’s largest city to howls of relief from many parents and (one hopes) some students also. Yet the resumption of normal service shouldn’t obscure a curious inconsistency. The past few weeks have shown ...
MediaRoom column: On the eve of a Cabinet decision on the fate of the proposed public broadcasting merger, questions emerge over the engagement by the TVNZ chief executive of two former National government aides to change the narrative and push TVNZ's view on the Government's plan Within weeks of taking over ...
Olivia Sisson performs a good old-fashioned cost comparison – and it might change the way you buy your veges.The price of food in New Zealand is shocking. So, how to cope? The recommendations are starting to feel like the avo-toast-flat-white trope. Cut those items out and there it is, ...
An early morning fire at an egg-laying farm in Orini, Waikato yesterday has claimed the lives of at least 50,000 hens. The farm is operated by New Zealand’s largest egg producer Zeagold, the country’s biggest egg producer, whose eggs are sold under ...
The Natural and Built Environment Bill and Spatial Planning Bill will make resource management issues worse and should be withdrawn, Federated Farmers has told the Environment Select Committee. "Farmers agree the costly, slow and unpredictable processes ...
New police minister Stuart Nash has met with new health minister Ayesha Verrall to talk about the issue with the aim of preventing ram raids. Nash wants to speed up the scheduled reduction of dairies that can sell cigarettes. Nash made the comments at a police graduation ceremony in Porirua last ...
It’s Tuesday, February 7 and welcome to a special edition of The Spinoff’s live updates. Stewart Sowman-Lund will be on the ground in Canberra today as PM Chris Hipkins meets with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese. What you need to know Chris Hipkins will meet Australian PM ...
Politicking by politicians was less overt but whether there was less politics probably depends on your definition of the word and what lay beneath the optics, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Why is it becoming harder to achieve debt-free status? Money Sweetspot is a new company that uses compassion and incentives to help people pay off their debts. Co-founder Sasha Lockley talks to Simon about using gamification to increase financial literacy, breaking the cycle of poverty, and how she intends to ...
Prime minister Chris Hipkins is heading to Australia today for his first face-to-face meeting with an international leader. He’ll be meeting with Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese during his single-day visit to Canberra. The Spinoff live updates will be on the ground in Australia as the meeting takes place and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney Pexels/Uriel Mont The question of whether and to what extent face masks work to prevent respiratory infections such as COVID and influenza ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Mackinnon, Professor and Director, Centre for Clean Energy Technologies and Practices, Queensland University of Technology Superconducting cables transmit electicity without lossesShutterstock For most of us, transmitting power is an invisible part of modern life. You flick the switch and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Munro, Professor, Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University Shutterstock Many students are returning to school this year face a renewed focus on grammar. Just before Christmas, the NSW curriculum was overhauled to include the “explicit teaching of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debra Dudek, Associate professor, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University Universal Life is full of surprises – some pleasant and some painful – but there can be no surprises without expectations. We expect the sun to come up ...
News stories have honed in on the fact Wayne Brown and his staff were left off a ‘vital’ email distribution list on the night of the Auckland floods. But internal emails from the mayor’s chief of staff show he was getting regular briefings from officials.Internal council emails obtained by ...
In a reality shaped by climate crisis, how do you think and feel about the changed present – and the changing future – without spiralling into despair?In the midst of a flood there’s not much time to think about the future. But when the water recedes, the reality of ...
06 Feb The news today of the death of 75,000 chickens at an egg farm in Waikato is yet another outrageous and avoidable tragedy. “The fact that so many hens died in this fire in the Waikato is a testament to the systemic neglect and disregard ...
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There's a dark cloud hanging over the government, according to the AM newsreader. Gosh, I wonder who put it there!
Luxon’s explaining his poll boost as due to cost of living increases. Govt spending on “middle management & bureaucrats & consultants”. Didn’t say he would target those three groups for emasculation though…
I've been looking through the US media about the Supreme Court and the abortion issue.
The state apparently will have the power to dictate to women about their bodies. Conservative people seemingly love that.
