I saw in an awards piece yesterday that ex-PMs are now knighted as matter of course. Why? For doing their job? And why Double Dipper when he was only PM for about a year?
It said of course that he was also being recognised for being our most successful Minister of Finance whose wisdom and general awesomeness got us through the Global Financial Crisis and now he was going to make a new career advising others how he created our rockstar economy (or something like that).
But it is about looking after themselves. The main fault with the awards systems is that politicians have their sticky fingers all over it. I would have hoped that a true left-wing Labour-led government would not have recognised such a man. But that’s not what we’ve got.
I wonder as an aside if the Greens and NZ First were allowed any input or a veto.
I suspect went something like: Bill English asked for a knighthood (through the Nats) and the govt thought it would be bad publicity to refuse him. They’d look mean and lose votes. Farrar and co would wet themselves complaining about it for years to come. That particular boil has been lanced.
Yeah it’s just like upper management salaries. They all scratch each others back because they’re afraid if they were to break the cycle they might miss out themselves. Self serving pricks.
Former British PMs once received an Earldom but Macmillan was the last to get one and as for other honours Thatcher has been the only one, being a Baroness.
They seem to see it as a pointless gesture, why cant we. My use of an honorific is of course a parody.
Never mind though eh? It serves as a reminder to politicians in future who wonder why their public have no confidence or faith in them.
Could have been worse. It could have been Dame Paula Bennett, and then Madge really would have good reason to expect people pissing on her grave (going forward)
But then when you think of various others ….. such as in Pillars, or budgetry advice advocacy, or advocates for education, health, the indigent – it is a bit sickening.
I hope they don’t expect any R E S P E C T because they’ll be shit out of luck.
Maybe they were trying to be ‘fair and balanced’.
Ms Healy does deserve respect. The double dipper (who as a Kethlik, really should have a very guilty conscience) is deserving of none.
Like that Parmjeet Kaur on another strand, I spose it’s the difference between faith and religion. (I religiously get up at 5am and religiously take a dump at 5.30)
Perhaps ‘Sir’ stands for ‘Social Investment Required’?
Someone who places their Wellington house into a trust in order to claim $900/week in accommodation allowance for having to live in Wellington, surely shows a lack of understanding of social norms? Early identification and remediation of this problematic behaviour while Bill was still in primary school may have worked. The behaviour is particularly concerning, seeing $900 is as much as many Kiwis (most without discernibly less talent than Bill English) earn in a week.
To add insult to injury, I had to endure listening to the smug, repellent fool wittering on about social investment this morning on RNZ.
Let’s be clear, ‘social investment’ is a smokescreen and a propaganda exercise. Its purpose is to keep a broken economic system in place by suggesting that its victims are at fault by being somehow defective. They therefore need to identified early so they can be ‘fixed’. The truth is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the vast majority of the poor.
Life of a worker is cheap like it would be in a third world country.
One of the stevedores who went to hospital claims it’s not the first time workers have been exposed – “it’s a common event” – and says some colleagues have refused to work when methyl bromide is being vented.
“They just don’t come out of their huts if they’re de-tarping.”
The worker says he wants to speak out but has been “muzzled”.
“If you don’t do what you’re told you get removed off the board and they don’t give you work.”
We get hit with this stuff unloading containers for international performers. Open container, stand back. I’ve suggested large fans…
One time a huge foreign moth flew up out of the container and off into the spotlights surrounding the grounds. As a biologist type my sphincter did clench…
Nothing came of it. It could have been carrying eggs… But that’s the reason they’re so keen on the bromide in containers. Me, I’d just make them airtight, suck the air out, critters die, job done.
Landlords complain of price gouging insulation companies.
Ironically (in the context that this is EXACTLY what landlords inflict upon tenants) landlords point out that subsidies don’t make it cheaper, instead the subsidy is essentially additional income to the insulation company.
They’ve had plenty of time to get this done when the demand was lower.
Yet they dragged their heels because providing a warm dry home for tenants is actually the very last thing on their minds. The slow uptake on the subsidy was noted.
Wonder how they’d feel if the Accommodation Supplement was cancelled. It is, after all, a subsidy to landlords who automatically put their prices up whenever it increases.
Should really get rid of the AS and have a payment tied to a rental WoF. Then landlords and tenants would be able to weigh up their options and make choices based on that.
Plastic: “And yup, child rapists sometimes get as little as two years’ jail time.”
Really ? Really really ? Where the maximum sentence for rape is 20 years ? Where the staring point without the aggravating factor of child victim is not less than 8 years ? I guess there must be one such case because if there weren’t Plastic would be lying on Trumpian scale.
Give me the case citation Plastic. Give me the judge’s sentencing notes. I’ll bet the farm that the factors of offender’s extreme youth/age/mental impairment figured overwhelmingly in producing such an extraordinarily rare outcome.
Plastic flicks off this “two years jail time” as though it’s reflective of modern sentencing. It’s not. Demonstrably it’s not. Actually Plastic IS lying when she peddles one extraordinarily rare sentence as “sometimes”. As misleading as allowing that this cackling yuppie fool “sometimes” engages journalism.
As Truman Capote said of a contemporary…….”That’s not writing……that’s typing”.
I dont read her stuff anymore, its always as bad as you describe.
Her analytics must have dropped as they try hide her name and just use click bait headlines
Wouldn’t it be great if Bridges, Collins etc watched Prime’s TV 60 Minutes last night, Special Prison Edition.
In Germany the focus is not at all about Punishment but on Rehabilitation and treating inmates with humanity. And lesser crimes have Home Detention and Community involvement, rather than as we do, lock them all away to teach each other worse skills so that on release they can do worse stuff.
(Can’t seem to get replay on Prime?)
I remember that some years ago I was doing adult reading tutoring in a drug rehabilitation house (before it got closed down). As I worked with one young man who was trying to break habit so he could rejoin his wife and child with the addiction behind him, he told me that one task given was to read a book on someone’s experience on giving up marijuana. He said he had to be able to discuss it with the clinicians but could read the whole page and yet not remember the meaning and information at the end.
I mentioned to the clinicians about his problem which they had not been aware of. Apparently it takes some time to get better brain functioning
after long-term marijuana use. They had to work on that before expecting him to be able to handle reading and learning at the level normal for his age. It was part of his set steps that had to be achieved before he could meet requirements for treatment.
They probably mostly do have these problems. But they also commit very violent crimes. About two thirds of all inmates are in for serious violent and sexual crimes. In addition a fair number for serious drug dealing, and a fair number for serious fraud. The other category are serious repeat driving offenders, such as killing or injuring someone when driving drunk.
Is their scope to reduce prisoner numbers? Yes, but not by 30%, more realistically 10%, at least in the median term.
I know that we are often said to be among the highest imprisoners in the OECD. That is correct. We are in a band of UK, Canada, Australia and some central european nations. We are often at the top of that group, as indeed are our crime rates. Many European nations have lower imprisonment rates, typically 50 to 60% lower. They also have lower crime rates.
The US is out in their own category. To put it in perspective, if we imprisoned at the US rate we would have 45,000 prisoners instead of the 11,000 we actually have. US crime rates, especially for homicide, are about 4 times higher than NZ.
So we are often at no 2 in the OECD, but the rate is basically comparable to Australia, the UK and Canada. We are miles less than the US.
One reason we have a high crime rate is the prevalence of gangs in NZ, which now date back to the 1960’s. Not Rotary! But Headhunters, Mongrel Mob, etc. Again the percentage of people in criminal gangs is higher in NZ than most other OECD countries.
Gang life is characterised by extreme violence and sexual crimes. And unfortunately has become multi-generational. If we could reduce the appeal of gangs by say 30 to 50%, then our crime rate would also dramatically reduce.
Not easy, but it should be able to be done. After all most people in poorer social economic communities (where gangs are most prevalent) don’t actually join gangs. So we need to ask why is that? Why can most young people resist the temptation and others not.
The higher the imprisonment rate, the higher the crime rate.
The higher the amount of poverty and inequality, the higher the crime rate.
Cause and effect right there.
Putting the young and stupid, the addicted, and the brain damaged and illiterate, in ‘crime university’ does not work. As Iceland, Holland, Portugal and others have conclusively shown.
Maybe the easiest way to reduce the crime rate, is to imprison all right wing politicians. A reduction on most of the proven causes of crime, and ‘legal’ white collar crimes, would follow very quickly.
We don’t know how to deal with members of our society when they are amidst us and we have even less of a clue on how to deal with convicts. Maybe we should start a reasoned debate or do you think this is too early for little New Zealand?
The point is that we have a social, legal, financial, moral disaster on our hands which all of us have an obligation to acknowledge and address without minimisation. Minimisation benefits only dog-whistling rightist politicians, blood-lusters like the SST’s Garth McCrackers, and multi-national private jailers.
No we don’t “lock them all away” as you irrelevantly say. Why “irrelevantly” ? Because the social, legal, financial, moral disaster exists without us doing that.
So, you miss the point. Again. So that you can stick out your fragile rightist mindset. Again. As always. Strutting for dog-whistlers, blood-lusters, and private jailers. What do you get ? The look of a fool.
Stunned…….would be helpful if you’d actually identify from the vast body of material in the Corrections Department link you provide, “the issue” you mention. Which you cryptically complain “no one likes to mention”.
C’mon Stunned……don’t be coy. Out with it. As long as you don’t launch into a Roseanne Barr racist white-trash rant though.
Still, as rotten as that would be it would confirm your penchant for inadvertently making the point by missing it.
The number on remand, who’ve been convicted of nothing, and the time they spend on remand, which is gradually increasing.
One feature of a functional justice system is that it be able to provide swift justice, primarily for the victims’ sake. So much for right wing crocodile tears about victims’ rights.
Interesting stats thanks Stunned Mullet. But not sure what your point is. What say 50% of those in custody would be better off being helped in a variety of well organised facilities out in society? Drugs, alcohol, mental, learning to read and handle social maths and work support?
And yes there are said to be 100 very serious offenders who should be really locked up. (0.01%) But lets not use those few serious offenders to get in the way of discussion.
Nearly 3,000 people are locked up on Remand, without and before conviction. Probably because the strident screamers have pointed to a few cases where a person not on remand but awaiting trial has gone has gone on to commit a gruesome crime, but 3,000???
Odiferous burbling? Can you try and concentrate and discuss important issues instead of using this post as a therapeutic place to release your simple prejudices? The problems now need real thought, research and practical modern methods to change the bad statistics. You are just one of the 19th century repressors and judgmentals who find it a bridge too far to think in today’s mode to deal with today’s problems in the chemical and television and technology mind-bending age.
Do you think they are ignorant of the facts? I don’t. I think they have a different goal in mind: putting taxpayers’ money into the back pockets of private prison owners.
Just as they were fully aware of the massive fraud that is meth testing. Just as they were fully aware of the situation at Middlemore.
Unforgettable Ass-Kickings
No. 2: George Galloway deals to Christopher Hitchens
Remember these two had quite a history. Galloway had humiliated Hitchens on at least a couple of occasions before this one. At the 3:25 mark here, watch Hitchens nearly choking on bile as Galloway points out he’s a liar…
Unforgettable Ass-Kickings is a series compiled by Hector Stoop and presented by Morrissey Breen for Daisycutter Sports Inc.
Hitchens (now unmemorably deceased) exemplified the loon who starts off pointedly Left and ends up pointedly, disgustingly Right. Richard “Mad Dog” Prebble anyone ?
Galloway marches on, indefatigably, hypocrites and scabs left confounded in his wake. See him here before a US Senate committee:
Thanks North! Making this even better, as I’m sure you’re aware, Galloway’s demolition of Senator Coleman was immediately preceded by his dispatching to the boundary of one… Christopher Hitchens! The self-appointed Scourge of Princess Diana attempted to taunt Galloway before his appearance at the Committee, and even in that highly charged atmosphere Galloway humiliated him. The defeated Hitchens was caught shortly afterwards on camera, snarling “You really are a thug!”
Now we have Sir Deceiving Defrauding Double Dipper of Dipton! An attempt at ripping off the taxpayer. Then there is the Todd Barclay affair. Something for which Blinglish wasn’t made accountable for. Possibly much more malevolence behind the scenes as well.
Key, English et al … seems honorifics are only reserved for the slimy con artists and crooks of the land!
Key, English et al … seems honorifics are only reserved for the slimy con artists and crooks of the land!
That does seem to be true.
We need to remove the giving of honorific from the politicians and give it to the people. Add one aspect to it as well – nobody can get one for doing their job.
Over 70 Syrian tribes issued a joint statement on Saturday that announced the formation of a new combined force that would fight the US-backed militias and foreign troops in northern Syria.
The tribesmen from the Al-Hasakah, Aleppo, and Al-Raqqa governorates reportedly met in the government-held city of Deir Hafer, where they all agreed that they will come together to expel the US and their militias from their provinces.
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad stated during his latest interview with Russia Today that the US-backed forces and foreign troops in northern Syria will be dealt with militarily if they do not withdrawal.
The Pentagon responded to this threat by warning the Syrian President that any attack on their forces in Syria will end ‘badly’ for him.
Not sure if having his army and airforce destroyed are in Assad;’s best interests. Consider what happened to the Wagner mercenaries.
Of course it’s always possible that the Kremlin will order Trump to withdraw US troops, but would he comply? How well do fascist kleptocrats get along? Are the pee-tapes really that much blackmail currency against the guy with the Pentagon at his disposal?
It’s that the US arrogance shows no bounds.
“The Pentagon responded to this threat by warning the Syrian President that any attack on their forces in Syria will end ‘badly’ for him.”
The Wagner mercenaries were a disaffected bunch from the Urals, poorly trained and equipped. The ultimate question is: who pays Wagner and the numerous other Russian private military companies.
Arrogance, or a simple statement of fact. The destruction of the Syrian army and air-force would destablise the region again. Assad would be lucky to survive this.
