A justice of the peace retired not long after ordering a young mother to remove a scarf, worn in solidarity with Palestinians.
Barbara Moses, a prominent member of the Jewish community, refused to verify the woman’s divorce papers until she put away her black-and-white keffiyeh.
The incident, at Remuera Library in March, was referred to the Royal Federation of NZ Justices’ Associations, the Ministry of Justice and Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith.
Worthwhile reading the end of the story, which gives Moses's account. She says she asked her to take off the scarf because she felt unsafe. Tangling up pro-Palestinian support with anti-semitism is the emotional tangle she seems caught up in.
DPF has a post on Kiwblog today making the case that because some Jews see the river to the sea chant as anti-Zionist, it should be seen as anti-Semite.
Because, some see it that way, is the classic launch to justifying censorship of speech. Given DPF does not support restraint on free speech, it is an insincere criticism of the Green co-leader.
River to the sea..
Both Jews and Palestinian Arabs have sought a river to the sea state since the end of the Ottoman empire. However The UN devised a partition because Arabs opposed Jewish migration.
There are Jews who support a unitary river to the sea state (some with Palestinians as citizens, others a continuing river to the sea occupation and others WB Palestinians in self governing townships associated with Jordan with Gaza a separate state (however this is under review because of the offshore gas, so might be delayed until the fields are depleted).
DPF seems to support a continuing river to the sea occupation.
Polls also show a majority of Israelis do not support two states. And some members of the coalition government support the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and seizing land of Lebanon to the Litani river. Netanyahu has never supported a Palestinian state (he opposed the Oslo Accords).
It seems the Palestinians have become the Kurds, a people without a state. Until they are led by those who want a state, rather than the defeat of Israel, they will not have one. Their champions Iran and to a lesser extent Turkey, Syria and Iraq deny the Kurds a state. Saladin lies in his grave (his son spent decades trying to dismantle one pyramid and gave up).
Marxist philosopher Richard Seymour is damning on the Democratic party and Biden today –
"…The most powerful man in the world, entrusted with the commission of great crimes of state, ushered into his candidacy for a second term by a Democratic leadership desperate to avoid a real primary, is and evidently has been for some time incapable of tying his own shoelaces, or colouring inside the lines, or remembering the president’s name. His condition, despite an omerta observed by whispering courtiers and lobby journalists that wouldn’t be out of place in Pyongyang, been impossible to completely hide. But still, knowing his opponent is a television sadist who makes the audience laugh like dogs by deriding weakness, his viziers shuffle him into the studio when he is clearly in a fugue state, and push him out in front of the cameras, somehow not thinking to plead illness and cancel….
…Because the bipartisan gerontocracy, having so efficiently selected for mediocrity, obedience and venality among its juniors that it trusts no one else with the historical consciousness necessary to run the state, and clings to the reins of power, crying: from my cold dead hands!.."
Labour slowly losing support on the media and housing I think. I can see the same happening on the cancer drugs issue. The Nats’ll bleed short term, but long term they’ll have enough of a fix the issue(s) won’t be a live one come the next election.
Goldsmith looks to be a capable minister and is running the Nats side of the two track with ACT very well on the media. Similarly on housing noises that prices have dropped and the minister isn’t unhappy will play well with the youth, even with massive asterisks attached.
Remembering that the key thing here is not to change everyone’s minds, but to change enough to win the next election, or to neutralise an apparently contentious issue so that few, if any votes are decided by it.
Labour had a chance to hammer home their wins here. I think the same way that the polls were kind of okay for a little while after Hipkins took over, Labour had a bit of an opportunity. Here the Nats started out right and are now taking a bit to the left to cover all bases. Hipkins moved the party right, but did nothing to excite the base.
Goldsmith seems like a David Parker, but with leadership support.
Labour’s public face has been Kieran McAnulty and occasionally Barbara Edmonds, but the Nats are in to their solid middle order, the above and Collins ,and the pitch is flattening out. I know a test cricket analogy is risky, but how can Labour counter this and did they make the most of the new ball and a green pitch?
Start with a new ball as hipkins is damaged goods then pitch left.
IMO his arrogance cost them any chance with the captains calls on wealth tax and he didnt properly sell 3 waters or the other policies remaining after his policy bonfire.
As you state they had a chance to hammer home their wins and didnt. Epic fail.
I find Hipkins still credible (see BigHairyNews, from 3-33 min). What he is leading currently is a bottom-up consult with Labour members. There are enough Labour spokespersons, like McNulty and Willie Jackson, who come out swinging. That's the sign of a collaborative leader, who (re-)builds strong teams.
To my ear, a lot of the 'Hipkins is a poor opposition leader' actually comes from right-leaning commentators.
I guess I wanted to see perhaps a few obvious lines drawn loudly in the sand.
We will never accept shady back room deals approved by fiat. We will repeal the legislation. We reserve the right to cancel projects approved or to seek further costs to mitigate the affect on the community.
We will keep the freight rail connection to the Mainland open!
We will set up a fair advertising revenue stream to keep NZ content funded and locally available. We don’t work for big corporations in the States!
Except better than those…
Something to lead the conversation so that if they adopt it you can say you’re glad they’re taking our ideas- cut out the middle man and elect us. Or a point of difference if they don’t.
tWig – I agree with you. As I have previously commented, blaming Chris Hipkins for Labour's election loss seems simplistic. Evidently most people weren't voting for a capital gains tax or a wealth tax, because more would have voted for Te Pāti Māori or the Green Party if these were the main policies of concern. Clearly many people voted against their own interests.
Huge donations assisted National with a relentless attack campaign against Labour. According to information in the following link, in 2023 National received $10,383,230.39 in donations.
tc – How could Chris Hipkins "properly sell 3 waters or the other policies remaining after his policy bonfire" in the face of a constant, misleading attack by the Right, which appealed to many voters' fears, prejudices and resentment towards Maori?