Not so long back, a lot of people, including conservatives I presume, were very upset about the idea of the state imposing on what they should do with their bodies. When mandates to wear masks were mooted and introduced, "my body, my choice" became a mantra.
Mmmm…
Thank you for discussing this Peter (though I have to assume it was a topic on yesterday's OM, I am a bit short on time these days). I haven't yet read the original Politico piece which published the leaked draft, but this Guardian piece has been useful. Got to agree with Sanders on this one!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/02/roe-v-wade-abortion-supreme-court-draft-opinion
This will only affect birthing bodies, and if you are not a birthing body it will not affect you. 🙂
Well it will affect birthing bodies who would rather not do the birthing thing, but then who cares about these bodies…..really?
Also the democrats could codify RvsW into law, bugger the filibuster, but then they won’t let go of the filibuster, so rather then make this ‘law’ law, they will use it to grandstand, cry woe betide the bodies we can not define as anything, and please send us money much money for the mid term elections.
Never mind the last person appointed to the supreme court could not define a birthing body as a thing because they are not a biologist. Maybe instead of hiring supreme court justices they should hire biologists, they would then make more sense.
thought of you this morning when I saw this tweet (2nd one)
they were replying to this disgrace,
That is almost as good as The Lancet's front cover talking about "Bodies with vaginas".
She's getting well ratio-ed. I'd have thought politicians would understand that at least.
Why would you think that? that is the same left that nominated a person to the US Supreme Court as the 'first black woman' who then could not define what a “woman” was as that nominated cervix haver was not a biologist.
At some stage one must come to the conclusion that the left and the right are working hand in hand to dismantle womens rights and to redefine just who is a woman.
And the birthing bodies are not woman and i would assume in the eyes of many left and right are not even human. Just a thing that makes babies, sandwiches and which is nice to have around for ‘sex’.
A person trying to be on the US Supreme Court as the 'first black woman' defining what a “woman” was would have been pilloried, sneered at and treated with absolute contempt.
So she said what she said (or didn't say) and was attacked, pilloried, sneered at and treated with absolute contempt.
What should she have said to Ted Cruz when he asked the questio? "Fuck off you low-life wanker."
For that she would have been attacked, pilloried, sneered at and treated with absolute contempt. And everyone would have got on and voted as they eventually did. (Although some Republicans may have changed to vote for Jackson for boldly and accurately describing Cruz.
She could have said to much laughter ( and of that i am actually sure) something like this:
I am the first black 'woman' nominee to the Supreme court and last i checked i was / still am a 'woman', and also i am black.
or this
The President and the Democratic Party who support my nomination seem to believe that i am a woman. 🙂
Anything but ' I don't know'. I guess the biologist part was to be the fun part but that did not work.
So yeah, the left can't, won't define woman because they are scared of men who identify as 'woman' (what ever that means considering that we can't define the word anymore) or the lobby that pulls the TWAW and thus will lose. You can not defend what you can't name, and you can not cry 'sex based rights' if you want to pretend that sex is not important and that only an imagined gender needs to be promoted/respected/given privileges too.
And this Supreme Court is now seated with people who are there to abolish womans right and with a few people who don't know what women are in the first place. And this is by the choices of both parties.
Yeah, i guess the men in the US will have to get used to having many more children, or to wear condoms, or get vasectomies, or shoot in the air in order to prevent pregnancy, oh and abstinece of course that too will prevent unwanted children. Or find partners for sex that are not birthing bodies.
It is not as if the the birthing bodies are going to be the ones deciding how many times that body is gonna give birth to.
but for us ordinary women and the likes of the women in Speak Up for Women, we face abuse and the ridiculous smear that we are bigots and transphobes. Some of us have even been cancelled from Pride (lesbians I am talking about here) and even had the police called on them by the Pride organisers.
I know it is hard for women in this climate to speak up for biological reality. Some of us have the courage of our convictions. Given the new Supreme Court judge was going to be pilloried anyway, she had some choices about what she would be pilloried about.
What happened with Cruz?
re the tweet, all she had to do was say women and non binary people. Birthing bodies is demeaning and dehumanising, there’s just no way around objectifying women like that
Birthing bodies have a right to abortions.