“Poorly equipped”, depends who they’re fighting. If it’s the US military, “poorly” is an understatement. Poorly trained? Depends who you ask.
Here is an ironic picture of comfortable and complacent minds confronted by modernity and change and feeling like hermit crabs forced out of their shells.
From the wit of Tom Sharpe in Porterhouse Blues.
Lunch was a mournful occasion. It was the end of term and the Fellows at High Table ate in a silence made all the more noticeable by the lack of conversation from the empty tables below them. To make matters worse, the soup was cold and there was cottage pie. But it was the knowledge of their own dispensability that cast gloom over them.
For five hundred years they and their predecessors had ordained at least some portion of the elite that had ruled the nation. It had been through the sieve of their indulgent bigotry that young men had squeezed to become judges and lawyers, politicians and soldiers, men of affairs, all of them imbued with a corporate complacency and an intellectual scepticism that desiccated change. They were the guardians of political inertia and their role was done. They had succumbed at last to the least effectual of politicians.
‘A student council to run the College. It’s monstrous,’ said the Senior Tutor, but there was no hope in his protest. Despite his cultivated mediocrity of mind, the Senior Tutor had seen change coming. He blamed the sciences for re-establishing the mirage of truth, and still more the pseudomorph subjects like anthropology and economics whose adepts substituted inapplicable statistics for the ineptness of their insights.
And finally there was sociology with its absurd maxim, The Proper Study of Mankind is Man, which typically it took from a man the Senior Tutor would have rejected as unfit to cox the rugger boat….
‘There must be something we can do,’ said the Dean.
‘Short of murder I can think of nothing,’ the Senior Tutor answered.
The crime here is that Forestry is allowed to let log litter accumulate with catastrophic effect on Tolaga Bay people and their homes when the rain comes.
Scroll down the page to see the huge accumulation of logs.
A woman, her partner and their four-year-old granddaughter had no choice but to climb on to their roof while they waited for a rescue helicopter to arrive as water smashed against their home.
Mention in this report about unstable land occurs in relation to roading here:
(I am not expert in handling docos and obtaining info from them – I couldn’t just highlight and copy bits I wanted to show. Have done my best. It looks as if there were not adequate demands made as to the aftercare of logged areas which has left these people lower down in Tolaga Bay etc exposed to damage.
)
MAF ‘East Coast forest industry and wood availability forecasts 2008’ https://www.mpi.govt.nz/dmsdocument/854/loggedIn
The unstable nature of the East Coast landscape and the
roads location of many of the newer forests in less accessible
areas of the region will pose a challenge for the future
expansion of forestry operations. The cost of obtaining
and carting roading materials will also affect profitability
of operations.’…
Biofuels and cogen potential
A very large resource of pulpwood and other by-products
are potentially available – subject to the economics of use
for biofuels, cogeneration or other reconstituted wood
products.
When landing slash is counted, the potential
volume is much greater than that shown in this report;
this could be particularly significant for the East Coast
communities north of Gisborne who are currently
serviced with electricity via limited infrastructure.
The current lack of a local market for pulp wood and
other by-products is a constraint on harvest profitability
and limits the maximum utilisation of forest production.
It is unlikely that cut-over recovery of residues will be
economic, owing to the predominantly very steep
topography of much of the production forests and the
distance to a potential plant in one of the main centres on
region, what is really required is a world-scale solid wood
the East Coast.
Limited Wood Processing Capability
The current lack of local processing is a constraint that
leaves forest owners with few options other than to export
large volumes of logs.
This leaves the region exposed to the log export
market and limited port facilities.
With transport costs making the long cartage of lower value
material marginal or unprofitable, the regional harvest is ‘
at risk of losing potential added-value through the
processing or utilisation of this material as it gets left on
the cut-over.
A greater number of competitive options for
the full range of log products on the East Coast will
contribute considerably to the region’s forestry success.
Part Concluding Comments:
There is still substantial potential for expansion of the
existing forest estate on the East Coast, although all this
may not necessarily be for production purposes, but for
other values such as watershed management, erosion
control and carbon sequestration.
There is discussion about new planting which will also provide land stabilisation.
There is a possibility of businesses setting up wood handling factories when the market is right, and the flow of wood makes it economic and the factor of carbon sequestration.
There is talk about the steep slopes and the need for cable-hauling which requires skilled workers.
There is mention of the okay being given if there is attention given by the loggers to erosion, water etc.
The GDC is a unitary authority that keeps control of important issues relating to land disturbance and logging and clearing and resource consents are required.
Liaison with the Department of Conservation may be required because of the extent and species affected by clearing and logging.
The consent process associated with the harvesting of forests on the East Coast has generally not been an issue.
It seems that the matter of dealing with cut down left-overs has been put on the back burner in the eagerness to get into the log trade, and the intention has been to utilise it at a later date for electricity if there is a viable market for it. It appears that no warning bells have sounded about the instability of the land left bare and the residue from logging left lying where they could be dislodged by expected heavy rain storms although this is a known result of other logging sites in NZ which have been left in a disorganised fashion and have resulted in damage to housing and property and likely to injure people and animals as they have rolled or propelled down slopes onto those below.
Would think if the Gizzy to Napier Railway was still operational that some or all of the by-product could’ve been rail out in bulk with Gizzy being the bulk handing depot for the trucks etc? Or have a Bio- Fuel power plant at Napier to supply the Hawke’s Bay- Gizzy regions?
Don’t know when the trees were felled but as you say the fact of having the rail could have made a big difference in choices of what could be done about the leftover stuff (not correct forestry term!). But NZ had to wait to get a political party that wasn’t constipated. I think within the report it talks about bio-fuel plant. But I was mainly looking for specific mention that the area had to be left in good condition with leftovers stacked safely etc. and didn’t find anything that definite. She’ll be right mate.
So much of our forestry resource that we should have kept and run for the national good in the effective way, has been sold to big firms and institutions
In 1999 Forest & Bird criticised Carter Holt Harvey selling a forest to the east of Taupo to a private buyer. The block was considered to be one of the most ecologically valuable areas of forest in the North Island. Carters in 1994 had withdrawn the forest, Pohokura from sale, and agreed to secure its protection and manage it in consultation with Forest and Bird and DoC. F&B said,”Unfortunately the American managers who now run Carter Holt Harvey Forests have a hardline attitude on environmental issues…they do not wish to work co-operatively with the NZ conservation movement.”
(Newsroom Forest and Bird Press release 2/12/99 16:37:00 Native Forest Sale Breach of Forest Accord.)
Also Fletcher Challenge sold 51% interests in Nelson in 1997 to giant Weyerhaeuser for $275 million; the other 49% was owned by foreign institutional investors. Weyerhaeuser owned or was licensed to operate on an area approaching the size of the entire North Island, 11.4 million hectares, almost three-quarters of which was classed as productive forest land.
The Nelson Mail p15 28/9/99
If I had a big pile of flotsam on my property and a storm washed it all onto the street causing flooding to spread to other houses, will I be exempt for damages so caused? (I am just a little person so it would be easier to punish me.)
I understand what you are saying, with everyone after a quick buck and to hell with everyone especially with outsiders in an management role not understanding NZ workers/ culture in IRT protecting the environment etc.
I can a story about Weyerhaeuser and Fletchers that involve one of my cousins, who runs a forestry contacting gang who runs it like an old school NZ Forest Service logging gang based around a semi co-op system (just how the family ran the coal mine on Coast).
He was asked by Fletchers to move down to Nelson and they going top dollar as well cost to move everyone lock stock and barrel because of his very standards/ skill sets they had. Anyway if they had moved down from Nth Isl, Fletchers sold out and this mob moved in straight away cutting costs left right centre ie bringing in the Nth America logging practices which BTW are bloody dangerous to an already dangerous job. To a point that he was being under cut by other logging gangs and final straw was when he got the job to work over the hill (Golden Bay Area), but Weyerhaeuser refuse to pay any accommodation and transport costs and basically he told them where to go. He left Nelson with his gang and equipment back to the Nth Isl after my grandmother help out as she pull a strings as he was going to call it quits and after a couple of leans yrs doing jobs that no one would do! He’s doing even better now because they starting to understand that cost cutting comes with a price, to a point some yrs later the muppets from Weyerhaeuser came crawling back ask him to work for them and in true West Coast/ typical family style he told them where to bloody go.
There are a myriad ways to use forestry by-products. What we want is sustainability.
We can innoculate the stumps with various mushroom species providing secondary crops for foresters/locals while making topsoil of the stumps.
Deadwood that is not transported offsite for re-purposing is laid flat to the ground so as to decompose further adding substrate for the soil building by fungi and other microorganisms. This also helps protect the soil when it is exposed after cropping. Brushwood piles are ridiculous constructs of the human mind that likes to ‘sweep clean’.
The placing of carbon (wood waste) with available water (ground contact for fungal access) sees opportunistic free living and plant and fungal-symbiotic nitrogen fixing organisms arrive to provide this vital resource for the process. Now nature’s working for us.
The larger scrap wood and bark can be used to make bio-char. This amendment can greatly improve the productivity of various soil types including NZ’s yellow ultic clay which I’ve successfully experimented with for > 10 yrs now. Use of biochar also directly sequesters carbon.
The process of making bio-char releases heat energy that can be re-purposed e.g. drying timber, heating facilities/water, running turbines. It also produces various chemical by-products that can be re-purposed in forestry and other industries.
Biofuel from pine wastes??? We’re not really there yet it gets technical (read expensive). Best not to be pioneers of large scale expensive systems that might have several achilles heels. That’s what R&D is for.
We can be a lot more sustainable with the guidelines above. I’d add to that system intermittently planting other crops to help the soil recover and provide alternate timber/crops to pine.
Just in case Standardistas missed one blatant bit of grandstanding by the Leader of the World watching out for our good, the United States of America.
World
2 Jun 2018
China ‘intimidating neighbours’ – US
7:02 pm on 2 June 2018 General Mattis said the Trump administration wanted a constructive relationship with China but would compete vigorously if necessary.
The US recognised that China had a role to play in the region.
The South China Sea, a key trade route, is subject to overlapping claims by six countries.
China has been building small islands and other maritime features into military facilities there.
Last month China said it had for the first time landed bombers on Woody Island in the Paracel Islands, prompting US warnings that it was destabilising the region.
Woody Island, which China calls Yongxing, is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.
The South China Sea dispute:
Sovereignty over two largely uninhabited island chains, the Paracels and the Spratlys, is disputed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Malaysia
China claims the largest portion of territory, saying its rights go back centuries – in 1947 it issued a map detailing its claims
The area is a major shipping route, and a rich fishing ground, and is thought to have abundant oil and gas reserves http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/358782/china-intimidating-neighbours-us
I’ve just started reading this book I got off Fishpond called “Globalisation and Defence in the Asia-Pacific – Arms across Asia” which is a collection of Essays edited by Geoffrey Till, Emrys Chew and Joshua Ho.
Chapter 2, last night was a bit interesting IRT what is happening in the South China Sea using a couple of theories called “The Long Wave by Nikolai Kondrative in the 1920’s and the Leadership Cycle” in which both talk about War between a new up and coming nation challenging the current pre-eminent nation which happens roughly once every 100yrs. “This system leader holds a preponderance of key military capabilities (chiefly blue- water sea power, they argue) while boasting the lead economy in terms of size and innovative energy. Regular rhythms in the global economy are related to the rise of this leading state. Just as importantly, key economic trends and the prospects for peace and war are found to be associated with rise, ascendancy and decline of one system leader, and the struggle to produce the next one.”
When one looks at the 50yr cycle of the Kondratiev waves and with the 100yr long Leadership Cycle. You would see Waves of technological innovations (leading sectors in the Global Economy) are very much connected to the rise and decline of global political systems dominated by a hegemonic state.
Last the last two sentences in the conclusion: “ Because globalisation disperses the control of capital, technology and the markets as never before, it remains to seen weather a single state can establish and maintain dominance in the global system on the basis of military might alone. The prospect for peace, we need to know whether the presence of such hegemon will provoke the bellicose challenges to its dominance, the competitive arms build ups and the formation of freshly armed counter- coalitions- for these are the very things which stirred and brewed into systemic war once in every century for the past 500yrs.”
By my reckoning based on what I readed last night we are slowly heading to war on given and current trends within the Asia- Pacific region ATM and with the USA at its peak of the cycle or on top of wave which is about to break as new comer seeks to challenge the dominance of the US.
The public has a tolerance for other people’s suffering. We seem to have been at war or in a state of unease, a push button away from war, since WW2. On the surface it seems as if we are at peace but there are the Syrian reports, the Burmese reports, another little boat that has gone down off Africa. And there is enormous interest in films about war, I was just reading about the enormous business there is in land mines and things called butterfly bombs, and armaments are a big trade. Is it that peace is a cessation of war, a breathing space before the next one starts?
With all these poxy wars happening atm it seems it could be the prelude to the main event?
IRT to the Middle East ATM its watching the start of a yacht race with everyone jockeying for positions at the start and when it does kick off it going to be like watching the Grand National Jumps Race at Antree wondering who is going to be last horse standing.
Chapter 2 of the book mentions this is the longest period of peace since WW2 IRT major inter-state wars, but in saying that the long term trend when one looks at that a major inter-state war will break out sooner or later.
The Kondratiev wave is very interesting theory and when you combine it with the 100yr Leadership cycle to what’s happening in the Asia- Pacific Region atm, it makes for some interesting reading.
“This grim description is backed by figures that reveal the staggering decreases in seabird numbers in Shetland, the most northerly part of the British Isles. In 2000, there were more than 33,000 puffins on the island in early spring. That figure dropped to 570 last year……
….Similarly, Shetland’s kittiwake population plummeted from over 55,000 in 1981 to 5,000 in 2011…..