"If we subtract negative posts from positive posts, about 63 percent more Labour posts included positive self-presentation than negative attacks. In comparison, when we do the same for National, it had a net positivity score of just 5.5 percent…..
Negative campaigning criticises socially relevant topics, uses stereotypical traits, highlights shortcomings as well as criticises and attacks qualities and behaviour of parties, politicians, and related issues. Exaggerations and evoking negative emotions such as fear, envy, blame, and anger are also considered as negative campaigning".
Following repeated challenges about the affordability of National's tax plan from Labour, the CTU, the media, and analysis by economists, Nicola Willis admitted the following:
It seems many people knowingly voted for a party that lied by omission and implication, about the supposed benefits of a major policy; also likely due to resentment over Labour's planned water services reforms and the COVID-19 mandates, which reportedly saved the lives of about 20,000 people.
we should be able to point to current leadership, not re-litigate the tax issue or other pre-election issues.
There are (were?) a lot of things that Labour can clearly oppose and in fact lead on.
There was momentum in the country when it wanted to hear the alternative.
Waiting for the Tories to destroy themselves with arrogance so you can run a fairly RW third way is not a strategy. And a guy whose sales pitch is former human rights lawyer is starting from a better place than previous government bovver boy and border enforcer.
Part of the credit Goldsmith is getting should be Labour’s.
And if Hipkins doesn’t want criticism he’s in the wrong job. The moment there’s no criticism he’s failed utterly and no one cares anymore.
He needs a Labour team for the whole country which he leads, not a safe Chippy team he has vetted. Labour needs to go further left than his personal politics. We can see the Stanfords, Bishops, Collins and Goldsmiths. They are getting comfortable in office. Who’s making them uncomfortable? Mitchell has been messing up- is he being pressured?
Listening is all very well, but with the resource management overhaul we are now seeing productive land as fair game for crap developments that are not well served by public transport or infrastructure. Surely Labour doesn’t need to wait on that? Just cutting the rural/urban border is massive and unnecessary. Haven’t all the councils just done these unitary plans?
There was a lot of public consultation on the resource management bill, right? Does it need to be redone to have a position?
On Auckland you need to get Michael Wood back on side and back as MP in waiting. Hipkins looked best when he and his Auckland MPs and councilors turned out post the flooding. There is a Labour history of service at local and state level from Goff bequeathed to Wood. Whatever BS it was was not a hanging offense and Hipkins is equally culpable of failed leadership in not managing it. The same way he was connected to Mallard and the Clark Labour government, so is Michael Wood. Starting from scratch there is a massive ask. Being able to say I knew something was up with the flooding because I went and checked our local stream is credibility.
Now he’s got no core Auckland team, just a Westie one. Now he’s cap in hand asking Wayne Brown about electorates which have been Labour’s for a long long long time.
Get the Auckland team back together and get the ground game functioning.
If there’s no alternative, what happened in Italy will happen here. The far right will jag right, and the right will cover the centre.
No one will want a fiscal hawk party of the left without a team of diverse experience and skills, if compassionate conservatism is winning the day, they’ve got tax cuts and the searing missteps are being corrected or somewhat smoothed over by experienced and relatively likeable ministers.
The PM is inexperienced, but has some strong team members who are relishing power. What’s Labour got? Without government resources and out in the cold. The resources are their people. Give them something to rally around. Or at least communicate some clear points of opposition. And stick a few lines in the sand when the government does something wrong. Cutting all of Seymour’s play ministry could be a start. The bureau of bureaucracy to count the bureaucrats. No thanks.
Bill English polled well after the 2017 defeat, as did Bridges till the lockdown. They were waiting for NZF to fall in 2020.
The CofC is dependent on NZF (never more than one term in government) staying above 5%.
Goff should have stayed leader after 2011 and moved on if defeated in 2014 (division has a cost). Moore would have won in 1993 under MMP, Clark won at the second go.
Similarly on housing noises that prices have dropped and the minister isn’t unhappy will play well with the youth, even with massive asterisks attached.
Got to have a job to be able to afford a house, the economy is tanking , unemployment is rocketing, national applied a tourniquet to stem perceived bleeding of government spending but are to stupid to realise if you don't release it the limb will rot and kill its owner
It can agree on granny flats, on media negotiating with on line platforms use of content and having a tax on digital advertising as well (- a stick, the size dependent on online platforms acting in good faith).
And they should criticise such as on cancer and lack of action on anti-stalking legislation to get better outcomes. And on the need for rail enabled ferries.
Prices have dropped because of the number of homes consented in 2022 and now coming on market. This includes rentals. Labour should make this clear.
That “Joe has to go” becomes more obvious by the minute–not to forget multi thousands of butchered Palestinians, that he could have saved with a phone call if so inclined.
The Yoo Ess Ayy is on a dark road towards authoritarianism given the millions of alienated non voters, industrial strength Gerrymandering, voter suppression of myriad kinds–some states forbid giving queuing voters a bottle of water! for chrissakes, and a bent Electoral College and FPTP system.
The only hope is demographic change with millions of eligible younger potential voters coming on stream, and maybe even MAGA women will vote on the basis of the Roe vs Wade roll back of female rights.
I'm hoping that Biden's doing a machiavellian strategy: play the fool by simulating a mental defect. Worked like a dream for Trump so no surprise if Biden's controller is coping the formula. Plan B: run an AI cyborg at the convention as a positive alternative to tempt the progressives.
You could program it to do a tap and dance routine when it gets up onstage to front the media. Yanks love that shit – been swallowing it since the 19th century.
"The only hope is demographic change with millions of eligible younger potential voters coming on stream …. "
That's making the rather large assumption that there'll be a candidate allowed to run and for whom they can vote (if indeed they're still eligible to vote at all). When did Poots last allow a real opponent into the contest?
