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.
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.
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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Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
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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)
https://twitter.com/RogerTidy/status/1521398161172058112
they were replying to this disgrace,
https://twitter.com/StateRepHong/status/1521298873859334145
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.![yes yes](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/thumbs_up.png?x42494)
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.
https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1521337905817530369?cxt=HHwWgsC5ufqw8JwqAAAA
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.
https://twitter.com/RobinBrooksIIF/status/1521562146156466179?cxt=HHwWhsCylbut1p0qAAAA
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?