……there were around 110 Arctic terns there last week compared with around 9,000 that were counted in the same area in 2000. ”
Good morning Newshub Flooding in Tairawhiti Uawa Whangara Global warming is here and now .
Duncan I could see Amanda and Mark disagree with you on that. I say honoring the people who deserve it for there good deeds for OUR society is a good thing we need to show more respect for our elderly and respect for te mokopunas future I.E look after the environment. James we can grow meat and dairy organically and sustainable
Ka pai to the American mokopuna who are touring America keeping up the presser on the politician who support the Gun lobby association of America to change the laws to make it harder to get a gun for idiots.
Smoking is a hard to quit and its hard on the poor people who are most of the smokers .But Hone te Labour lead coalition government has the long game in its sights not just tomorrow even thou there mite be less money targeting Maori more money is getting to the poor and not being chewed up by bureaucratic organizations so in reality more money is reaching Maori and not half to the paper pushers. ka pai.
Did I hear that right Trump has just admitted to the accusations of Russian election scandal well thats what Eco Maori gets from him saying he can pardon his self.
With the plastic bag think what I;m going to do is use those reusable bags and as soon as they are emptied put them strait into the boot of my car or one ends up with a cardboard full of those bags . Ka kite ano P.S we need to stop using any plastic that is not biodegradable
The reason Maori cultured tangata won’t go for becoming a republic is because a republic government will ride rought shod all over Maoris Humane rights the Queen is the Guardian of the Maori tangata .
Io
I
Queen
I I
Tangata whenua NZ Goverment and people
She has been Honorable to all her subjects and is the check that Maori have against
corrupt intentions of some people have against Maori and the common person.
Tangaroa buy Tiki Tane
Just got in contact with the whano in Te Waiapu vally and they say the beach is covered in pine logs from the flooding . I remember when I was a child that the beach had heaps of wood when I last seen the beach there was not much wood there it will be interesting to see it now te Waiapu awa has filled up with silt now
Ka kite ano P.S its not as bad as the flooding in Uawa
5 years since Edward Snowden blew te whistle The common tangata person who let te tangata of Papatuanuku know that they were /are being spied on by Governments and big companys .Te kumara never tells how sweet it is the link below ka kite ano
Eco Maori is trying to have a truce with the sandflys but if they don’t stop trying to intimidat ECO MAORI that they can kiss my – – – – – –
Ana to kai Ka kite ano P.S I know what’s going down
Well I got my answers already from the sandflys so don’t go having te Waiapu come out your eyes when yous get bit on the – – – – Ana to kai Ka kite ano
I already tried to get the sandflys bosses to realise that other people are being affected negative buy there actions my clients have one family split because of them as ECO MAORI has done nothing wrong I realise that I’m unique In that I can think about who my actions affect that goes right over the sandflys heads I will still be coming back to Rotorua and travelling anywhere in Aotearoa. Ka kite ano
Stag At Bay: Twelve years ago, Winston Peters was still robust enough to come back from the political crucifixion which his political and media enemies had prepared for him. In his seventies now, the chances of a second resurrection are slim. We should, therefore, prepare for the last gasp of ...
Satellites pass over NZ all the time (literally). Here I focus on the 187 Planet Labs ‘Dove’ Earth-imaging satellites, and I show that one can determine in advance where they will be, enabling scientists on the ground to correlate their environmental and other data collection with opportunities to get imaging ...
The Council of Disobedient Women has learned that the Prefect of Aro Valley has been promoted to a new role with the blessing of the Pope of Wellington. Softy Jejune Parson has been appointed Mother Superior of Woke Wellington for the work she has been doing calling out heretics, ...
On both sides of the Atlantic, some purportedly “contentious” and “difficult to deal with” leadership contenders to lead the US and UK, as President and Prime Minister respectively, seem to have thrown a few spanners into the works of the normal messaging most are used to hearing constantly. Except they’re ...
In Question Time today the Prime Minister was naturally facing questions about Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and his dubious party financing arrangements, which seem to violate electoral finance law. Her response was to pretend that it was nothing to do with her, and that she is not responsible for ...
A prisoner stripped of their name, imprisoned for a secret crime after a secret trial, with all details legally suppressed for secret reasons. A story by Kafka or Dumas? China? No, its just the latest stage of Australian tyranny:An Australian citizen was prosecuted, convicted, and jailed in the ACT last ...
Stuff has more details on what New Zealand First's slush-fund has been funding, with much of the spending directly benefiting the party. Which makes it look a lot like hidden donations, rather than the completely-innocent-giant-pile-of-cash Winston is trying to portray it as. The Electoral Commission is now investigating, but Simon ...
I've joked before about how hosting international summits effectively turns part of your country into a police state for the duration. Well, New Zealand is hosting APEC in 2021, with events throughout the year in Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland. And the government has put up a bill to give itself ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzI saw an article claiming that “king tides” will increase in ...
It has been revealed that firing ranges used by the NZDF while deployed to the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamyan Province, Afghanistan, contained unexploded ordnance that caused numerous deaths and injuries after the NZDF withdrew the PRT in April 2013. In 2014 seven children were killed when an unidentified ...
Didn't See It Coming: NZ Herald columnist Lizzie Marvelly's latest column merits serious scrutiny because such a clear example of anti-democratic thinking is encountered only rarely on the pages of the daily press. Which is not to say that the elitism which lies at the heart of such social disparagement ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Initially it was reported that in an aerial bombardment that took place on August 30th seven children were massacred; the figure then went up to eight and then on November 11th Noticias Uno reported that, according to people from the community in close proximity to the ...
A lot has happened since the UN’s report on 1.5ºC was released in October 2018. New Zealand’s Zero Carbon Bill has passed, and enshrines the 1.5ºC goal in law. The UK and France have also legally strengthened their targets to Net Zero 2050. The School Strike For Climate and Extinction ...
Next year is an election year, and Labour needs money to fund its campaign. So naturally, they're selling access:Labour is charging wealthy business figures $1500-a-head to lunch with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at its annual conference later this month. [...] On the weekend beginning November 29th, around 800 delegates will ...
Yesterday the government announced its changes to tenancy laws, including an end to no-cause evictions, limits on rent increases, and anonyminity for tenants who defend their rights against bad landlords (sadly necessary because landlords are scum who maintain blacklists of "uppity" tenants). They're all good moves, and have resulted in ...
In 2003 New Zealand sent a Provincial Reconstruction Team to Afghanistan to support America's doomed war there. While there, they conducted regular weapons practice on local firing ranges, littering the landscape with unexploded ammunition. These ranges weren't secure - they're on land used by locals for animal herding - so ...
Green MP Gareth Hughes has announced he will retire at the election. Its understandable - he's been there ten years, and wants to actually see his children grow up rather than miss it while drowning in the toxic parliamentary sewer. But his departure is also a huge loss for the ...
Words and images by Jacqui GibsonGone are Auckland Museum’s days of doing science using a museum-centric academic approach, after Māori land rights holders Ngāti Kuri gave the museum an ultimatum.Tom Trnski holding a fossilised whale tooth from the Far North.Aussie-born Head of Natural Sciences at Auckland Museum ...
MediaWorks announced in October 2019 that it intended to sell off its struggling television business and cancel or cut back on several popular local programmes, including New Zealand Today, Married at First SightNew Zealand and 7 Days. Its radio and outdoor advertising arms are currently performing well, but MediaWorks’ ...
Westminster voting intention:CON: 44% (+3)LAB: 28% (-1)LDEM: 14% (-1)BREX: 6% (-)via @OpiniumResearch, surveyed this weekChgs. w/ 08 Nov— Britain Elects (@britainelects) 16 November 2019 This, of course, doesn't look good. Labour have been chucking big, headline grabbing policies left, right and centre ... Well, maybe not right. Left, left ...
Some readers may remember that I mentioned last year that I was applying for NZ citizenship. I filled out the paperwork and had my original citizenship interview in February. Everything went well until they discovered that, because I had spent five months in the US in 2017, I had not ...
by Deirdre O’Neill It is becoming quite acceptable for certain sections of the left to declare that people like me – women who are ‘gender critical’ – should not be allowed in leftist or anarchist spaces. Leaving aside the arrogance and implicit authoritarianism of this claim, its lack of critical ...
There is an article in The Conversation, written by Jeremy P. Shapiro (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University), about what he sees as the psychologically-based underpinnings of three main matters that seem to vex people all around the planet. The article is titled “The Thinking ...
. . Blogger Martyn Bradbury has won his case against unreasonable search and surveillance against the NZ Police; and subsequent Police attempts to produce evidence in secrecy, in a closed Court. His case highlights a disturbing growing trend in Aotearoa New Zealand for State power to be used against ...
The Committee of Disobedient Women has intercepted an email from Dr Emma Eejut, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Massey University to the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Jan Thomas. Dear Jan, Thank you for your courageous move. I think 10 pages of blether** should tie any of the students game enough to try holding ...
That's the only response to the findings of the Ombudsman's investigation into LGOIMA practices at the Christchurch City Council:My investigation identified serious concerns about the Council’s leadership and culture, and its commitment to openness and transparency. In particular, Council staff raised concerns with me about various methods employed by some ...
NZ First seems to be nakedly trying to enrich itself from public office:A powerful New Zealand First figure helped establish a forestry company that then pushed for money from two key funding streams controlled by a New Zealand First Minister. An RNZ investigation has found Brian Henry, lawyer for Winston ...
Behrouz Boochani is an award winning author and journalist. He is also a refugee, who for the past six years has been detained in Australia's offshore gulag on Manus Island, and in Papua New Guinea. But last night, with the cooperation of the WORD Christchurch festival and Amnesty International, he ...
Different Strokes: If a multicultural immigration policy imposes no obligation on immigrant communities to acknowledge and ultimately embrace their host nation’s most cherished traditions and values, then how is that nation to prevent itself from being reduced to a collection of inward-looking and self-replicating ethnic and cultural enclaves?THE COALITION GOVERNMENT’S ...
Protective Zone: Reading the rules and guidelines released by Massey University, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that its governing body considers the whole concept of free speech a disruptive threat to the orderly imparting of orthodox academic knowledge.IN TRUE ORWELLIAN fashion, Massey University has announced its commitment to ...
Farmers held a hate-march on Parliament today, complete with MAGA hats, gun-nut signs, and gendered insults. While supposedly about a grab-bag of issues - including, weirdly, mental health - it was clear that the protest was about one thing, and one thing only: climate change. And specifically, forestry "destroying" rural ...
The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security released their annual report today, and I've been busy reading through it. In amongst the usual review of what they've been doing all year, there's a few interesting bits. For example, a discussion on "agency retention and disposal of information", which points out that ...
Recently more than 150 post-graduate students and young scientists presented an open letter to the Green Party via The Spinoff, encouraging them to reconsider their position on genetic modification. Their target is tackling climate change issues.[1] Can any party continue to be dismissive about genetic modification (GM) contributing to ...
by Deirdre O’Neill Under Thatcher and then Blair and continuing up until our contemporary moment, the working class has seen its culture slowly and progressively destroyed. The change from an industrial society to a service society produced a marked shift in focus from the working class as the backbone of ...
Since 2013, the Australian government has detained refugees without trial in Pacific gulags, where they are abused, tortured, and driven to suicide. The policy is not just an abuse of human rights and possible crime against humanity; it has also had a corrosive effect on the states Australia uses as ...
It seems fair to say that we currently live in a problematic political moment in world history. Democracies are in decline and dictatorships are on the rise. Primordial, sectarian and post-modern divisions have re-emerged, are on the rise or have been accentuated by political evolutions of the moment such as ...
Last month, Greenpeace head Russel Norman surrendered his speaking slot at an EPA conference to student climate activist Sorcha Carr, who told the EPA exactly what she thought of them. It was a bold move, which confronted both regulators and polluters (or, as the EPA calls them, "stakeholders") with the ...
The core principle supposedly underlying New Zealand's electoral finance regime is transparency: parties can accept large donations from rich people wanting to buy policy, but only if they tell the public they've been bought. Most parties abide by this, so we know that TOP was wholly-owned by Gareth Morgan, and ...
Today is a Member's Day, probably the second-to-last one of the year, and its a big one, with the Third Reading of David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill. last Member's Day it was reported back from committee, after MPs voted narrowly to make it subject to a (rules TBA) ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThe growth of the human population over the last 70 ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...
by Don Franks In 1957, E M Forster wrote, of his greatest work: “The India described in ‘A Passage to India’ no longer exists either politically or socially. Change had begun even at the time the book was published ( 1924) and during the following quarter of a century it ...
The Referendums Framework Bill was due back from select committee today. But there's no report on it. Instead, the bill has been bounced back to the House under Standing order 29593) because the Committee didn't bother to produce one. They probably tried. But given the membership of the committee (which ...
Two years into New Zealand’s Labour-led government, the long-delayed Zero Carbon Bill became law on 7 November. Passed essentially unanimously, the lengthy public debates and political manoeuvring faded away until the final passage was even anticlimactic: Flipping through the @nzstuff@DomPost I was starting to wonder if I’d dreamt ...
Now the Zero Carbon Bill is law, what's next? Obviously, the ETS changes currently before select committee are going to be the next battleground. But we're also going to get a good idea of where we're going, and if the progress the Zero Carbon Act promises is good enough, during ...
Grant PearceThe effects of the current Australian bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland (and also again in California) are devastating and far-reaching. To date, the fires have resulted in several lives being lost and many homes and properties destroyed. Here in New Zealand, the impacts have been only ...
A passing comment in a post the other day about the labour force participation rates of older people prompted me to pull down the fuller data and see what we could see about various participation rates over the decades since the HLFS began in 1986. As it happens, the ...
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...
"I saw a newspaper picture,From the political campaignA woman was kissing a child,Who was obviously in pain.She spills with compassion,As that young child'sFace in her hands she gripsCan you imagine all that greed and avariceComing down on that child's lips?" ...