Smaller apartments are not family homes. Reducing minimum apartment size doesn’t solve the housing crisis. It makes hen crates for people and trading chips for property investors, stalling until foreign investors can buy them to cram in foreign students.
Before we get too carried away with flooding the market once more we need to make sure we have the correct insurance and materials so that people aren’t entirely invested and left high and dry. They don’t buy a house, see it written off by a disaster and then have their life put on hold for years while their capital is held ransom by councils and insurance companies.
We don’t want to take people from old mouldy housing and put them into new sunless soon to-be-mouldy ground floor apartments that are too small for their 3 seater sofa and their washing.
Get it right first time, don’t make people pay their savings to fix the mistakes made in haste and to stand still.
Agree with Hipkins here, but curiously only the sales pitch (made uninterrupted on Morning Report) made it to the midday news, not the response.
And again, criticism of Hipkins being weak, where some of the issue is media story choice. If you don't make an emotive, fact-free critique, a al National before the election, then you don't get the front-page soundbite.
It’s his job to get coverage. And his shadow ministers. And it’s a difficult time with a splintering media, sure. And then the gatekeepers who are left in jobs.
But the message doesn’t have to get to everyone, just the voters likely to change. But the message has to be symbolic as well as spoken. A large diverse, competent team, some fresh and some experienced, harrying the government’s fly by the seat of their pants approach, behind the boss.
The COC wants standardised testing for all primary students. One more step of requiring schools to report students achievement against national norms and we are bacl to their national standards policy of 2008. Bacl then it did little at all to lift literacy and numery levels but costs 10s of millions of dollars. Are we again seeing Act and National about to waste a load of time and money on a failed scheme, as we are seeing with a return of charter schools.
Unless they’re being tested on whether they can open their lunchbox, know where their toilets are, how they cope being surrounded by hundreds of other freaked out beings & being away from their parents for six hours a day, every day for ten weeks; can we let them settle first?
Wait for the night, for the light at the end of an era'Cause it's love at the end of an eraThe last episode of Newshub, the final instalment of TV3 News, aired last night. Many of us who took the time to watch felt sad and nostalgic looking back over ...
If you don’t understand how things work you make foolish mistakes. To explain how the government got into its cancer drugs muddle, we need to explain first how New Zealand’s pharmaceutical purchasing system works. There is a parallel between Pharmac and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. The Government sets ...
One can take many things as a budge of honour but this was somewhat unexpected. Was it something that I said? See line 3: https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1959715/ ...
If you’re selling your soul, working all dayOvertime hours for bullshit payNothing’s gonna change if all you do Is wish you could wake up and it not be trueJoin a union, fight for better payJoin a union, brother, organise todayYou’ll see where the problem really liesWhen the union comes around: ...
Welcome to the second half of the year! And another roundup of stories that caught our eye over the week. As always, feel free to add anything we’ve missed, in the comments. The fortnight on Greater Auckland Last week was a short week, but nonetheless action-packed: On Monday, ...
A study of the 2020 election has found that though the swing to Labour was the biggest vote shift in New Zealand for more than a century, it was not structural. Indeed, the fundamental electoral forces that drove the result were not dissimilar to those that had emerged in the ...
Open access notables Climate-driven deoxygenation of northern lakes, Jansen et al., Nature Climate Change:Oxygen depletion constitutes a major threat to lake ecosystems and the services they provide. Most of the world’s lakes are located >45° N, where accelerated climate warming and elevated carbon loads might severely increase the risk of ...
Today is July 4th, the day the US traditionally celebrates its independence. But in the wake of the Supreme Court's turning the clock back 375 years to rule that America's president actually is an unaccountable absolute monarch after all, effectively creating a turnkey tyranny for the next Republican president, there ...
Bow my head, said my prayersI'm the good one, ain't I?Wash my hands of all my sinsI'm the good guy, ain't I?If everyone were like meCould that be the change I'd like to see?Ain't I good, ain't I right, did I try?You’ve probably seen the news of the Kiwi woman ...
National has a problem: they've promised boot camps by the end of July to grub votes from pedophobic old zombies kick kids into line, but nobody wants to run them. NZDF has said "fuck no! Never again", and Oranga Tamariki - the organisation formally responsible for them - can't find ...
L abour is saying it needs to listen. Apparently, Labour is going to spend 2024 listening, and 2025 thinking about its options. It could be 2026 before Labour finally reveals what it has in mind. Really? Currently, National and ACT are burning down the house, people are screaming for relief ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections When Category 5 Hurricane Otis roared through Acapulco, Mexico, in October 2023, the city was left in ruins. Winds stripped facades from beachfront buildings and storm surge flooded lobbies. The storm killed at least 50 people and damaged 80% of hotels in ...
Late yesterday morning I was sitting on my deck enjoying another beautiful day in Tamaki Makaurau. Stunning and clear but still a bit chilly. A treat to have such a day in July, and through June it seemed that for once Auckland had some decent weather as things went more ...
Simeon Brown’s lethal draft speed-setting rule is open for public consultation until Thursday 11 July. We strongly encourage you to take a minute to add your voice. The simple online survey asks for your thoughts on seven key proposals (see page 4). You can also email your thoughts to speedrule@transport.govt.nz Scroll ...
Hi,Before I get sentimental and share some ridiculous videos from my old life as a TV news reporter, your comments about the presidential debate (all 362 of them) did make me feel more sane.I think Webworm reader Kevin said it best:“America’s political party system is like that cargo ship in ...
I really hate Culture War stuff on principle. The fact that it has pervaded so much of modern political discourse is yet another reason to find the 2020s an utterly depressing decade. But today, the artillery of Culture War has been sending shells near my particular trench… and thus I ...
There is surely a German word for the dismaying, frustrating, enraging feeling of watching a person being put in charge of our future and completely fucking it up.I am surrounded by Germans right now, perhaps I should ask.I expect they might reply: oh do you mean the Supreme Court justices ...