But that is not what a birthing body wants, they do not want to birth – they want an abortion- which makes them 'non-birthing' bodies aka men, and as a result men gets to decide on abortions
Hang on visubversa, that's a bit old hat…. bodies with vaginas…
Don'tcha know that "bodies with vaginas" are now exclusively men?
Women are bodies with "front holes".
(Anyone on the fence reading this, finally thinking…. WTF?!)
Source: https://assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/Trans_Safer_Sex_Guide_FINAL.pdf
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQ84OxCX0AMAAXp?format=jpg&name=large
And to continue the institutional confusion of sex and gender identity, and the contortions some will go to in an attempt to avoid using the word women to mean… women.:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/28/midwifery-students-taught-help-men-give-birth/
You could not make this stuff up – could you? See the recently released paper on Perinatal Mental Health from the Helen Clark Foundation. I know that kissing up to Gender Ideology is now a requirement for obtaining any sort of public or private $$$$ – but this paper indulges in some extraordinary linguistic contortions to avoid using the heretical word "woman" in any sort of discussion about actually having babies.
The state apparently will have the power to dictate to women about their bodies.
You might wish to explain what the problem is with the State having so much power. In New Zealand, the State introduced vaccine mandates. Experienced professionals lost their jobs as a result of declining the vaccine. The right to an abortion, like the right to speak freely, isn’t absolute.
As for wearing masks, they’re useless.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360320982_The_Bangladesh_Mask_study_a_Bayesian_perspective?channel=doi&linkId=62703fd83a23744a725db627&showFulltext=true
I had to go to hospital a fortnight ago. The staff who tended me wore masks. (I did too.) I did not tell them masks were useless.
I have to go back to have something else done. Should I tell them masks are useless?
You could. But ties could also be considered useless, and yet people wear them still.
I had the experience of being in a waiting room at hospital with a woman loudly declaring she didn't need a mask. She was in a waiting room with people undergoing chemotherapy. No concern for elevating their already high anxiety and stress levels by adding another possible risk factor to their health. No consideration of the fact that even a normal cold or infection may be hindered from transmission.
You have no idea of the health or immunity of others in the hospital environment by looking at them. They are often vulnerable to any infection – not just Covid.
If you think of it as a courtesy, then perhaps you will not have to justify it to yourself in such black and white terms. A hospital appointment is not necessarily a long time to wear a mask in most cases.
An anti-vaxx loon's un-reviewed pre-print concluded that a prior study was flawed.
FIFY.
/
Academics from large British universities have put their names to an “extremely irresponsible” document that claims the spike in second wave deaths may have been caused by vaccines.
[…]
The report, described as “ridiculous” and “bizarre” by other senior scientists, is produced by Hart, a lockdown-sceptic group whose members include four academics at Queen Mary University of London, and three from the University of Nottingham.
Among the 41 academics named in its foreword, several of whom subsequently promoted it on social media, are Ellen Townsend, professor of psychology at Nottingham University, and the group’s spokeswoman, Marilyn James, professor of health economics at the University of Nottingham, and Norman Fenton, professor of risk information management, Queen Mary University of London.
https://archive.ph/fWLZG (thetimes)
Strictly speaking – vaccine mandates did not affect people's bodies – nobody was absolutely required to have a vaccine or not have one. In certain occupations it would affect your livelihood (not your body) if you didn't have one – because you were deemed an unacceptable risk to others. So I find the comparison with pregnancy & childbirth a bit unserious or frivolous.
You are correct though that the right to an abortion is not unlimited – just about everyone recognises that at some point the rights of the foetus come into play. The more conservatively this point is set by the law, then the greater the obligation of the state to help women avoid ending up in terrible situations, However, what we observe in reality is that strict the abortion laws are usually accompanied by minimal social support – and we can interpret this particularly vicious combination only as a deliberate form of enslavement and subordination.
nobody was absolutely required to have a vaccine or not have one.
To continue in their employment, some workers were required to be vaccinated. Some workers were terminated because they refused to do so. Women who want an abortion don’t have an absolute right to an abortion. Nevertheless, those wanting an abortion will likely be able to get one.