Dr Matt Boyd, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick WilsonThe Global Health Security Index which considers pandemic threats has just been published. Unfortunately, NZ scores approximately half marks (54/100), coming in 35th in the world rankings – far behind Australia. This poor result suggests that the NZ Government needs to ...
The Zero Carbon Act is inadequate, with a weak methane target designed to give farmers a free ride. But it turns out it could have been worse: Climate Change Minister James Shaw was so desperate to get National on board, he wanted to gut that target, and leave it in ...
The Herald reprints an Australian story on a couple of tragic deaths in Bali from drinking cocktails that had methanol in them. The story argues that methanol is likely the result of home distillation. But what the young tourists were experiencing was far from a hangover. They’d consumed a toxic cocktail ...
Last month, the police announced a trial of specialist roaming armed units, which would drive round (poor, brown) areas in armoured SUVs, armed to the teeth. When they announced the trial, they told us it was about having armed police "ready to attend major incidents at any time if needed". ...
Spain went to the polls today in the second elections this year, after the Socialists (who had come to power in a confidence vote, then gone to the polls in April) rejected the offer of a coalition with the left-wing PoDemos, and instead decided to gamble n a better outcome ...
A couple of days ago I attended (and spoke at) the University of Waikato’s “LearnFest” event. There were lots of talks and sessions on very diverse aspects of teaching, mostly at tertiary level. One was by Myra Williamson from Te Piringa Faculty of Law here at Waikato, on Contract Cheating ...
There will be a transit of Mercury – the planet Mercury will pass across the face of the Sun – taking place at sunrise in New Zealand on Tuesday, 12th November. It was by observing such an event 250 years ago that James Cook and his scientist colleagues were able ...
Since becoming the world’s first openly transexual mayor and member of parliament, Georgina Beyer has been recognised as a trailblazer for trans rights. Daphna Whitmore talks with her about where she sees the current trans movement We start out talking about legislation the government put on hold that would have ...
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ...
National Messiah? Chris Luxon identifies himself as an evangelical Christian. If he is genuine in this self-characterisation, then he will take every opportunity his public office provides to proselytise on behalf of his faith. He will also feel obliged to bear witness against beliefs and practices he believes to be ...
I'm going to make a Reckless Prediction™ that the Tories have 'topped out' in the 'poll of polls' / Britain Elects multipoll tracker at about 38%, and in the next week we will start to see Labour creep up on them.In fact, we might just be seeing the start of ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Lizzie Marvelly: “I may have missed this… has @afterellen gone all terf-y? Or am I reading something incorrectly? “ https://twitter.com/LizzieMarvelly/status/1191840059105742849 After Ellen is a lesbian website that is unashamedly pro-lesbian, as you’d expect. So why is Ms Marvelly so bothered about lesbians having their ...
Did you know there once was a time when it was illegal to be a gypsy (aka Romani) in Britain?That was between 1530, when the Egyptians Act was passed, and 1856, when it was repealed.Amongst other things, the act forbade the entry of 'Egyptians' into England, ordered those already there ...
Some days I sit and think, “what will I write…?” What do you say when you get to 1000 posts? Maybe you just start where you are, diverge to where this all began, then offer a collection of reader’s favourite posts, and a few of your own? (And throw in ...
Counter-Puncher: The “activists” and “radicals” (his own words) from the Indian community who took such strong exception to Shane Jones’ remarks about Immigration NZ’s treatment of arranged marriages, may end up bitterly regretting their intervention. Jones is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to his critics.SHANE ...
In the spirit of Remember, remember the fifth of November, let's keep this in mind FOREVER.
Oh dear. Extraordinary interview on PM with Andrew Bridgen and @EvanHD just now. Bridgen was defending Jacob Rees Mogg’s Grenfell comments. Evan asked him if JRM had meant to say he would have left ...
Collision Course? In conditions of ideological white-out, the international bankers’ “Woop-Woop! Pull Up!” warning may have come too late to save global capitalism.WHAT DOES IT MEAN when international bankers are more willing to embrace radical solutions than our politicians and their electors? At both the International Monetary Fund and the ...
Pertussis (whooping cough) is a conundrum. It is a disease that was described hundreds of years ago and the bacteria that causes it (Bordetella pertussis) isolated in 1906. We have had vaccines for about 80 years but this disease is defiant in the face of human immunity. I wanted to ...
The Zero Carbon Bill has just passed its third reading, uanimously. In the end, National supported it - but we all know they'll turn around and gut it the moment they regain power. Meanwhile, I guess ACT's David Seymour didn't even bother to show up. I am on record as ...
Dr Lindsay Robertson, Dr Jerram Bateman, Professor Janet HoekMembers of the public health community hold divergent views on how access to vaping products or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products should be arranged. Some believe ENDS should be as widely available as smoked tobacco and argue for liberal ...
When the Police were trying to cover up for the National Party over Dirty Politics, they went all-in with their abuses of power. They illegally search Nicky Hager's house, violating his journalistic privilege and invading his privacy. They unlawfully acquired Hager's bank records. They did the same to left-wing blogger ...
Clayton Mitchell, Spokesperson for Consumer Affairs The ‘wheel clamping’ Bill that will cap clamper fees to $100 passed its third readinginParliament today. New Zealand First welcomes The Land Transport (Wheel Clamping) Amendment Bill to combat predatory wheel clamping behaviour in what is currently a largely unregulated business. Cowboy clampers are: gouging ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its first reading in Parliament. “Today’s progress takes serious action on the mental health and addiction crisis the country is facing,” says New Zealand First Health Spokesperson Jenny Marcroft. “The re-establishment ...
Mark Patterson, Spokesperson for Primary Industries Today the Government announced the delivery of the promise to protect New Zealand interests by applying a new National Interest Test to the sales of our most sensitive and high risk assets to overseas buyers. This further strengthening of the Overseas Investment Act will ...
The Coalition Government is delivering on its promise to protect New Zealanders’ interests by applying a new national interest test to the sales of our most sensitive and high-risk assets to overseas buyers. Under current Overseas Investment Act (OIA) rules, assets such as ports and airports, telecommunications infrastructure, electricity and ...
Rt Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First Allegations raised this morning by Stuff Limited / Fairfax concern a party matter but I am confident that New Zealand First has operated within electoral laws, now and for the last 27 years. Declarable donations were declared to the Electoral Commission. Our ...
The chairman of the Upper North Island Supply Chain Strategy (UNISCS) working group, Wayne Brown, has hit back at critics of his group’s recommendations to relocate the Ports of Auckland cargo operations to Whangarei’s deepwater port of Northport. The working group's recommendation to close Auckland waterfront to all but cruise ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First backs the public to decide on the End of Life Choice Bill via a referendum at the 2020 General Election. The Bill, with New Zealand First’s referendum provision incorporated, passed its final reading in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Justice New Zealand First is proud that a key Coalition Agreement commitment which will provide for a more transparent and effective criminal justice system has been realised. Legislation to establish the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body focused on identifying and responding to possible miscarriages of ...
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...
Darroch Ball, New Zealand First List MP A Member’s bill has been proposed that would provide income tax exemptions for all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel while on operational deployment overseas. The Income Tax (Exemption for Salary or Wages of NZDF Members on Active Deployment) Amendment Bill proposed by New Zealand First ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have brought common sense to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which passed its final reading in Parliament today. Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says months of hard work went into negotiating a balanced ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First has listened to calls to recognise paramedics as registered health professionals under the Health Practitioners’ Competence Assurance Act (the Act).Today, the Coalition Government announced plans for paramedics to be registered as health practitioners under the Act, and the establishment of a ...
We began the week by commemorating the New Zealand Wars and celebrating a major increase in the number of teachers. Then, we were busy supporting offenders into work and getting our rail back on track after years of underinvestment. And that's just the start! ...
In October I was sworn in as the Mayor of Lower Hutt.It’s the privilege of my life to serve Hutt people as their Mayor. There is something really special to be able to serve the community where I was raised, and where I live. ...
Innovation and technology are behind five new tools to give nature a helping hand by helping eliminate predators, funded through the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage and Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “The new tools will be trialled in ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has welcomed the first reading of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation 2021 (APEC 2021) Bill in Parliament today. The temporary bill supports New Zealand’s security preparations for hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in 2021. “APEC is the leading economic and trade forum ...
The Government is making progress on improving the wellbeing of the one million New Zealanders under the age of 18,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on World Children’s Day. The Government has today recommitted to the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history – the United Nation’s Convention on ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter has released a new report celebrating the contribution of Māori women in business across Aotearoa New Zealand. “Māori women are leaders in our communities, they employ many people and support our economy and our communities,” Julie Anne Genter said. The report, Ngā wāhine kaipakihi: ...
Four parcels of land have been bought in Omokoroa, in the Western Bay of Plenty District, for an education facility that will accommodate both a primary and secondary school on a campus-like facility, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. Two parcels were acquired from private land owners and two were ...
1 million New Zealanders warmed by the Winter Energy Payment 36,000 families bank the Best Start Payment in first year 6,000 more families received the Family Tax Credit, 220,600 in total They receive an increase too – from an average of $117 to $157 a week for Inland Revenue clients, ...
New rules to clamp down on overzealous wheel clamping and extortionate fees charged in order to release a vehicle have passed their final stage in Parliament today. The Land Transport (Wheel Clamping) Amendment Bill has now passed its third reading. “These changes mean $100 will be the maximum wheel clamping ...
An independent Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission is a step closer after it unanimously passed its first vote in Parliament today. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill lays the groundwork for establishing the Commission as a fully independent crown entity – delivering on a key recommendation of He Ara ...
We’ve improved border security with the NZeTA, New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority, which helps us to screen travellers for border and immigration risks off-shore before they travel to New Zealand. It was launched in August and became mandatory on 1 October 2019. More than 500,000 NZeTAs have been issued since ...
A proposed national plan of action to reduce the number of seabirds caught in fisheries is being circulated for public feedback. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage say New Zealand is a global centre of seabird diversity with about 145 species in our waters. It has more ...
The Government is delivering on its promise to protect New Zealanders’ interests by applying a new national interest test to the sales of our most sensitive and high risk assets to overseas buyers. Associate Finance Minister David Parker said under current Overseas Investment Act rules, assets such as ports and ...
The Government is building special housing to accommodate one of Aotearoa’s greatest taonga- our kaumātua, says the Minister for Māori Development, Hon Nanaia Mahuta. Speaking at a National Kaumātua Service Providers Conference in Rotorua today, the Minister reinforced the importance kaumātua play in maintaining and passing on mātauranga Māori, knowledge, ...
Eleven men from a pilot forestry training programme for prisoners in Northland now have full time jobs or job offers upon release, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis and Forestry Minister Shane Jones announced today. The ‘release to work’ programme was a collaboration between Te Uru Rākau and the Department of Corrections, ...
Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins today introduced into Parliament a Bill that will make it easier for the public service to tackle the biggest challenges facing Governments. The Bill represents the most significant change in the public service in 30 years. The State Sector Act 1988 will be repealed ...
The families of more than 416,000 students will be better off next year as their schools have signed up to the Government’s donations scheme, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. The scheme will see almost $62.5 million in additional Government funding go to schools nationwide next year. “I’m really pleased ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced further support as the Government of Samoa responds to a serious measles outbreak. “New Zealand will deploy a further 18 vaccination nurses, bringing the total to 30 working in Samoa over the next four weeks,” Mr Peters said. “A New Zealand Medical Assistance ...
Fa’atalofa atu, malo e lelei, Kia ora koutou katoa Thank you to the Child Poverty Action Group for asking me to be here today to provide an update on some of the things that have been happening across my the social development portfolio. Can I firstly acknowledge the vast ...
***Please check against delivery*** Good morning everyone. It is a pleasure to be with you this morning to open this year’s New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing Conference and AGM. Firstly, thank you Dr Alan Jackson, NZTR Chair for your introduction. And let us acknowledge also: The NZTR Board; Dean McKenzie, Chair ...
The Government has delivered on its promise to the over one million New Zealanders who now rent to make it fairer and more secure, Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing) Kris Faafoi has announced today. Both renters and landlords will benefit from the suite of practical changes to the Residential ...
A marine conservation milestone - the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Te Tapuwae o Rongokako Marine Reserve - is being celebrated today at a community event in Tairāwhiti/East Coast attended by the Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “The creation of this marine reserve in November 1999 was a game ...
The Government is asking the food industry to step up work to tackle obesity including reducing sugar, fat and salt in their products, better information for consumers, and tighter restrictions on advertising to children. Health Minister David Clark and Food Safety Minister Damien O’Connor have responded to a ...
ew, modern emergency department and outpatient facilities at Queenstown’s Lakes District Hospital mean better emergency care for the growing tourist mecca’s visitors and locals, says Health Minister David Clark. Today Dr Clark officially opened the hospital’s redeveloped Emergency Department and Outpatient facilities. The new facilities include: • An extended Emergency Department ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter says today’s release of sexual and reproductive health data reinforces the significance of the Government’s commitment to providing free or very low-cost contraception. The Ministry of Health today published statistics from the Ministry of Health’s 2014/15 Health Survey. “It is important people can make ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that at the request of the Samoan Government, New Zealand will be providing further support to Samoa as it faces a worsening measles outbreak. “In response to a request from the people of Samoa, New Zealand is providing 3000 measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) ...
“The new Disability Action Plan 2019–2023 moves us towards the inclusive and accessible New Zealand that this government has committed to,” Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni announced today. “The Action Plan was designed by disabled people, their family and supporters, the disability sector and government agencies. It will ensure ...
Third Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting 14 November 2019 Joint Statement 1. Defence Ministers Ron Mark and Dr Ng Eng Hen today conducted their third annual Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Singapore. 2. Building on the Enhanced Partnership signed between both countries in May this year, this annual meeting ...