Oh dear. Not only has Judith Collins become an AI cultist - she thinks it can be used to answer OIA requests: But New Zealand has no specific AI regulation and Collins is keen to get productivity gains from extending its use across government, including using it to process ...
This is a collective post by several Greater Auckland authors. (The header image shows children trying to cross the road a few hundred metres from a school gate, at a location where a raised crossing was subsequently installed.) The final version of the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS) ...
Late Thursday night, around midday Friday here in New Zealand, we should finally, after fourteen years and five dismal Prime Ministers, see the Tories booted out of government in the UK.The Conservatives have produced a master class in what not to do in government. Be it strangling the economy with ...
In a move of breathtaking audacity, the Government agreed yesterday to have a Cabinet Minister preside over a media subsidy scheme. The Minister will decide which media entities will be eligible to receive the proceeds of a levy the Government proposes to impose on Facebook and Google. Communications Minister Paul ...
Regular readers might be surprised to not see another "At a glance" highlight for an updated rebuttal given that it's Tuesday when this blog post gets published and that we've done just that "regularly as clockwork" since February 2023. Please read on to find out why we are going on ...
That's the only way to describe today's US Supreme Court ruling that the US president is above the law. Oh, it officially applies only to "official acts", but reading the fine-print, that basically means everything - even apparently inciting a mob to storm Congress in an effort to disrupt the ...
Emmanuel Macron’s plan B involves a risky, rope-a-dope strategy. Deliberately, he has opened a corridor to power for the far right, in the belief they will fail to win a large enough parliamentary presence in the 577-seat National Assembly to pursue their policy agenda. Supposedly, this failure will have blunted ...
This is a guest post by Ed Clayton and Stu Farrant. It’s based on a talk delivered at the recent Transportation Group Conference in Nelson.The water street renders are by Tom Greer. Ed notes: “Tom is a freelance landscape architect with a background in ecology and environmental science. Hit him up ...
They choose the path where no-one goesThey hold no quarterThey hold no quarter“The Government I lead is one of action and we are already making meaningful changes that will keep Kiwis safe in their homes, workplaces and communities," said the Prime Minister yesterday, telling us he’d be “making Kiwis safer” ...
The Government may have attracted criticism from Greenpeace over its inquiry into farm methane emissions, but its proposal may have outwitted the Groundswell farmer protest movement. The inquiry panel includes some of the more high-profile critics of the blanket reduction approach to farming greenhouse gas emissions. But those critics are ...
Around the world we see political blocs crumbling in the face of the Right. You’ll notice the word “Left” is absent there. That’s because, by and large, the Left hasn’t necessarily crumbled. Many who adopt the moniker have. Ostensibly “Left” movements in the political sphere have been caught on ...
When Fiji finally began its most recent transition to democracy in 2013, the coup regime stacked the deck in their favour, with a draconian political parties decree intended to outlaw the opposition. Dictator Voreqe Bainimarama then founded his own political party, FijiFirst, which subsequently held power until 2022. So its ...
Back in 2021, as part of its discussion document on hate speech, the Ministry of Justice proposed finally amending the prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Human Rights Act to include gender including gender expression and gender identity. Labour famously chickened out on hate speech, referring the issue to the ...
My travelling companion Dick is a craftsman. In his spare time he has made water-going craft. Canoes, mostly, but he can also do you a dinghy or a boat. Also hot tubs. All with beautifully hand-crafted timber.As we've rolled through the villages and towns of Europe, he has looked at ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Across the world people are sweltering under the extreme heat of heat waves - whether under the heat dome in North ...
As you might recall from my last newsletter yesterday was a family celebration in the Rockel household, with our youngest lad Matty turning 16. He’s an enthusiastic cook, especially of steak, with plenty of garlic, rosemary, and far too much butter. So when asked what he’d like to do he ...
Anybody who went to Karangahape Road for Matariki last Thursday evening (27 June), would have seen it absolutely packed with people. From Queen Street ...
Completed reads for June: Aecerbot, a Field Blessing (poem) Against a Dwarf [remedy XCIIIb] (poem) Against a Wen (poem) The Nine Herbs Charm (poem) For a Sudden Stitch (poem) For the Loss of Cattle I (poem) For the Loss of Cattle II (poem) For the Loss of Cattle III ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, June 23, 2024 thru Sat, June 29, 2024. Story of the week Our Story of the Week is extreme weather juiced by our climate fumble creating an extreme start ...
YouTuber Jess of the Shire has put out a video, looking at Frodo’s failure to destroy the Ring: The Lord of the Rings would be a substantially weaker book had Frodo not failed, of course. We are dealing with the core of Tolkien’s themes ...
Problem Solved? When all other options are exhausted, the firing squad remains. As Joseph Stalin is said to have declared: “Eliminate the person, eliminate the problem.”THE BEST GUESS I can offer as to the author of the line is William Brandt. He wrote scripts for the 1990s New Zealand television crime ...
Good morning all, I hope you’re continuing to have a lovely long weekend without too many worries about the things we usually talk about. First things first, today is a special day in our family, the youngest member, our Matty, my Mister Man, turns 16.Public transport in Bangkok, 2016.I’ve mentioned ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by John Mason in collaboration with members from the Gigafact team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Does temperature have to rise before CO2 ...
TL;DR: Mānawatia a Matariki! It’s that time of the year for reflection and renewal so here’s our annual State of The Kākā Nation Report for 2024. Total subscribers grew 46% to 20,600 and paying subscribers grew 29% to 2,520 over the last year. Subscriber comments, ‘views’ and likes’ increased more ...
Can't stop believin' I'm the greatestHearts breaking 'til I know I made itI'll never know what second place isNo pain, no doubt'Til the lights go outMatariki feels like such a positive event. People around the country enjoying time with whānau and friends, trying new things or just relaxing and reflecting. ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on what you may have missed. Still on the move!ShareGreetings Jack Craw and Te Aka Music, love your work. Read more ...