“it would affect your livelihood (not your body)“
But for some it did affect their body. The medical profession and ACC can attest to that.
The state already has that power, which is why we have abortion laws in the first place. If women had sovereignty over their own bodies, abortion would be like any other medical procedure not needing special legislation.
Women's rights are still up for debate and we are a long way from them being safe.
Not all medical interventions/procedures are equal. Abortion is not like a wisdom tooth extraction. Even a flu shot requires filling out and signing a consent form. Some people (F & M) consider abortion a life-or-death decision and if one considers for a moment the hoops & hurdles for another life-or-death decision such as medically-assisted euthanasia one can fairly easily see that abortion is and cannot be simply (!) viewed as a decision by the woman alone, i.e. strictly and purely as a woman’s sovereignty over her own body.
Another issue is the quality of life, of both the child and the mother; the latter usually has the responsibility of primary caregiver. These are definitely secondary arguments, but a neoliberal (and utilitarian) argument may include QUALYs too (although not necessarily viewing life as a disease!).
I do have fairly close-up experience with abortion and suffice to say it is complex and an emotional rollercoaster – the emotional burden (scars) of either decision (to abort or not to abort) can last a lifetime and negatively affect multiple people.
John Herlihy was re-elected for a third term as president of the Republic of Whangamōmona (population 126) in 2021.
Republicans hot to trot ought to put it on their calendar: "the next Republic day, which is set for January 2023." Pre-book!
Yesterday was a big news day! I was dealing with stuff during school hours and kids afterwards, so didn't get to have a look in till nearly midnight.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/02/roe-v-wade-abortion-supreme-court-draft-opinion
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/crime/victim-hails-hero-wife-after-countdown-stabber-jailed
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/466382/parties-meet-to-discuss-trespass-notices-for-protesters
So what is the lead story and most of Daily Review (haven't looked at yesterday's OM yet) on TS about? Poll results. It's more than a year to the general election, and the area where political action is likely to be effective this year will be the local body elections. Polling about that, I would be interested in seeing,
The horse-race coverage of parliament's up and downs is a bit irrelevant and tedious – to me, at least.
Progress = tech + economy. That's a formula proven by history. However, the key driver is only evident in the tacit psychological sub-text – incentive structures. Inventors produce new tech when they get incentivised to do so. For example, the genesis of mass production, and the instance provided here:
Call it a public/private partnership and you won't be wrong. But the key point is motivation to generate the required result. And the tech produced that result by design of a system: organised labour = info + materials + energy x time (process).
Should the govt get out of the way & let industry do it's thing? Hell no! The example given shows why not. All you'd get is bau – moronic neoliberalism. Instead, the positive alternative is intelligent design. Labour & National will have to break with tradition and recruit intelligent designers instead of morons. To make progress happen.
So looks like the Greens have done something interesting for a change:
Points to the media headline you didn't see: Greens kill own governance structure! The Exec has maintained hegemony over the party for 30 years, since it replaced the Green Council. That group was democratically elected to do strategic guidance, and it established the Executive to do admin & governance.
Quite why the GC became defunct was never clear to me at the time – I was in charge of the rules process but most of the other activists were busy steering the Greens into the Alliance. I suspect the GC suffered from leftist destabilisation in consequence. Anyway, looks like a belated recognition of the lack has prompted a strategic reversal.
Since the Exec has been operating like a leftist cabal in recent years, alienation in the ranks seems to have produced a democratic rebellion. Good luck with that – control freaks are good at jumping horses in mid-ride so it could just rearrange the deckchairs.
Interesting indeed. Especially in conjunction with the requirement that one party co-leader must also be Maori.
Somewhere in a 1970’s issue of Craccum I recall reading a droll line about the ideal person according to intersectional theory was a one-legged, Maori, lesbian ditch-digger. Seems the Greens are well on their way to nirvana.
Still thinking at the level of a low-brow university magazine is disappointing, RedLogix.
Plenty of stuff from early '70s Craccum in my archives, all rather high-brow! But could be that Muldoon's accession in '75 killed that culture & reduced the students to mumbling incoherence…
You don't regard the reference RedLogix made as "high-brow" do you, Dennis?