A Bill to improve the court system’s response to sexual violence has passed its first reading in Parliament today. Justice Minister Andrew Little says the Sexual Violence Legislation Bill will reduce the trauma sexual violence complainants experience in court, while maintaining defendants’ fundamental rights and making sure the trial process ...
Streamlined payment practices are a step closer for Kiwi businesses with the formal launch of New Zealand’s e-Invoicing framework. Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the government has now established the structure to enable automated and direct data exchange between the accounting systems of buyers and sellers. “The move to ...
Another 51 quarantine officers and four new biosecurity detector dog teams will help protect New Zealand from invasive pests and diseases this summer, says Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor. “The Government is delivering on its commitment to strengthen New Zealand’s biosecurity system and support our valuable primary sector “New Zealand’s flora, fauna ...
A new report has found New Zealand’s space sector contributed $1.69 billion to the economy in the last financial year and employs 12,000 people, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford announced today. The report by Deloitte was commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and shows New Zealand ...
Judge Coral Shaw has been appointed as the new Chair of the Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. "Judge Shaw, who is currently one of the inquiry commissioners, is extremely well qualified for the ...
The Government has confirmed its third major mental health facility upgrade since the Budget, this time at Palmerston North Hospital. The Prime Minister and Health Minister today visited MidCentral DHB to announce that $30 million has been allocated to upgrade its acute mental health facility. It follows earlier announcements in ...
The roll out of the National Bowel Screening Programme has reached the halfway mark, with 10 out of 20 District Health Boards now part of the programme. MidCentral DHB, which covers Palmerston North, Manawatu and surrounding districts, this week became the latest to DHB to offer free bowel screening to ...
The Government welcomes PHARMAC’s decision to fund a vaccine to protect young people from meningococcal disease from 1 December this year. “Meningococcal disease is a serious threat which people at higher risk should be protected from,” says Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter. “The combined pharmaceutical budget was increased by ...
Groups involved with innovative fisheries research projects are encouraged to apply for government support in the latest funding round from the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures programme. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash says the SFF Futures funding is designed to be flexible enough to support small or large projects across a ...
The Government has fixed an issue affecting how Immigration New Zealand has processed visa applications for culturally arranged marriages, which will now see a consistent process applied which ensures people with legitimate arranged marriages can visit New Zealand while also preventing any rorting of the system. Earlier this year Immigration ...
The Royal Commission into the Attacks on Christchurch Mosques will report back on 30 April 2020 to give it more time to hear submissions and consider information, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Royal Commission was originally scheduled to report back to Government by 10 December 2019. “There has ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Washington DC today to attend a ministerial meeting focused on defeating ISIS, and to continue pursuing New Zealand’s trade opportunities. Mr Peters will participate in a meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers from key countries contributing to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. ...
The recently crowned Bird of the Year, the hoiho/yellow eyed penguin, is getting a much needed helping hand alongside more than 168 other community conservation projects announced Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage today. 168 community conservation projects throughout New Zealand are benefiting from $8 million in government grants, including $500,000 ...
Controls on assault rifles and semi-automatic firearms are to be broadened to include some types of pistols, under changes to a bill currently making its way through Parliament. Police Minister Stuart Nash has tabled a Supplementary Order Paper to the Arms Legislation Bill, which is currently before a Select Committee ...
In the 1970s, agriculture made the largest single contribution to New Zealand’s economy, but other industries, especially services, have become more dominant in recent years, Stats NZ said today. ...
Government finance statistics (general government) gives an economic representation of New Zealand's central and local government financial activity. ...
The government should look at an unemployment insurance scheme and add new benefits to help support people who lose their jobs, the Productivity Commission suggests. ...
Today Hāpai Te Hauora’s Māori Public Health Team launches "Tobacco is Not Our whakapapa" a series of video clips which seeks to re-center whakapapa in the narrative of tobacco harm minimisation. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.NZ First Matt Shand (Stuff): Who are the donors behind the NZ First Foundation? Matt ...
A leaked email from prominent share broking firm Forsyth Barr perpetuates a tediously old-fashioned idea of the way people think – and it isn’t even salvaged by wit or originality, writes business editor Maria Slade.Investment manager Forsyth Barr’s daily market commentary came with a seasonal extra on November 1. Atop ...
Newly released documents reveal Cabinet considered whether immigrants should be forced to take their elderly parents with them if they leave the country. ...
More than 640 letters in parcels filled with nonrecyclable single-use plastics have been mailed to MPs in Parliament via freepost since the plastic2parliament initiative started in mid-October. Another 125 plastic-stuffed letters were directed to National ...
Agrochemical company Ravensdown is risking potentially disruptive direct action by refusing to allow port workers to register their protest at the importing of Blood Phosphate from the Western Sahara, says the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU). ...
A few days ago, Fanimals announced it would not be returning for another season. Emily Writes, and her kids, are heartbroken.On my list of things I might write about one day it simply said ‘Fanimals’ sandwiched between ‘How old is BeckBroJack?’ and ‘Is Peter Krause the most dad-like dad on television?’I ...
Family First says that the trend to extend daycare times, and its role to be virtually de facto parents, is concerning, ignores the real needs of children, and reinforces the need for more support to be given to parents with young children. “Babies are ...
Donors to NZ First’s slush fund believed they were making political donations to the party itself in accordance with the law – especially as an NZ First MP organised some of the donations. ...
When the current coalition government was formed, there was some comment that this was perhaps New Zealand First's last chance at political redemption. The party's two previous stints in government had failed to last three years. The 1996-98 coalition ...
Newly released documents reveal the cabinet considered whether immigrants should be forced to take their elderly parents with them if they leave the country. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gavin Rowell, Associate Professor in High Energy Astrophyics, University of Adelaide The brightest fireworks in the universe are called gamma-ray bursts and are created by the death throes of certain kinds of stars. These intense blasts release as much energy in one ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter McPhee, Emeritus professor, University of Melbourne We live in a world of violent challenges to the status quo, from Chile and Iraq to Hong Kong, Catalonia and the Extinction Rebellion. These protests are usually presented in the media simply as expressions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Sadler, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne A career in the Australian Defence Force (ADF), or the armed forces in any country, can be rewarding, but also demanding. Challenges include the rigorous training, frequent moves, and maintaining social connections. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aniko Blanka Toth, Postdoctoral Fellow, Macquarie University As the world grapples with an extinction crisis, our large mammals are among the most endangered. These threatened species – rhinos, pandas, tigers, polar bears and the like – greatly influence their ecosystems. So what ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Nickl, Lecturer in International Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, University of Sydney In September, the Fair Work commission rejected an unfair dismissal claim by a BP worker who made a Downfall video meme about his boss. Fair Work called it “inappropriate ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Dozens of electorates will have boundary changes, Zespri launches legal action over special kiwifruit, and more tumbles out of NZ First Foundation.Dozens of electorates will see their boundaries change, and a whole new electorate will be created in Auckland, if ...
On a farm near Rotorua, breeding rams are having their methane-laced burps measured - so the next generation of lambs can be bred from climate-friendlier fathers. ...
Back from a freak injury, White Ferns quick bowler Lea Tahuhu continues to make the most of her "gift" as the world's fastest woman with a cricket ball ...
NZ phone companies and the government are setting up a system that will identify scam callers within hours and, they hope, stop them in their tracks, the Spinoff can reveal.We’ve all received them. The calls from strange corners of the world at odd times of the day. After I made ...
The process to appoint Steve Hansen looks increasingly like a farce as quality candidate after quality candidate rule themselves out. Was it all preordained, asks Jamie Wall.For an awful lot of 2019, I was one of the select few that sat in a room with Steve Hansen several times a ...
News that one big publisher wants to buy the other, giving the state a Kiwishare to avoid regulatory objections, complicates a media crisis the government hasn't yet addressed. ...
A flash new playground has been unveiled on Parliament's grounds today, amid growing calls for the government to take more action to help lift Kiwi kids out of poverty. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne Two and a half months before the February 3 Iowa Democratic caucus, the highly regarded Selzer poll for CNN and the Des Moines Register gave Pete Buttigieg 25% in Iowa ...
A bill allowing overseas security agents to carry illegal guns while in New Zealand for the APEC summit has passed its first reading, without support from the Greens. ...
The Labour led coalition government is continuing to create homelessness. The impact of immigration, failure of Kiwibuild, and attacks on the rental market, have resulted in the opposite outcomes that New Zealanders were promised. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Every, Senior Research Fellow in social vulnerability and disasters, CQUniversity Australia If you live in a bushfire-prone area, you’ll likely have considered what you will do in the event of a bushfire. The decision, which should be made well in advance ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giovanni Di Virgilio, Research associate, UNSW Temperatures across many regions of Australia are set to exceed 40℃ this week, including heatwaves forecast throughout parts of eastern Australia, raising the spectre of more devastating bushfires. We have already heard warnings this fire season ...
Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) says that the Government’s Families Package Monitoring Report shows strong commitment to the intentions outlined in the Child Poverty Reduction Act, specifically with regard to reporting on progressing towards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giovanni Di Virgilio, Research associate, UNSW Temperatures across many regions of Australia are set to exceed 40℃ this week, including heatwaves forecast throughout parts of eastern Australia, raising the spectre of more devastating bushfires. We have already heard warnings this fire season ...
Today leading Māori health and public health organisations called on the Crown to meet its obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi as it drafts legislation for the regulation of cannabis. More than 50 Māori leaders joined the call for Māori rights ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claudia Vickers, Director, Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform, CSIRO We need to revolutionise agriculture in the next 30 years. In 2050 we may have almost 10 billion people to feed. Farmland is already degraded by existing agriculture, and climate change is putting ...
Between now and March 2020 there is a small window where migrants who work in industries like aged care will have a realistic chance to get residency for the first time. This is due to ANZSCO skill levels being reclassified in Australia and some of those ...
Spinoff Art editor Mark Amery and photographer Ebony Lamb pay a visit to the internationally celebrated jewellery couple at their colonial cottage above Island Bay.The white horses are galloping in from the Cook Strait as photographer and singer-songwriter Ebony Lamb (Eb and Sparrow) and I roll in to Island Bay, ...
New powers to protect strategically-important assets from overseas investors are necessary due to the extremes of global capitalism, the government says. ...
Don’t get sucked in by the jovial banter and the sausage sizzle with Jacinda Ardern. Stephen Colbert is an international criminal mastermind who must be stopped. New Zealand is fizzing today with the exciting news that someone from another country has noticed that we exist. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ...
When the 59 new constables of Wing 332 graduate on Thursday, one of them will be the 1,800th new constable to head to the frontline since October 2017. ...
Extending the amnesty period for the return of banned firearms is utterly pointless unless the compensation period is extended as well, says the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO). ...
The Taxpayers Union denounced the role it seemed the government would require taxpayers to play in resolving the Ihumatao land dispute. But the union further claimed that taxpayers had contributed to the funding of an organisation which has been involved in the prolonged protest action at Ihumatao. This was a ...
Save the Children are extremely pleased by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement today that the Government will recommit to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). ...
David Farrier has been writing about clamping enthusiast Michael Organ for nearly three years. In this latest installment, the totally logical thing happens and the New Zealand government rolls up its sleeves.Catch up with the extraordinary saga of the clamp-happy Bashford Antiques: Parts I to V are hereWhen Michael Organ ...
In October teams of second-year Unitec Architecture students designed, modelled, then constructed interactive light installations in Devonport’s Windsor Reserve for GLOW@Artweek. The brief is strict. Their budget is zero. And the installations must be zero waste too, both in the construction and in the afterlife of the projects. These strict conditions ...
A wave of reviews and inquiries into audit around the globe are raising questions about trust, independence, and freedom from conflicts of interest in the profession, says CAANZ President Stephen Walker. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen, who has previously been shadow treasurer and before that treasurer, wants the study of economics made “more sexy” to attract more students, especially women, to study it. And he thinks young ...
Jenée Tibshraeny of interest.co.nz surveys the issues that have farmers worried right now, and looks at the facts behind the fears.Rumblings from the dairy farming sector are becoming increasingly loud, as both the Government and Reserve Bank (RBNZ) make policy changes that affect the sector.New Zealand has for years milked ...
He Kākano Ahau is a podcast by writer and activist Kahu Kutia (Ngāi Tūhoe) that explores stories of Māori in the city, and weaves together strands of connection. In this episode: what happens when Māori are not ‘urban Māori’ as we know them, but mana whenua.For episode four of He ...
New powers to protect strategically-important assets from overseas investors are necessary due to the extremes of global capitalism, the government says. ...