Hi,When I started Webworm four years ago (four years! thanks for being here!) it was motivated by a world slowly falling into conspiratorial madness.Reality felt like it was slipping, and I wanted to document the chaos. That has never stopped, be it examining how huge chunks of society have retreated ...
Evaluating the impact of social policies will be very difficult but the government does not seem to be doing much real evaluation. A couple of terms that have recently become fashionable are ‘cost-benefit analysis’ (CBA) and ‘social-investment analysis’ (SIA), typically proposed by people who have never done either. They sound ...
Conspiracy theories attempt to explain events as the secretive plots of powerful people. While conspiracy theories are not typically supported by evidence, this doesn’t stop them from blossoming. Conspiracy theories damage society in a number of ways. To help minimise these harmful effects, The Conspiracy Theory Handbook, by Stephan Lewandowsky ...
Worst. Presidential. Debate Ever. President Joe Biden and former President have just squared off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign and the rest of the world has watched in slack-jawed horror as democracy’s once “shining city on the hill” hit a new low.The hyperbole in that introduction ...
Sun is up, I'm a messGotta get out now, gotta run from thisHere comes the shame, here comes the shameYesterday Golriz Ghahraman’s fall from grace was complete. Convicted and sentenced, more harshly that I’d anticipated. In my view Golriz had suffered quite disproportionally already, considering the nature of her crime. ...
Open access notables Tipping point in ice-sheet grounding-zone melting due to ocean water intrusion, Bradley & Hewitt, Nature Geoscience:Here we develop a model to capture the feedback between intruded ocean water, the melting it induces and the resulting changes in ice geometry. We reveal a sensitive dependence of the ...
Some of the wilder things that have crossed our paths in the last couple of weeks:Wilder thing #1: A snake sunning itself on the hot asphalt as we came riding towards itDick was in front and was slowing down to take a picture, thinking it to be another carcass.But this ...
As part of its coalition agreement, the climate-change denier National government promised its climate-change denier coalition partners a review of our agricultural methane reduction target. Today they announced the members of their "independent" review, and released its terms of reference. I'm not familiar with the academic records of the panel, ...
And you can see it in the way they look at youFeel it in the way they treat youAlways the last to knowAlways the first to leaveJust let them walk all over youLaugh through the punches and the painLet the life-blood drain away from youThey're right, you're wrongOK, first things ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk Astrong majority of registered voters support certain policies aimed at tackling climate change, according to recent research by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (the publisher of this site) and the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason ...
Finally, Julian Assange is free after 12 years of confinement, much of it spent while under the threat of rendition to the US to face charges carrying a term of 175 years in prison. Yet ultimately, Assange has not been set free because the charges (of espionage and conspiracy to ...
A note to readers This satirical post is based on this document. Received from Auckland Transport under a LGOIMA request. the document reveals the ranking process used by the working group for the Regional Land Transport Plan (RLTP). It shows how the RLTP working group (Auckland Transport, KiwiRail, NZTA/Waka Kotahi, and ...
TL;DR: Six things from Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy I think are worth noting on the morning of Thursday, June 27:The NZIER has estimated almost a third of new spending in Budget 2024 will have worsened the Government’s Paris agreement climate liability, which Treasury has already estimated at up to $23.7 billion. ...
Hi,Four days ago New Zealand pop royalty Brooke Fraser broke yet another record — largest attendance for a Kiwi solo artist at her Spark Arena gig.She was joined on stage by the Auckland Philharmonia orchestra, Radio New Zealand gushing that it was “hard to pick a singular high point of ...
Whenever people make the perfectly sensible suggestion that the world could solve its problems by taxing billionaires, the latter's stooges flood the zone with claims it would never work. Apparently billionaires are so inherently criminal that they would evade such taxes, laundering their money and hiding it in criminal jurisdictions ...
Breathe.Inhale deeply through your nose, and hold it.Open your mouth slightly. Exhale slowly, feel the breath passing over your lips.Hear it. You’re alive.Statistically, if the last government hadn’t taken the actions it did, about twenty of you, even in my small audience, would be dead now. If I do a ...
TL;DR: Electricity affordability is a growing concern for households and small businesses, despite falling generation costs for solar and wind, a survey has found.Meanwhile, Stats NZ is forecasting more than a third of 19-29 year olds will stay living at home within the next two decades, no doubt because of ...
This is a guest post by Darren Davis, reposted with his kind permission. It originally appeared on his excellent blog Adventures in Transitland, which we warmly encourage you to check out.Aotearoa has one of the worst road safety records in the developed world. Australia is doing quite a bit ...
The audio in today’s newsletter contains a conversation I had last year with journalist Elizabeth Williamson, author of an incredibly moving book on Sandy Hook. We talked America, conspiracies, and Alex Jones. It’s been gathering dust for reasons we’ll get to, but I wanted to share our conversation today. ...
The anti Three Waters campaign which seemed so simple during the election campaign is now bogged down in a Select Committee as submitter after submitter raises issues with the replacement legislation. The so-called “Local Water Done Well” has now morphed into the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill, which ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
On we go, at 20 kilometres an hour, truly the best pace for rolling through the world and breathing it all in.Fascinating to get to see two, four, twenty new places each day. Marvellous to get to see how very many different ways you can make it good for people ...
There's a couple of pieces about architect-of-our-constitution Geoffrey palmer's views on the current government doing the rounds today. The first, on Newsroom is an excerpt from a speech he gave to a Young Labour meeting last weekend, in which he says NZ an executive paradise, not democratic paradise. The Spinoff ...
The government just introduced its Education and Training Amendment Bill to the House. The name is deliberately obfuscatory, because what the bill actually does is reintroduce charter schools - effectively allowing National to privatise the education system. That's corrupt and it stinks, but to add insult to injury, National's new ...