You mean intersectional theory? Wasn't around back then. Does seem somewhat intellectual though. I suspect an academic dreamt it up.
Or did you mean "a one-legged, Maori, lesbian ditch-digger"? Somewhat hypothetical, perhaps, but employing multi-dimensional categorisation as a nexus of identity politics for illustrative purposes does seem high-brow…
"one-legged" is a high-brow portrayal of people with disabilities?
Hmmmm….
You're right to suggest that a person with one leg is disabled, and that noting the fact is merely common sense. Not high-brow in itself. It's the holistic usage of the example via postmodernism that seems cerebral.
I agree – would have hoped the Greens well past the 70's by now.
You're portraying present Green discussions/decisions as "70's", RedLogix and would have us believe your portrayal as real.
Why?
Realistic inasmuch as the schism between the authentic Greens & the leftists that killed Values back then is still causing problems. The first bunch want to build consensus and the second bunch just wannabe partisans.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/466386/green-party-leaders-proud-of-constitution-changes
Personally I am not that keen on Shaw remaining as coleader. But I am not currently a GP member either. It seems that Davidson deserves a crack at being senior coleader before the 2026 (maybe 2027 if Labour gets a 4year term ammendment through). The 2017 debacle with Clendon (good riddance) & Graham (more of a loss) leaving the party before Turei stood down goes a long way to explaining the current gender imbalance in GP MPs.
Yes, the list rankings are technically influenced by gender and ethnicity (plus location – minimum 10% from Te Wai Pounamu from memory, which was mooted as requirement for coleader last year, but must have been too tricky to implement), but by far the biggest determinant of list ranking is who is currently an MP, with the public profile that brings, at the time of the vote.
I've cut out some of your long copypasta. Please don't make them so long, it's a hassle for scrollers esp on phones. Selected copy and pastes to support your points works better. ka pai the link.
The link was from RL above (@ 6.1), I was quoting from it mainly because they hadn't. I was going to trim and tie the quote to the comment more, but then my number got called in the waiting room and I pushed publish without properly proofreading. I have no idea what those grey slashes at the bottom of the comment are doing there. Also I omitted the age criteria in party list ranking; with some proportion having to be under 35, but can't recall the details off the top of my head.
My conclusion was going to be that the GP should ditch Shaw (with due recognition for his work these past 7 years) and get Tuiono in his place. Though I think I have said as much before, if not on this site, then elsewhere.
Scratching my head at your commentary. The changes you quote look entirely consistent with GP values, policy and direction around democracy. But we are working off very little information. Need to see the new constitution.
Need to see the new constitution.
It would be helpful. If they intend to prove the operation is democratic, they will put it on the public part of their website. Don't hold your breathe.
I'm just being sceptical though. Wouldn't surprise me if they're motivated by a spirit of authenticity in configuring the new process. Perhaps some journo will attempt an in-depth description of these changes…
Political party constitutions get published on the Electoral Commission's website. I expect the GP one will be updated at some point. Democracy would be explaining that process to the public and giving a timeframe.
https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/political-parties-in-new-zealand/register-of-political-parties/
What a load of crap. If people don't like the Exec then they should get along to their province AGM and vote for a different Executive Networker, or even run for that office themselves.
(The only voting positions on the Green Party Executive are the Executive Networkers who are elected by and responsible to the Province. The Co-convenors of the Exec do not even get a vote. Any Exec Net can force a vote on any issue and the status quo stands unless a 75% vote can be achieved.)
have you seen the proposals that were voted on? Are they in the public domain?
I've been taking a break so not directly engaged at the moment, but i have been aware that these proposed changes have been going through the process. An email sent on Sunday said that they are "working on a publishable version of the final new constitution and will make that available as soon as it is ready." It says that there were some minor changes made at the SGM.
(The only voting members at an SGM or AGM are delegates from branches.)
it's a shame the party isn't front footing this and is leaving it to Hooton and the Herald to establish the narrative. Shaw's corridor statement yesterday nonetheless.
Really? These are hardly minor changes. Do they mean other changes (that are minor)?