Open Mike 04/06/2018 
5 hours ago
Satellites pass over NZ all the time (literally). Here I focus on the 187 Planet Labs ‘Dove’ Earth-imaging satellites, and I show that one can determine in advance where they will be, enabling scientists on the ground to correlate their environmental and other data collection with opportunities to get imaging ...12 hours ago
The Council of Disobedient Women has learned that the Prefect of Aro Valley has been promoted to a new role with the blessing of the Pope of Wellington. Softy Jejune Parson has been appointed Mother Superior of Woke Wellington for the work she has been doing calling out heretics, ...14 hours ago
On both sides of the Atlantic, some purportedly “contentious” and “difficult to deal with” leadership contenders to lead the US and UK, as President and Prime Minister respectively, seem to have thrown a few spanners into the works of the normal messaging most are used to hearing constantly. Except they’re ...16 hours ago
In Question Time today the Prime Minister was naturally facing questions about Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and his dubious party financing arrangements, which seem to violate electoral finance law. Her response was to pretend that it was nothing to do with her, and that she is not responsible for ...21 hours ago
It has been revealed that firing ranges used by the NZDF while deployed to the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamyan Province, Afghanistan, contained unexploded ordnance that caused numerous deaths and injuries after the NZDF withdrew the PRT in April 2013. In 2014 seven children were killed when an unidentified ...1 day ago
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Initially it was reported that in an aerial bombardment that took place on August 30th seven children were massacred; the figure then went up to eight and then on November 11th Noticias Uno reported that, according to people from the community in close proximity to the ...2 days ago
MediaWorks announced in October 2019 that it intended to sell off its struggling television business and cancel or cut back on several popular local programmes, including New Zealand Today, Married at First Sight New Zealand and 7 Days. Its radio and outdoor advertising arms are currently performing well, but MediaWorks’ ...3 days ago
There is an article in The Conversation, written by Jeremy P. Shapiro (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University), about what he sees as the psychologically-based underpinnings of three main matters that seem to vex people all around the planet. The article is titled “The Thinking ...5 days ago
. . Blogger Martyn Bradbury has won his case against unreasonable search and surveillance against the NZ Police; and subsequent Police attempts to produce evidence in secrecy, in a closed Court. His case highlights a disturbing growing trend in Aotearoa New Zealand for State power to be used against ...5 days ago
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...1 week ago
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ... 2 weeks ago
Clayton Mitchell, Spokesperson for Consumer Affairs The ‘wheel clamping’ Bill that will cap clamper fees to $100 passed its third reading in Parliament today. New Zealand First welcomes The Land Transport (Wheel Clamping) Amendment Bill to combat predatory wheel clamping behaviour in what is currently a largely unregulated business. Cowboy clampers are: gouging ...1 day ago
We're setting our young people up for success, investing in education around the country. ...3 days ago
Innovation and technology are behind five new tools to give nature a helping hand by helping eliminate predators, funded through the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage and Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “The new tools will be trialled in ...1 hour ago
In the 1970s, agriculture made the largest single contribution to New Zealand’s economy, but other industries, especially services, have become more dominant in recent years, Stats NZ said today. ...18 mins ago
The government should look at an unemployment insurance scheme and add new benefits to help support people who lose their jobs, the Productivity Commission suggests. ...39 mins ago
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.
A leaked email from prominent share broking firm Forsyth Barr perpetuates a tediously old-fashioned idea of the way people think – and it isn’t even salvaged by wit or originality, writes business editor Maria Slade.Investment manager Forsyth Barr’s daily market commentary came with a seasonal extra on November 1. Atop ...1 hour ago
Newly released documents reveal Cabinet considered whether immigrants should be forced to take their elderly parents with them if they leave the country. ...1 hour ago
Donors to NZ First’s slush fund believed they were making political donations to the party itself in accordance with the law – especially as an NZ First MP organised some of the donations. ...3 hours ago
Newly released documents reveal the cabinet considered whether immigrants should be forced to take their elderly parents with them if they leave the country. ...3 hours ago
Simon Bridges wants PM to take action over NZ First allegations; and electoral boundaries change with new Flat Bush electorate. ...3 hours ago
“My advice to you as a chief executive is do not put your head in a political noose." ...5 hours ago
On a farm near Rotorua, breeding rams are having their methane-laced burps measured - so the next generation of lambs can be bred from climate-friendlier fathers. ...6 hours ago
Pristine beaches, smiling hotel staff and exotic cultural experiences: this is how many picture a holiday in a tropical country. But at what cost? ...6 hours ago
Machines will transcribe handwritten weather records from as far back as 1860 to help predict future weather patterns. ...6 hours ago
NZ’s tobacco companies used annual tax increases as cover for significant voluntary price increases. Pete McKenzie reports. ...6 hours ago
A confessional memoir from the latest and radically good issue of the literary journal Sport, by its editor, Tayi Tibble. ...6 hours ago
Back from a freak injury, White Ferns quick bowler Lea Tahuhu continues to make the most of her "gift" as the world's fastest woman with a cricket ball ...6 hours ago
The University of Otago's Jacob Edmond discusses how poetry continues to play a vital role in modern society. ...6 hours ago
A new Suicide Prevention Office - but a recycled plan, and no targets. Are we doing enough to try to get our horrific suicide rates down? ...6 hours ago
News that one big publisher wants to buy the other, giving the state a Kiwishare to avoid regulatory objections, complicates a media crisis the government hasn't yet addressed. ...14 hours ago
The Government has a $7.5b surplus, which experts and advocates say should be spent on helping children and families most in need. ...16 hours ago
Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has proposed an "overlying structure" that would help with oversight of local government. ...17 hours ago
Is Labour looking to increase the top personal tax rate again and considering reinstating long-abandoned wealth and inheritance taxes? ...19 hours ago
A mystery bidder has made a play for one of the country's biggest retirement village operators. ...20 hours ago
New powers to protect strategically-important assets from overseas investors are necessary due to the extremes of global capitalism, the government says. ...20 hours ago
The Taxpayers Union denounced the role it seemed the government would require taxpayers to play in resolving the Ihumatao land dispute. But the union further claimed that taxpayers had contributed to the funding of an organisation which has been involved in the prolonged protest action at Ihumatao. This was a ...22 hours ago
Zespri is pursuing legal action in China to stop the spread of pirated kiwifruit cuttings. ...22 hours ago
A wave of reviews and inquiries into audit around the globe are raising questions about trust, independence, and freedom from conflicts of interest in the profession, says CAANZ President Stephen Walker. ...23 hours ago
Half of New Zealand's electoral boundaries are expected to change, and a new electorate is proposed for South Auckland. ...23 hours ago
Sir Bingles.
What the hell?
Eloquently put. WTF.
Time to get rid of this anachronism – once again!
I would have expected it under National but I would have hoped for better under a Labour coalition. Obviously not.
Cringeworthy colonial hangeover titles are a joke but they do give an indication of what an administration values.
I just ignore titles like Knight and Dame. I may be tilting at windmills but I just simply never use them. I mean Shonkey is still Shonkey.
Isn’t it insulting? They’re sure good at looking out for themselves aren’t they.
I saw in an awards piece yesterday that ex-PMs are now knighted as matter of course. Why? For doing their job? And why Double Dipper when he was only PM for about a year?
It said of course that he was also being recognised for being our most successful Minister of Finance whose wisdom and general awesomeness got us through the Global Financial Crisis and now he was going to make a new career advising others how he created our rockstar economy (or something like that).
But it is about looking after themselves. The main fault with the awards systems is that politicians have their sticky fingers all over it. I would have hoped that a true left-wing Labour-led government would not have recognised such a man. But that’s not what we’ve got.
I wonder as an aside if the Greens and NZ First were allowed any input or a veto.
I suspect went something like: Bill English asked for a knighthood (through the Nats) and the govt thought it would be bad publicity to refuse him. They’d look mean and lose votes. Farrar and co would wet themselves complaining about it for years to come. That particular boil has been lanced.
Yeah it’s just like upper management salaries. They all scratch each others back because they’re afraid if they were to break the cycle they might miss out themselves. Self serving pricks.
Former British PMs once received an Earldom but Macmillan was the last to get one and as for other honours Thatcher has been the only one, being a Baroness.
They seem to see it as a pointless gesture, why cant we. My use of an honorific is of course a parody.
Never mind though eh? It serves as a reminder to politicians in future who wonder why their public have no confidence or faith in them.
Could have been worse. It could have been Dame Paula Bennett, and then Madge really would have good reason to expect people pissing on her grave (going forward)
But then when you think of various others ….. such as in Pillars, or budgetry advice advocacy, or advocates for education, health, the indigent – it is a bit sickening.
I hope they don’t expect any R E S P E C T because they’ll be shit out of luck.
Maybe they were trying to be ‘fair and balanced’.
Ms Healy does deserve respect. The double dipper (who as a Kethlik, really should have a very guilty conscience) is deserving of none.
Like that Parmjeet Kaur on another strand, I spose it’s the difference between faith and religion. (I religiously get up at 5am and religiously take a dump at 5.30)
In one sense. On the other hand, Bill English and knighthoods are very much institutions of the same establishment.
Perhaps ‘Sir’ stands for ‘Social Investment Required’?
Someone who places their Wellington house into a trust in order to claim $900/week in accommodation allowance for having to live in Wellington, surely shows a lack of understanding of social norms? Early identification and remediation of this problematic behaviour while Bill was still in primary school may have worked. The behaviour is particularly concerning, seeing $900 is as much as many Kiwis (most without discernibly less talent than Bill English) earn in a week.
To add insult to injury, I had to endure listening to the smug, repellent fool wittering on about social investment this morning on RNZ.
Let’s be clear, ‘social investment’ is a smokescreen and a propaganda exercise. Its purpose is to keep a broken economic system in place by suggesting that its victims are at fault by being somehow defective. They therefore need to identified early so they can be ‘fixed’. The truth is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the vast majority of the poor.
David Slack on Twitter: He’d have been knighted sooner but they kept sending the invitation letter to Dipton.
😆
Well-deserved, Sir Bill.
WTF have the Topp twins done
Congrats Bill for:
* bailing out your mates in South Canterbury Finance: $1.7 billion
* screwing Solid Energy: $128 million
* diverting billions worth of asset sales proceeds from social programs to banks
* deleting 450 unusual texts to a National Party staffer and covering for a bully (Todd Barclay)
Scumbag of the lowest order.
Key
Talley
English
Shipley
Estrange Corbet
Knighthoods and dames . It would seem they area prize for committing crimes against the citizens of New Zealand and the world.
+111
Excellent reporting from Tony Wall on our 100% Pure nation’s use of methyl bromide.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103690904/its-banned-in-other-countries-but-new-zealand-is-using-more-toxic-methyl-bromide-than-ever
There are three parts, so make coffee and toast and dig in.
Life of a worker is cheap like it would be in a third world country.
One of the stevedores who went to hospital claims it’s not the first time workers have been exposed – “it’s a common event” – and says some colleagues have refused to work when methyl bromide is being vented.
“They just don’t come out of their huts if they’re de-tarping.”
The worker says he wants to speak out but has been “muzzled”.
“If you don’t do what you’re told you get removed off the board and they don’t give you work.”
A good reason to process the logs in nz.
That is so scary-good post Rosemary.
We get hit with this stuff unloading containers for international performers. Open container, stand back. I’ve suggested large fans…
One time a huge foreign moth flew up out of the container and off into the spotlights surrounding the grounds. As a biologist type my sphincter did clench…
Nothing came of it. It could have been carrying eggs… But that’s the reason they’re so keen on the bromide in containers. Me, I’d just make them airtight, suck the air out, critters die, job done.
But thinking, you know…
Landlords complain of price gouging insulation companies.
Ironically (in the context that this is EXACTLY what landlords inflict upon tenants) landlords point out that subsidies don’t make it cheaper, instead the subsidy is essentially additional income to the insulation company.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12062882
They’ve had plenty of time to get this done when the demand was lower.
Yet they dragged their heels because providing a warm dry home for tenants is actually the very last thing on their minds. The slow uptake on the subsidy was noted.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/news/article.cfm?c_id=8&objectid=11879566
No use complaining about the price of insulation now – supply and demand.
Muttonbird @ 4.1 cry me a river
Wonder how they’d feel if the Accommodation Supplement was cancelled. It is, after all, a subsidy to landlords who automatically put their prices up whenever it increases.
Should really get rid of the AS and have a payment tied to a rental WoF. Then landlords and tenants would be able to weigh up their options and make choices based on that.
+111
:-))
rent controls with prices administered by a government agency. the market has completely failed
Oh My God ! More scribbled-out-while-half-pissed tripe from Heather Plastic-Allan, this time on prison reform and perils of the same:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=12062674
Plastic: “And yup, child rapists sometimes get as little as two years’ jail time.”
Really ? Really really ? Where the maximum sentence for rape is 20 years ? Where the staring point without the aggravating factor of child victim is not less than 8 years ? I guess there must be one such case because if there weren’t Plastic would be lying on Trumpian scale.
Give me the case citation Plastic. Give me the judge’s sentencing notes. I’ll bet the farm that the factors of offender’s extreme youth/age/mental impairment figured overwhelmingly in producing such an extraordinarily rare outcome.
Plastic flicks off this “two years jail time” as though it’s reflective of modern sentencing. It’s not. Demonstrably it’s not. Actually Plastic IS lying when she peddles one extraordinarily rare sentence as “sometimes”. As misleading as allowing that this cackling yuppie fool “sometimes” engages journalism.
As Truman Capote said of a contemporary…….”That’s not writing……that’s typing”.
I dont read her stuff anymore, its always as bad as you describe.
Her analytics must have dropped as they try hide her name and just use click bait headlines
She’s obviously lying and needs to be held to account for a few million dollars and banned from ever being a journalist again.
There should be consequences for shit like this and there isn’t.
Many will be disappointed in the List. Bill only got a Knighthood.
They’d have expected Sainthood at minimum.
Patron Saint of Rental Properties. Double sainthood.
At first glance i thought you’d said renal properties… which would be an appropriate place to stick his knighthood 😉
To become a Saint you’ll have to meet one vital criterion … [pun intended]
I don’t think the knighthood will help him where he, according to his own religion, is going to end up.
Wouldn’t it be great if Bridges, Collins etc watched Prime’s TV 60 Minutes last night, Special Prison Edition.
In Germany the focus is not at all about Punishment but on Rehabilitation and treating inmates with humanity. And lesser crimes have Home Detention and Community involvement, rather than as we do, lock them all away to teach each other worse skills so that on release they can do worse stuff.
(Can’t seem to get replay on Prime?)
We hardly lock them all away. The majority of detainees in NZ- have multiple serious convictions.
Citation please.
From what I have heard the majority of prisoners have mental health issues \ drug and alcohol problems. Help is required not damaging people further.
and illiteracy. Teaching them to read can make a huge difference.
It certainly can work wonders here amongst the usual suspects.
This might interest you; there are many scientific studies like this:
Prevalence of traumatic brain injury in a male adult prison population and links with offence type
https://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10292/10718/Mitchell%20-prevalence%20of%20TBI%20in%20prison%20revised%20clean.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y
Interesting thanks.