Confidence about future job availability collapsed after Budget 2024 to lows last seen during the the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/09. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Employee confidence in more jobs being available in a year’s time collapsed in the first two weeks of June after the Budget, falling ...
Walking through the rooms in my headI came across your image,You looked at me with that sweet smile and saidSomething they won't let me repeatWe hurt the ones we love the mostIts a subtle form of complimentAfter you’ve watched Christopher Luxon for a while you think to yourself - that ...
The decision taken last December to cancel the contract for the two purpose-built Cook Strait ferries – without having a Plan B in mind, let alone in place – has been a calamity that’s going to haunt New Zealand for decades to come, long after the Luxon government has been ...
Today the Auckland Transport board meets again,so I’ve taken a look through the items on their public agenda to see what’s interesting. Musical Chairs The first item of note is another change to the make-up of the AT Board. The legislation that established Auckland Transport allows for Waka Kotahi to ...
How does France deal with opponents of its colonisation of the Pacific? Arrest them and deport them to France to face prosecution in a foreign court: A group of pro-independence leaders charged with allegedly organising protests that turned into violent unrest in New Caledonia last month was indicted on ...
On this edition of AVFA Selwyn Manning and I discuss post-pandemic economics and the rise of national populism. It seems that a post-pandemic turn to more nationalist economic policies may have encouraged the rise of populists who use xenophobia and … Continue reading → ...
Two weeks ago the climate denier government announced they would be giving farmers what they want and removing agriculture from the ETS. On Friday they introduced the bill for it to the House. Due to past efforts and backdowns, the Climate Change Response Act has a lot of inactive clauses ...
Without warning or discussion, the Whānau Ora commissioning agencies were recently told they must retender for their contracts. “The Minister for Whānau Ora, Tama Potaka needs to provide evidence and a copy of their policy changes and rationale, then sit down to consult with the board of Whānau Ora.” Says ...
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland is our biggest city and one of the most diverse in the world. This week our Labour team was out and about across Auckland to meet with businesses, educators, innovators, students, community groups, apprentices, housing providers and more. ...
In the Government’s scramble to sell their failed boot camps, we’ve had the Police Minister contradict the Prime Minister, officials correcting and warning Ministers, and a Children’s Minister missing in action, said children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
“It’s all well and good to want to ensure development opportunities, but unless the Government fronts with infrastructure money, councils are limited in what they can offer by ways of expansion,” says Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
While today’s announcement shows some support for bolstering urban density, it will not be enough to turn the tide on a status quo of urban sprawl. ...
The government’s failure to invest in flood protection and emergency relief will be felt for generations to come says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Te Tai Rāwhiti, Tākuta Ferris. “It was only three months ago that councils were calling for the government to help invest in flood protection. Cyclone Gabrielle ...
Mema Paremata mō te Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi, says the government is subscribing the Rotorua Housing Crisis to a privatisation fast-track. The comments come after 100-homes have been placed on hold whilst Kāinga Ora conduct a review. “With a quick text message to one of their rich mates, this government has ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding that the Māori Development Minister move quickly to prevent a financial restructure announced by Whakaata Māori yesterday. "Minister Potaka must immediately intervene and recommit funding to Whakaata Māori. A 25% reduction is cutting Whakaata Māori at their knees; we cannot accept that," said broadcast spokesperson, ...
National has come up with yet another way to make driving a car more expensive – this time adding more costs to sit a driver licence, Labour transport spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
Correspondence released under the Official Information Act reveals the Government’s boot camp concept is not backed by the military that is expected to run it. ...
The Government is risking the wellbeing of vulnerable children across Aotearoa who benefit from services like counselling, intensive family support, parent programmes and early intervention, as they claw back funding. ...
Thousands of people have taken to the streets and voiced their concerns about National’s destructive and undemocratic Fast Track Approvals Bill. Add your voice and tell National why this legislation needs to be stopped in its tracks. ...
Celebrating Matariki as a public holiday over the past two years has made sure everyone gets to spend some extra time with friends and family, as well as the chance to learn more about what makes this time of year meaningful. ...
The Government needs to be transparent about the cuts they are making to hospital infrastructure, so that cities are clear on the health resources they will have into the future. ...
Our students deserve access to fresh, healthy food to fuel their busy school days and lives.That’s why Labour introduced the Ka Ora, Ka Ako healthy school lunch programme. Teachers, parents, principals and health experts all saw the benefits of it. ...
The new Covid-19 Inquiry we campaigned and fought for will start in November.The current Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 response will be divided into two phases. ‘Phase Two’ of the inquiry will start from November 2024 and will be the independent, full scale, and public inquiry we ...
“Today’s announcement is simply a repeat of the Government rejecting decades of evidence and expert advice, as they forcibly try to turn marketing slogans into policy,” said children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
“I am relieved Pharmac will be funded more to buy medicines for Kiwis. It is important that decisions on which drugs get funded remain independent from politics,” Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
The Green Party welcomes the announcement of more funding for cancer treatments and medicines, however, calls for more to be done to address the severe health inequities that come with cancer. ...
Frivolous check-ins with beneficiaries are the Government’s latest plan to find excuses to punish those on the Job Seeker allowance and add to the stigma they face. ...
The grounding of the Aratere Interislander Ferry is a wake-up call to the Coalition Government; they need to front up with a realistic long term solution to moving people and freight between our islands. ...
New Zealanders need and deserve a strong public health system. Throughout the country, we need to ensure hospitals, clinics and community providers have the resources needed to provide the best level of care. ...
Victims of family violence could fall through the gaps in New Zealand, as Police stop responding to some call outs and the Government chooses to prioritise other things. ...
The lack of bids at today’s ETS auction is a sad indictment on this Government's staggering indifference to the climate crisis and their lack of a plan. ...