Minor changes made to the proposals put to the SGM.
👍
Possible the Herald reporter got it wrong, I suppose. We await confirmation that the decision to disestablish the Executive has actually been made…
Your statements were historical. Just because the structure has changed doesn't make your statements true.
The relation between history and truth is forever fraught..
Maybe Chloe will be a co leader sooner than I thought.
It's pretty legal…
/
Art, and damn fine social commentary. Quite impressive that a 5 minutes video can strip our society bare.
See anz profit was 968m
That's about 1000$ per customer!!!!!! PROFIT!!!!
Winston's play to re-enter parliament as the spearhead of the Rebel Alliance:
Are the rebels good for 5% on next election day? We know they're not really allied, but his spearhead could seem a useful tool for them.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
wrong post?
Oh yeah. Thanks for shifting it.
Yesterday he definitely said protesters and people speaking to the protesters should be treated differently.
this is ok?
"One of the big problems is that Parliament and politicians are seen as out of touch, elite, and aloof. To get a better understanding of the problem, in 2018 Parliament actually commissioned a Colmar Brunton survey into how the public feels about Parliament. The results were so bad they were buried.
Here’s what New Zealanders think of Parliament:
https://democracyproject.nz/2022/05/04/bryce-edwards-trevor-mallards-petty-fiefdom/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bryce-edwards-trevor-mallards-petty-fiefdom
Any wonder democracy is under threat?
I think Dr Bryce might have received a trespass notice and is bitter about it.
Good job.
So sheeple have a balanced view of parliament: "27% trusted Parliament, compared to 29% who expressed distrust", and presumably the other 44% felt that the question made their head hurt so much they couldn't decide.
Could be Mallard's spies were secretly monitoring the heavyweight visitors to assess their stance. If Winston failed to assert his disapproval like Dr Bryce, they would have put a black mark alongside his name.
All this hooha about the trespass has failed to specify if Mallard's job description includes the power to do that. Perhaps his contract uses vague clauses (as if written by a lawyer seeking to create employment opportunities downstream) and Winston wants a day of judgment.
The poll was taken in 2018
Bloody hell, XRBristol. Protesting at a WPUK meeting?
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/gallery/more-50-trans-activists-protest-7032705
Why is there a decreasing number of environmental groups that focus on environmental issues?
https://twitter.com/XRBristol/status/1521462318693076993
what is the carbon footprint of a penis inversion and fake boob surgery?
Do you think they have an online calculator for that?
here are some cost curtesy
How much will it cost? https://genderkit.org.uk/article/vaginoplasty/#:~:text=The%20cost%20of%20a%20vaginoplasty,%2C%20clitoroplasty%20and%2For%20labiaplasty.
The cost of a vaginoplasty performed in the UK along with labiaplasty and clitoroplasty is currently around £15000 (last updated April 2021).
this is what an arm/leg penis will cost https://genderkit.org.uk/article/phalloplasty/
If not funded by the NHS, the cost of a phalloplasty performed in the UK is approximately £40,000-£70,000 (last updated July 2020).
And that is just for hte surgeries, no estimate on costs for all the jazz before surgery and after, and certainly no costs for the several after operations on vagina to keep it from closing up or liposuctions on the fake dick cause the leg material they took tends to grow fat cause females.
But yeah, someone should ask these dears how many carbon credits they are happy to waste on some fake genitals and hrt for boys to grow tits.
Well, at least the NHS is swimming in money, and so the high cost of not clinically necessary, and perhaps damaging cosmetic surgery, doesn't impact on the health and wellbeing of all British people.
"Clitoroplasty"? Don't make me laugh. The clitoris has thousands of nerve endings and a whole structure behind its "head". Sewing the head of a penis onto the approximate place does not construct one of those. Plus there is a high rate of failure – they get necrotic and fall off. Neo vaginas are inverted penis offcuts – plus bits of intestine. They do not self clean, so require regular douching. They also require lubrication, and to be kept open by regular use of a "former" to keep them from healing up. Basically, one needs to sit on a dildo for hours every day to keep it open. There is a very high failure rate and expensive correction surgery is frequently required. Jazz Jennings vaginoplasty was done by Dr Marci Bowers who is one of the best in the business, but it still split,
RBNZ financial stability report ,highlights an unsustainable housing market ( in a high inflation regime) with higher interest rates coming due to excessive building costs.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/466415/unsustainable-housing-market-poses-risk-to-economy-reserve-bank
Over the last 40 years we have been fairly consistent with excessive housing prices.