I remember that some years ago I was doing adult reading tutoring in a drug rehabilitation house (before it got closed down). As I worked with one young man who was trying to break habit so he could rejoin his wife and child with the addiction behind him, he told me that one task given was to read a book on someone’s experience on giving up marijuana. He said he had to be able to discuss it with the clinicians but could read the whole page and yet not remember the meaning and information at the end.
I mentioned to the clinicians about his problem which they had not been aware of. Apparently it takes some time to get better brain functioning
after long-term marijuana use. They had to work on that before expecting him to be able to handle reading and learning at the level normal for his age. It was part of his set steps that had to be achieved before he could meet requirements for treatment.
Tell you what when xianmac provides a link that we lock them all up i’ll provide a link to demonstrate the counterfactual.
Regarding drug and alcohol problems, yes it is a major problem.
http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/newsletters_and_brochures/tackling_alcohol_and_drug_abuse.html
You made a statement – now back it up or we must assume that you’re lying.
maui,
They probably mostly do have these problems. But they also commit very violent crimes. About two thirds of all inmates are in for serious violent and sexual crimes. In addition a fair number for serious drug dealing, and a fair number for serious fraud. The other category are serious repeat driving offenders, such as killing or injuring someone when driving drunk.
Is their scope to reduce prisoner numbers? Yes, but not by 30%, more realistically 10%, at least in the median term.
I know that we are often said to be among the highest imprisoners in the OECD. That is correct. We are in a band of UK, Canada, Australia and some central european nations. We are often at the top of that group, as indeed are our crime rates. Many European nations have lower imprisonment rates, typically 50 to 60% lower. They also have lower crime rates.
The US is out in their own category. To put it in perspective, if we imprisoned at the US rate we would have 45,000 prisoners instead of the 11,000 we actually have. US crime rates, especially for homicide, are about 4 times higher than NZ.
So we are often at no 2 in the OECD, but the rate is basically comparable to Australia, the UK and Canada. We are miles less than the US.
One reason we have a high crime rate is the prevalence of gangs in NZ, which now date back to the 1960’s. Not Rotary! But Headhunters, Mongrel Mob, etc. Again the percentage of people in criminal gangs is higher in NZ than most other OECD countries.
Gang life is characterised by extreme violence and sexual crimes. And unfortunately has become multi-generational. If we could reduce the appeal of gangs by say 30 to 50%, then our crime rate would also dramatically reduce.
Not easy, but it should be able to be done. After all most people in poorer social economic communities (where gangs are most prevalent) don’t actually join gangs. So we need to ask why is that? Why can most young people resist the temptation and others not.
The gang to start with would be the Gnats – sociopathic scofflaws and scoundrels without exception.
Here is a good article from the Dominion Post
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/104107156/extra-prisoners-are-nearly-all-gang-members–thats-hardly-a-crisis
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/v-wQm6nE6HE/hqdefault.jpg
Looks like an ACT opinion piece. No answers, just lots of hate. It’s a good thing kiwis don’t generally think like that.
Don’t you ever think about why gang membership is a desirable career option in New Zealand?
Over 25% of young Maori with no or zero hours jobs in Northland, for example.
The higher the imprisonment rate, the higher the crime rate.
The higher the amount of poverty and inequality, the higher the crime rate.
Cause and effect right there.
Putting the young and stupid, the addicted, and the brain damaged and illiterate, in ‘crime university’ does not work. As Iceland, Holland, Portugal and others have conclusively shown.
Maybe the easiest way to reduce the crime rate, is to imprison all right wing politicians. A reduction on most of the proven causes of crime, and ‘legal’ white collar crimes, would follow very quickly.
Oh get off the grass, please!
We don’t know how to deal with members of our society when they are amidst us and we have even less of a clue on how to deal with convicts. Maybe we should start a reasoned debate or do you think this is too early for little New Zealand?
Again you miss the point SM.
The point is that we have a social, legal, financial, moral disaster on our hands which all of us have an obligation to acknowledge and address without minimisation. Minimisation benefits only dog-whistling rightist politicians, blood-lusters like the SST’s Garth McCrackers, and multi-national private jailers.
No we don’t “lock them all away” as you irrelevantly say. Why “irrelevantly” ? Because the social, legal, financial, moral disaster exists without us doing that.
So, you miss the point. Again. So that you can stick out your fragile rightist mindset. Again. As always. Strutting for dog-whistlers, blood-lusters, and private jailers. What do you get ? The look of a fool.
The real issue regarding our inmates is the one that no one likes to mention..
http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/research_and_statistics/quarterly_prison_statistics/prison_stats_june_2017.html
…but feel free to continue with your odiferous burbling.
The real issue is that there’s an issue, really. OMG!
I know the solution to said issue: we have to find a solution. FFS!
Any chance of lifting the debate above the level of the an average 5-yr old?
Stunned…….would be helpful if you’d actually identify from the vast body of material in the Corrections Department link you provide, “the issue” you mention. Which you cryptically complain “no one likes to mention”.
C’mon Stunned……don’t be coy. Out with it. As long as you don’t launch into a Roseanne Barr racist white-trash rant though.
Still, as rotten as that would be it would confirm your penchant for inadvertently making the point by missing it.
pfft usual cant from North…why don’t you pop off with moz and have a conniption over the feline Galloway.
The number on remand, who’ve been convicted of nothing, and the time they spend on remand, which is gradually increasing.
One feature of a functional justice system is that it be able to provide swift justice, primarily for the victims’ sake. So much for right wing crocodile tears about victims’ rights.
Interesting stats thanks Stunned Mullet. But not sure what your point is. What say 50% of those in custody would be better off being helped in a variety of well organised facilities out in society? Drugs, alcohol, mental, learning to read and handle social maths and work support?
And yes there are said to be 100 very serious offenders who should be really locked up. (0.01%) But lets not use those few serious offenders to get in the way of discussion.
Nearly 3,000 people are locked up on Remand, without and before conviction. Probably because the strident screamers have pointed to a few cases where a person not on remand but awaiting trial has gone has gone on to commit a gruesome crime, but 3,000???
And instead of justifying longer sentences maybe we should be getting serious about Victim Support, almost as a separate issue.
Odiferous burbling? Can you try and concentrate and discuss important issues instead of using this post as a therapeutic place to release your simple prejudices? The problems now need real thought, research and practical modern methods to change the bad statistics. You are just one of the 19th century repressors and judgmentals who find it a bridge too far to think in today’s mode to deal with today’s problems in the chemical and television and technology mind-bending age.
Do you think they are ignorant of the facts? I don’t. I think they have a different goal in mind: putting taxpayers’ money into the back pockets of private prison owners.
Just as they were fully aware of the massive fraud that is meth testing. Just as they were fully aware of the situation at Middlemore.
Unforgettable Ass-Kickings
No. 2: George Galloway deals to Christopher Hitchens
Remember these two had quite a history. Galloway had humiliated Hitchens on at least a couple of occasions before this one. At the 3:25 mark here, watch Hitchens nearly choking on bile as Galloway points out he’s a liar…
Unforgettable Ass-Kickings is a series compiled by Hector Stoop and presented by Morrissey Breen for Daisycutter Sports Inc.
No. 1: Ed Herman deals to Christopher Hitchens
Hitchens (now unmemorably deceased) exemplified the loon who starts off pointedly Left and ends up pointedly, disgustingly Right. Richard “Mad Dog” Prebble anyone ?
Galloway marches on, indefatigably, hypocrites and scabs left confounded in his wake. See him here before a US Senate committee:
Thanks North! Making this even better, as I’m sure you’re aware, Galloway’s demolition of Senator Coleman was immediately preceded by his dispatching to the boundary of one… Christopher Hitchens! The self-appointed Scourge of Princess Diana attempted to taunt Galloway before his appearance at the Committee, and even in that highly charged atmosphere Galloway humiliated him. The defeated Hitchens was caught shortly afterwards on camera, snarling “You really are a thug!”
Once again, thanks for posting this classic.
The first clip you cite is edited – have you seen the full discussion?
YouTube is full off clips in which supporters of one side or the other claim their ‘man’ won the day. Here’s an example for you:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-kUy4LxxuFQ.
It’s puerile. I enjoy both Galloway and the late Hitchens, but grow up old chap and firm your own opinions.
The insufferable Owen Jones
He’s way out of his depth with the far sharper, far more thoughtful and well read Jonathan Pie….
Tom Walker is a funny guy.
Next up: Duane Gish, master debater…
Pete (6) … according to some lost souls, only Key deserves a sainthood!
But Key is Jesus Christ in mufti so there is no limit to his reward.
Now we have Sir Deceiving Defrauding Double Dipper of Dipton! An attempt at ripping off the taxpayer. Then there is the Todd Barclay affair. Something for which Blinglish wasn’t made accountable for. Possibly much more malevolence behind the scenes as well.
Key, English et al … seems honorifics are only reserved for the slimy con artists and crooks of the land!
That does seem to be true.
We need to remove the giving of honorific from the politicians and give it to the people. Add one aspect to it as well – nobody can get one for doing their job.
Can’t agree more DTB.
Over 70 Syrian tribes issued a joint statement on Saturday that announced the formation of a new combined force that would fight the US-backed militias and foreign troops in northern Syria.
The tribesmen from the Al-Hasakah, Aleppo, and Al-Raqqa governorates reportedly met in the government-held city of Deir Hafer, where they all agreed that they will come together to expel the US and their militias from their provinces.
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad stated during his latest interview with Russia Today that the US-backed forces and foreign troops in northern Syria will be dealt with militarily if they do not withdrawal.
The Pentagon responded to this threat by warning the Syrian President that any attack on their forces in Syria will end ‘badly’ for him.
https://mobile.almasdarnews.com/article/over-70-syrian-tribes-declare-war-on-us-backed-forces-foreign-troops-in-northern-syria/
Not sure if having his army and airforce destroyed are in Assad;’s best interests. Consider what happened to the Wagner mercenaries.
Of course it’s always possible that the Kremlin will order Trump to withdraw US troops, but would he comply? How well do fascist kleptocrats get along? Are the pee-tapes really that much blackmail currency against the guy with the Pentagon at his disposal?
Nah, I’m picking a tense stand-off.
It’s that the US arrogance shows no bounds.
“The Pentagon responded to this threat by warning the Syrian President that any attack on their forces in Syria will end ‘badly’ for him.”
The Wagner mercenaries were a disaffected bunch from the Urals, poorly trained and equipped. The ultimate question is: who pays Wagner and the numerous other Russian private military companies.
Arrogance, or a simple statement of fact. The destruction of the Syrian army and air-force would destablise the region again. Assad would be lucky to survive this.
“Poorly equipped”, depends who they’re fighting. If it’s the US military, “poorly” is an understatement. Poorly trained? Depends who you ask.
Here is an ironic picture of comfortable and complacent minds confronted by modernity and change and feeling like hermit crabs forced out of their shells.
From the wit of Tom Sharpe in Porterhouse Blues.
Lunch was a mournful occasion. It was the end of term and the Fellows at High Table ate in a silence made all the more noticeable by the lack of conversation from the empty tables below them. To make matters worse, the soup was cold and there was cottage pie. But it was the knowledge of their own dispensability that cast gloom over them.
For five hundred years they and their predecessors had ordained at least some portion of the elite that had ruled the nation. It had been through the sieve of their indulgent bigotry that young men had squeezed to become judges and lawyers, politicians and soldiers, men of affairs, all of them imbued with a corporate complacency and an intellectual scepticism that desiccated change. They were the guardians of political inertia and their role was done. They had succumbed at last to the least effectual of politicians.
‘A student council to run the College. It’s monstrous,’ said the Senior Tutor, but there was no hope in his protest. Despite his cultivated mediocrity of mind, the Senior Tutor had seen change coming. He blamed the sciences for re-establishing the mirage of truth, and still more the pseudomorph subjects like anthropology and economics whose adepts substituted inapplicable statistics for the ineptness of their insights.
And finally there was sociology with its absurd maxim, The Proper Study of Mankind is Man, which typically it took from a man the Senior Tutor would have rejected as unfit to cox the rugger boat….
‘There must be something we can do,’ said the Dean.
‘Short of murder I can think of nothing,’ the Senior Tutor answered.
Caesar, watch your back for conspirators!
The crime here is that Forestry is allowed to let log litter accumulate with catastrophic effect on Tolaga Bay people and their homes when the rain comes.
Scroll down the page to see the huge accumulation of logs.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12064261
Mention in this report about unstable land occurs in relation to roading here:
(I am not expert in handling docos and obtaining info from them – I couldn’t just highlight and copy bits I wanted to show. Have done my best. It looks as if there were not adequate demands made as to the aftercare of logged areas which has left these people lower down in Tolaga Bay etc exposed to damage.
)
MAF ‘East Coast forest industry and wood availability forecasts 2008’
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/dmsdocument/854/loggedIn
The unstable nature of the East Coast landscape and the
roads location of many of the newer forests in less accessible
areas of the region will pose a challenge for the future
expansion of forestry operations. The cost of obtaining
and carting roading materials will also affect profitability
of operations.’…
Biofuels and cogen potential
A very large resource of pulpwood and other by-products
are potentially available – subject to the economics of use
for biofuels, cogeneration or other reconstituted wood
products.
When landing slash is counted, the potential
volume is much greater than that shown in this report;
this could be particularly significant for the East Coast
communities north of Gisborne who are currently
serviced with electricity via limited infrastructure.
The current lack of a local market for pulp wood and
other by-products is a constraint on harvest profitability
and limits the maximum utilisation of forest production.
It is unlikely that cut-over recovery of residues will be
economic, owing to the predominantly very steep
topography of much of the production forests and the
distance to a potential plant in one of the main centres on
region, what is really required is a world-scale solid wood
the East Coast.
Limited Wood Processing Capability
The current lack of local processing is a constraint that
leaves forest owners with few options other than to export
large volumes of logs.
This leaves the region exposed to the log export
market and limited port facilities.