“I am deeply disappointed in the National Party's budget. Their broken promises and cuts to essential services, including health, education, and support for vulnerable groups, will have long-lasting negative impacts” – Raymor, Auckland ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has today thanked the outgoing Secretary for Education. Iona Holsted was appointed in 2016 and has spent eight years in the role after being reappointed in May 2021. Her term comes to an end later this year. “I acknowledge Iona’s distinguished public service to New Zealand ...
Associate Health Minister for Pharmac David Seymour says today’s announcement that Pharmac is opening consultation on new cancer medicines is great news for Kiwi cancer patients and their families. “As a result of the coalition Government’s $604 million funding boost, consultation is able to start today for the first two ...
A half-century after pursuing self-government, Niue can count on New Zealand’s steadfast partnership and support, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Niue share a unique bond, forged over 50 years of free association,” Mr Peters says. “We are looking forward to working together to continue advancing Niue’s ...
Acting Internal Affairs Minister David Seymour says wait times for passports are reducing, as the Department of Internal Affairs (the Department) reports the highest ever monthly figure for digital uptake in passport applications. “As of Friday 5 July, the passport application queue has reduced by 34.4 per cent - a ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed news that the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) is getting on with the Government’s first seven Roads of National Significance (RoNS) projects expected to begin procurement, enabling works and construction in the next three years. “Delivering on commitments in our coalition agreements, we are moving ...
The Coalition Government is building for roll growth and easing pressure in Auckland’s school system, by committing to the construction of a new primary school, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. As part of Budget 24’s $456 million injection into school property growth, a new primary school (years 1-6) will be ...
Dr Shane Reti's speech to Iwi-Maori Partnership Boards, Thursday 4 July 2024 Mānawa maiea te putanga o Matariki Mānawa maiea te ariki o te rangi Mānawa maiea te Mātahi o te tau Celebrate the rising of Matariki Celebrate the rising of the lord of the skies Celebrate the rising ...
Kia Ora Koutou, Tena Koutou, Good Morning. Thank you Mahaki Albert for the warm welcome. Thank you, Prime Minister, and thank you everyone for coming today. When I look around the room this morning, I see many of our hard-working mental health and addictions workforce from NGO and Community groups, ...
An independent expert advisory panel has been appointed to review the Public Works Act to make it easier to build infrastructure, Minister for Land Information Chris Penk has announced. “The short, sharp review demonstrates the Government’s commitment to progressing critical infrastructure projects and reducing excessive regulatory and legislative barriers, so ...
A trip to Australia next week to meet mining sector operators and investors will signal New Zealand is once again open for business, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The visit is also an opportunity to build relationships with Australian state and federal counterparts and learn from their experiences as New ...
New Zealand’s ability to engage with key trading partners is set to grow further with 20 scholarships awarded for groups to gain education experiences across Asia and Latin America, Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds says. Of the 20 scholarships, 12 have been awarded to groups travelling for study ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed progress on Northwest Rapid Transit, as the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) confirms next steps on the preferred option, a busway alongside State Highway 16 from Brigham Creek to Auckland City Centre. “The Government is committed to a rapid transit system that will support urban development, ...
Reflecting the Government’s priority to improve the public services Kiwis rely on, including mental health care, Minister for Mental Health, Matt Doocey has today announced five mental health and addiction targets. “The targets reflect my priorities to increase access to mental health and addiction support, grow the mental health and addiction ...
The first round of the government’s $10 million Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector Innovation Fund is set to open for applications later this month, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “The Fund will support new and innovative initiatives that are focussed on increasing access to better mental health support, ...
Speech to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand - 4 July 202 AcknowledgementsGood morning. Can I acknowledge Jen Baird and the team from REINZ. It’s good to be here with you this morning.IntroductionThis morning I’d like to talk to you about the Coalition Government’s plan to fix our housing crisis and ...
New Zealand and Nauru are deepening their relationship, including on economic resilience and education, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Nauru have a warm, long-standing relationship, and we are strengthening our engagement through enhanced political, security, and development cooperation,” Mr Peters says. “The good functioning ...
The Government will establish ambitious new housing growth targets for New Zealand’s cities, while taking steps to make it easier to expand both up and out, says Housing and Resource Management Act (RMA) Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Our Going for Housing Growth policy focuses on the fundamentals that have led ...
Increasing the recreational daily catch limit for kina around the northeastern North Island and a new special permit to remove kina will help tackle kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Kina barrens are areas of rocky reef where healthy kelp forests have been consumed by an overpopulation ...
The Government has marked a major milestone for rural connectivity at the official opening of the 500th RCG mobile tower in Anawhata today, Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Rural, rugged and remote, like many of the 500 towers delivered, RCG worked alongside community stakeholders to deliver better connectivity for Anawhata ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today released the updated Endeavour Fund Investment Plan – the Government’s $55 million per annum fund for science and research. “Endeavour is the Government’s largest contestable fund investing in science and research. It is crucial that this investment aligns with this Government’s priority ...
Work on a critical minerals list and a stocktake of New Zealand’s known mineral potential is underway and will be key to enabling a strategic, considered approach to developing the country’s resources and strengthening mineral resilience, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. Together, the list and the stocktake will identify the ...
The Government is providing a further $500,000 to the Wairoa Mayoral Relief Fund to help the community following flooding last week, Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced during a visit to the district today. “I have been back on the ground in Wairoa today to get a further ...
The Coalition Government is delivering consistency in student assessment, giving parents certainty on how their child’s doing at school, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Currently, the first glimpse at student achievement is when children sit NCEA. It’s far too late to learn in Year 10 or 11 if they have ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will visit the United States from 9-12 July. Mr Luxon will begin his visit by building New Zealand’s profile with politicians in Washington DC, meeting members of the US Administration and of Congress. “The United States is the world’s largest economy and our second biggest trading partner. It ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has confirmed that cervical screening will continue to be free for women with higher risk of cervical cancer. “Our Government is committed to achieving better cancer outcomes for New Zealanders, and screening programmes are critical to getting an early diagnosis and timely treatment,” says Dr ...