Bit late to start considering financial stability as the bubble bursts.
RBA yesterday,Fed tomorrow (likely .5) RBNZ another .5 ( as it does not affect the nz$) and already being priced in.
Highest yield in the developed world in government bonds and increasing.
On the positive side,only 6500 houses sold last month ( 16500 agents ) so an increased pool of labour will become available shortly.
Every cloud has a silver lining….though not sure the 'skills' are transferable.
And the dollar still has plenty of room before it threatens historic lows
The low dollar works in our favour,as it makes local manufacturing more competitive some what smoothing transport gauging.
eventually (if the confidence to invest in local production exists)…. in a net importing nation it is also inflationary.
Mallard must resign.
Reversing the trespass order against Winston Peters shows he has exceptionally poor judgement.
He's lost confidence of the PM and I bet Hipkins is v dark on it.
Also shows Shaw to be a vindictive little twerp for piling on with Mallard yesterday.
So it just means the afore-mentioned threat assessors changed their mind about Winston being a threat. No big deal. Not a hanging offence. Trev ought not to resign just because someone else changed their mind – it would set a serious precedent.
Ardern, for instance, might feel obliged to resign because Hipkins changed his mind about mask-wearing being govt strategy recently. Everyone might get palpitations due to anxiety about who was going to change their mind next.
Winston 1; Mallard Nil
"Mallard said that the actual decision to trespass Peters and King was not made by him," Jacinda said "I see it as entirely as a matter for the Speaker how he chooses to deal with the aftermath of the protest and the attendance of protesters," the Prime Minister said.
Jacinda Ardern, Christopher Luxon won't say if trespassing former National MP Matt King appropriate | Newshub
Mallard just 'ducking' for cover trying to shift the blame.
Your saving Mallard out for a duck for his (anticipated) resignation?
It's absolutely standard operating procedure for ministers and CEs to delegate powers under legislation to staff, and the Speaker's powers are no different in that regard.
I would be very surprised if a minister or CE was personally involved in issuing trespass notices anywhere else, so I don't expect that of the Speaker either.
Probably need to rewrite the delegation instrument however to change who makes decisions on trespassing former MPs. A lack of nous on the part of whoever drafted that, and obviously the Speaker for agreeing to it (also a lack of nous shown by whoever did issue the trespass notices in not at least checking in with the Speaker).
One of National's attack lines has been dismissed by Adrian Orr today:
It seems current Government spending has nothing to do with inflation. Covid relief in 2020 and 2021 certainly added to it but the electorate was very supportive of that.
So, nowhere for Willis and Luxton to go on this unless they continue to push false narratives.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/nicola-willis-to-robertson-orr-reserve-bank-over-wages-housing-inflation-costs/MUOSZIHMSVTC6VSHYGSZ4QRIMI/
The herald reporting however doesn't really note that the oppositions main theory of inflation has it that NZ is presently functioning as high wage economy. If you get your news from the Herald its possible to believe that Willis has a lucid plan for dealing with NZ inflation.
And even to me (knowing the lingo quite well) some of the governments responses to Willis and Luxon in parliament seemed a bit tangential. It would be much simplified to cotton onto the understanding that
a) the government can legitimately buy public services in the public interest.
b) when it does that its employing NZers and residents while paying them income.
c) aiming for surpluses reduces both the available public services and the income earned in providing those.
d) unless the public services are directly competing with private goods and services (see Kiwibuild) this has negligible impacts on inflation.
From the article, other than reducing government spending, Willis offered two other suggestions:
Relieving costs from the economy presumably means tax cuts and throwing open the borders in order to push wages down. Reducing supply bottlenecks probably also means importing huge amounts of cheap labour.
Where are they all going to live?