With transport costs making the long cartage of lower value
material marginal or unprofitable, the regional harvest is ‘
at risk of losing potential added-value through the
processing or utilisation of this material as it gets left on
the cut-over.
A greater number of competitive options for
the full range of log products on the East Coast will
contribute considerably to the region’s forestry success.
Part Concluding Comments:
There is still substantial potential for expansion of the
existing forest estate on the East Coast, although all this
may not necessarily be for production purposes, but for
other values such as watershed management, erosion
control and carbon sequestration.
There is discussion about new planting which will also provide land stabilisation.
There is a possibility of businesses setting up wood handling factories when the market is right, and the flow of wood makes it economic and the factor of carbon sequestration.
There is talk about the steep slopes and the need for cable-hauling which requires skilled workers.
There is mention of the okay being given if there is attention given by the loggers to erosion, water etc.
The GDC is a unitary authority that keeps control of important issues relating to land disturbance and logging and clearing and resource consents are required.
Liaison with the Department of Conservation may be required because of the extent and species affected by clearing and logging.
The consent process associated with the harvesting of forests on the East Coast has generally not been an issue.
It seems that the matter of dealing with cut down left-overs has been put on the back burner in the eagerness to get into the log trade, and the intention has been to utilise it at a later date for electricity if there is a viable market for it. It appears that no warning bells have sounded about the instability of the land left bare and the residue from logging left lying where they could be dislodged by expected heavy rain storms although this is a known result of other logging sites in NZ which have been left in a disorganised fashion and have resulted in damage to housing and property and likely to injure people and animals as they have rolled or propelled down slopes onto those below.
Would think if the Gizzy to Napier Railway was still operational that some or all of the by-product could’ve been rail out in bulk with Gizzy being the bulk handing depot for the trucks etc? Or have a Bio- Fuel power plant at Napier to supply the Hawke’s Bay- Gizzy regions?
Don’t know when the trees were felled but as you say the fact of having the rail could have made a big difference in choices of what could be done about the leftover stuff (not correct forestry term!). But NZ had to wait to get a political party that wasn’t constipated. I think within the report it talks about bio-fuel plant. But I was mainly looking for specific mention that the area had to be left in good condition with leftovers stacked safely etc. and didn’t find anything that definite. She’ll be right mate.
So much of our forestry resource that we should have kept and run for the national good in the effective way, has been sold to big firms and institutions
In 1999 Forest & Bird criticised Carter Holt Harvey selling a forest to the east of Taupo to a private buyer. The block was considered to be one of the most ecologically valuable areas of forest in the North Island. Carters in 1994 had withdrawn the forest, Pohokura from sale, and agreed to secure its protection and manage it in consultation with Forest and Bird and DoC. F&B said,”Unfortunately the American managers who now run Carter Holt Harvey Forests have a hardline attitude on environmental issues…they do not wish to work co-operatively with the NZ conservation movement.”
(Newsroom Forest and Bird Press release 2/12/99 16:37:00 Native Forest Sale Breach of Forest Accord.)
Also Fletcher Challenge sold 51% interests in Nelson in 1997 to giant Weyerhaeuser for $275 million; the other 49% was owned by foreign institutional investors.
Weyerhaeuser owned or was licensed to operate on an area approaching the size of the entire North Island, 11.4 million hectares, almost three-quarters of which was classed as productive forest land.
The Nelson Mail p15 28/9/99
If I had a big pile of flotsam on my property and a storm washed it all onto the street causing flooding to spread to other houses, will I be exempt for damages so caused? (I am just a little person so it would be easier to punish me.)
I understand what you are saying, with everyone after a quick buck and to hell with everyone especially with outsiders in an management role not understanding NZ workers/ culture in IRT protecting the environment etc.
I can a story about Weyerhaeuser and Fletchers that involve one of my cousins, who runs a forestry contacting gang who runs it like an old school NZ Forest Service logging gang based around a semi co-op system (just how the family ran the coal mine on Coast).
He was asked by Fletchers to move down to Nelson and they going top dollar as well cost to move everyone lock stock and barrel because of his very standards/ skill sets they had. Anyway if they had moved down from Nth Isl, Fletchers sold out and this mob moved in straight away cutting costs left right centre ie bringing in the Nth America logging practices which BTW are bloody dangerous to an already dangerous job. To a point that he was being under cut by other logging gangs and final straw was when he got the job to work over the hill (Golden Bay Area), but Weyerhaeuser refuse to pay any accommodation and transport costs and basically he told them where to go. He left Nelson with his gang and equipment back to the Nth Isl after my grandmother help out as she pull a strings as he was going to call it quits and after a couple of leans yrs doing jobs that no one would do! He’s doing even better now because they starting to understand that cost cutting comes with a price, to a point some yrs later the muppets from Weyerhaeuser came crawling back ask him to work for them and in true West Coast/ typical family style he told them where to bloody go.
There are a myriad ways to use forestry by-products. What we want is sustainability.
We can innoculate the stumps with various mushroom species providing secondary crops for foresters/locals while making topsoil of the stumps.
Deadwood that is not transported offsite for re-purposing is laid flat to the ground so as to decompose further adding substrate for the soil building by fungi and other microorganisms. This also helps protect the soil when it is exposed after cropping. Brushwood piles are ridiculous constructs of the human mind that likes to ‘sweep clean’.
The placing of carbon (wood waste) with available water (ground contact for fungal access) sees opportunistic free living and plant and fungal-symbiotic nitrogen fixing organisms arrive to provide this vital resource for the process. Now nature’s working for us.
The larger scrap wood and bark can be used to make bio-char. This amendment can greatly improve the productivity of various soil types including NZ’s yellow ultic clay which I’ve successfully experimented with for > 10 yrs now. Use of biochar also directly sequesters carbon.
The process of making bio-char releases heat energy that can be re-purposed e.g. drying timber, heating facilities/water, running turbines. It also produces various chemical by-products that can be re-purposed in forestry and other industries.
Biofuel from pine wastes??? We’re not really there yet it gets technical (read expensive). Best not to be pioneers of large scale expensive systems that might have several achilles heels. That’s what R&D is for.
We can be a lot more sustainable with the guidelines above. I’d add to that system intermittently planting other crops to help the soil recover and provide alternate timber/crops to pine.
Just in case Standardistas missed one blatant bit of grandstanding by the Leader of the World watching out for our good, the United States of America.
World
2 Jun 2018
China ‘intimidating neighbours’ – US
7:02 pm on 2 June 2018 General Mattis said the Trump administration wanted a constructive relationship with China but would compete vigorously if necessary.
The US recognised that China had a role to play in the region.
The South China Sea, a key trade route, is subject to overlapping claims by six countries.
China has been building small islands and other maritime features into military facilities there.
Last month China said it had for the first time landed bombers on Woody Island in the Paracel Islands, prompting US warnings that it was destabilising the region.
Woody Island, which China calls Yongxing, is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.
The South China Sea dispute:
Sovereignty over two largely uninhabited island chains, the Paracels and the Spratlys, is disputed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Malaysia
China claims the largest portion of territory, saying its rights go back centuries – in 1947 it issued a map detailing its claims
The area is a major shipping route, and a rich fishing ground, and is thought to have abundant oil and gas reserves
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/358782/china-intimidating-neighbours-us
China warns US to stop South China Sea patrols
7:31 am on 26 May 2017
China is warning that the United States risks severely disrupting negotiations between stakeholders in the South China Sea after an American warship sailed close to one of its artificial islands in the disputed waters.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/331619/us-patrols-very-likely-to-cause-unexpected-accidents-china
I’ve just started reading this book I got off Fishpond called “Globalisation and Defence in the Asia-Pacific – Arms across Asia” which is a collection of Essays edited by Geoffrey Till, Emrys Chew and Joshua Ho.
Chapter 2, last night was a bit interesting IRT what is happening in the South China Sea using a couple of theories called “The Long Wave by Nikolai Kondrative in the 1920’s and the Leadership Cycle” in which both talk about War between a new up and coming nation challenging the current pre-eminent nation which happens roughly once every 100yrs. “This system leader holds a preponderance of key military capabilities (chiefly blue- water sea power, they argue) while boasting the lead economy in terms of size and innovative energy. Regular rhythms in the global economy are related to the rise of this leading state. Just as importantly, key economic trends and the prospects for peace and war are found to be associated with rise, ascendancy and decline of one system leader, and the struggle to produce the next one.”
When one looks at the 50yr cycle of the Kondratiev waves and with the 100yr long Leadership Cycle. You would see Waves of technological innovations (leading sectors in the Global Economy) are very much connected to the rise and decline of global political systems dominated by a hegemonic state.
Last the last two sentences in the conclusion: “ Because globalisation disperses the control of capital, technology and the markets as never before, it remains to seen weather a single state can establish and maintain dominance in the global system on the basis of military might alone. The prospect for peace, we need to know whether the presence of such hegemon will provoke the bellicose challenges to its dominance, the competitive arms build ups and the formation of freshly armed counter- coalitions- for these are the very things which stirred and brewed into systemic war once in every century for the past 500yrs.”
By my reckoning based on what I readed last night we are slowly heading to war on given and current trends within the Asia- Pacific region ATM and with the USA at its peak of the cycle or on top of wave which is about to break as new comer seeks to challenge the dominance of the US.
We live interesting times.
The public has a tolerance for other people’s suffering. We seem to have been at war or in a state of unease, a push button away from war, since WW2. On the surface it seems as if we are at peace but there are the Syrian reports, the Burmese reports, another little boat that has gone down off Africa. And there is enormous interest in films about war, I was just reading about the enormous business there is in land mines and things called butterfly bombs, and armaments are a big trade. Is it that peace is a cessation of war, a breathing space before the next one starts?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1945%E2%80%931989
With all these poxy wars happening atm it seems it could be the prelude to the main event?
IRT to the Middle East ATM its watching the start of a yacht race with everyone jockeying for positions at the start and when it does kick off it going to be like watching the Grand National Jumps Race at Antree wondering who is going to be last horse standing.
Chapter 2 of the book mentions this is the longest period of peace since WW2 IRT major inter-state wars, but in saying that the long term trend when one looks at that a major inter-state war will break out sooner or later.
USSR ordered a death sentence after Kondratiev and his wave predicted the fall of Communism.
The ability of his theory to predict cycles has proven very accurate.
The Kondratiev wave is very interesting theory and when you combine it with the 100yr Leadership cycle to what’s happening in the Asia- Pacific Region atm, it makes for some interesting reading.
We are killing the world’s species
#1. Terms, kittiwakes and puffins
“This grim description is backed by figures that reveal the staggering decreases in seabird numbers in Shetland, the most northerly part of the British Isles. In 2000, there were more than 33,000 puffins on the island in early spring. That figure dropped to 570 last year……
….Similarly, Shetland’s kittiwake population plummeted from over 55,000 in 1981 to 5,000 in 2011…..
……there were around 110 Arctic terns there last week compared with around 9,000 that were counted in the same area in 2000. ”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/03/shetland-seabirds-climate-change-catastrophe-terns-kittiwakes-puffins
Good morning Newshub Flooding in Tairawhiti Uawa Whangara Global warming is here and now .
Duncan I could see Amanda and Mark disagree with you on that. I say honoring the people who deserve it for there good deeds for OUR society is a good thing we need to show more respect for our elderly and respect for te mokopunas future I.E look after the environment. James we can grow meat and dairy organically and sustainable
Ka pai to the American mokopuna who are touring America keeping up the presser on the politician who support the Gun lobby association of America to change the laws to make it harder to get a gun for idiots.
Smoking is a hard to quit and its hard on the poor people who are most of the smokers .But Hone te Labour lead coalition government has the long game in its sights not just tomorrow even thou there mite be less money targeting Maori more money is getting to the poor and not being chewed up by bureaucratic organizations so in reality more money is reaching Maori and not half to the paper pushers. ka pai.
Did I hear that right Trump has just admitted to the accusations of Russian election scandal well thats what Eco Maori gets from him saying he can pardon his self.
With the plastic bag think what I;m going to do is use those reusable bags and as soon as they are emptied put them strait into the boot of my car or one ends up with a cardboard full of those bags . Ka kite ano P.S we need to stop using any plastic that is not biodegradable
The reason Maori cultured tangata won’t go for becoming a republic is because a republic government will ride rought shod all over Maoris Humane rights the Queen is the Guardian of the Maori tangata .
Io
I
Queen
I I
Tangata whenua NZ Goverment and people
She has been Honorable to all her subjects and is the check that Maori have against
corrupt intentions of some people have against Maori and the common person.
Tangaroa buy Tiki Tane
Eco Maori has a strong connection to Tangaroa
Just got in contact with the whano in Te Waiapu vally and they say the beach is covered in pine logs from the flooding . I remember when I was a child that the beach had heaps of wood when I last seen the beach there was not much wood there it will be interesting to see it now te Waiapu awa has filled up with silt now
Ka kite ano P.S its not as bad as the flooding in Uawa
5 years since Edward Snowden blew te whistle The common tangata person who let te tangata of Papatuanuku know that they were /are being spied on by Governments and big companys .Te kumara never tells how sweet it is the link below ka kite ano
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/04/edward-snowden-people-still-powerless-but-aware
Eco Maori is trying to have a truce with the sandflys but if they don’t stop trying to intimidat ECO MAORI that they can kiss my – – – – – –
Ana to kai Ka kite ano P.S I know what’s going down
Well I got my answers already from the sandflys so don’t go having te Waiapu come out your eyes when yous get bit on the – – – – Ana to kai Ka kite ano
I already tried to get the sandflys bosses to realise that other people are being affected negative buy there actions my clients have one family split because of them as ECO MAORI has done nothing wrong I realise that I’m unique In that I can think about who my actions affect that goes right over the sandflys heads I will still be coming back to Rotorua and travelling anywhere in Aotearoa. Ka kite ano
Anything negative happens to anyone it’s all on the sandflys Ka kite ano