The board of Kāinga Ora – Homes & Community has been refreshed and Ministers have issued a new Letter of Expectations demanding better financial performance, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says.“Earlier this year we released the report of the independent review into Kāinga Ora led by Sir Bill English, which found ...
New Zealand and Solomon Islands are boosting their partnership in areas aimed at enhancing security and prosperity, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. “Solomon Islands is a very important Pacific partner for New Zealand, and we are pleased to be findings ways to do more together for mutual benefit,” Mr ...
New Zealand today concluded a groundbreaking trade deal with Costa Rica, Iceland, and Switzerland, to remove tariffs on hundreds of products that benefit sustainability and the environment, Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. “The Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS) opens up commercial opportunities for New Zealand businesses ...
New Zealand and Australia have highlighted their strong commitment to Solomon Islands aviation and economic development through the handover of the upgraded Seghe Airfield today. “The upgrade of the Seghe Airfield runway in Western Province will enable flights to operate under all weather conditions, making operations safer and more ...
The Government is rolling out changes to the driver licencing system to tackle the unacceptable wait times facing New Zealanders trying to sit their driver licence tests across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Since the previous government’s decision last year to remove re-sit fees for theory and practical ...
Around 11,000 singers from 40 countries will be taking to the stage in Auckland next week for the 13th World Choir Games, generating important economic and cultural benefits for the supercity, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “It’s the biggest choral competition and festival in the world, so I’m absolutely ...
A reservation over the Kermadec Arc preventing the granting or extending of minerals prospecting, exploration, and mining permits will be extended for 18 months from 5 July, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones’ declaration, enabled under the Crown Minerals Act 1991, will extend consecutive existing reservations, the latest of ...
The Government is taking immediate action to support New Zealand’s media and content production sectors, while it develops a long-term reform programme, Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Firstly, the Government will progress the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill with amendments, to support our local media companies to earn ...
Tākina Puanga, mānawatia a Matariki, mānawatia te huinga whetū! Congratulations to Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Puku o te Ika a Māui on winning this year’s national secondary schools kapa haka competition Te Huinga Whetū, Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka says. “It was great to hear the stage rumbling ...
The coalition Government's latest Action Plan will have a strong focus on making Kiwis safer and restoring law and order, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced. “The Government I lead is one of action and we are already making meaningful changes that will keep Kiwis safe in their homes, workplaces ...
A successful second quarter Action Plan shows the coalition Government has continued to build on the momentum of its first 100 days, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. “Our Government Action Plan was laser-focused on rebuilding the economy and reducing the cost of living, restoring law and order, and delivering better ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour is glad to see the Natural Hazards Insurance Act come into force today, further protecting homeowners’ rights after a natural hazard event and seeing the Earthquake Commission (EQC) become the Natural Hazards Commission. “The Government is committed to ensuring Kiwis continue to get reliable insurance ...
Restoring the brightline test to two years will help increase the supply of residential property putting downward pressure on rent, Revenue Minister Simon Watts says. “From 1 July, the brightline test will replace the five and ten-year periods with a more balanced two-year period. “Every day, New Zealanders are struggling ...
Councils, iwi, businesses and community organisations with infrastructure projects that support regional priorities are invited to apply for funding from the Regional Infrastructure Fund, which opened today. “The Coalition Government is focused on growing the economy. We are doing everything we can to enable an export-led recovery, regional prosperity and ...
Kia ora koutou katoa – it’s a pleasure to join you here at Tōtara Haumaru on Auckland’s North Shore I would like to begin by acknowledging the many hands, over many years, that have been involved in the creation of this wonderful new facility Tōtara Haumaru, particularly those who are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University Getty Images At first glance, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has just put in a performance for the ages in the British general election. The incoming prime minister controls a comfortable parliamentary majority, Tory ...
Fourteen years of Conservative government has formally ended. The Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, has achieved a ‘landslide’ for only the third time in its one-hundred-year history. General elections are significant moments in the life of nations. They are points where we can, if we are lucky, stand back ...
Opinion: Make it click – seatbelts save lives. Regulations requiring safety features within vehicles, such as seatbelts, anti-lock braking systems and airbags, have dramatically improved safety for drivers and passengers, and it’s difficult to imagine any government abandoning those regulations, much less removing safety features that have already been installed. ...
Editor Madeleine Chapman reflects on the end (for now) of the news cycle about the news. You’d be forgiven for getting a bit tired of hearing about the news while watching the news. The media is in the unique position of both serving as an all-seeing eye on behalf of ...
Hayley was in her first year of teaching and term time was killing her. She had always loved children, and liked explaining things, and believed she had above average levels of patience. But being a teacher had little to do with sharing knowledge. It was crowd control. Hayley alternated between ...
Brooke Fraser’s homecoming show was a hit – the ‘Something in the Water’ star performed with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra late last month. Her show reportedly drew the biggest ever crowd for a New Zealand solo artist at Spark Arena. But the audience was drawn from more than just Fraser ...
Alex Casey chats to Antonia Murphy, whose experience opening an ethical brothel in Northland became the subject of Three’s award-winning new comedy-drama Madam. The incensed motel guest rang the manager, concerned that there was prostitution going on in the room next door. “There was just so much sex!” they barked ...
P Digsss, frontman of the genre-bending Shapeshifter, shares the tunes he keeps on repeat for the perfect weekend.You don’t need a special scenario to enjoy the musical stylings of Shapeshifter – in fact, it might just be what you need to make the weekend perfect. Just ask their frontman ...
The comedian and writer takes us through her life in television, including the legacy of Flight of the Conchords and watching Breaking Bad with her grandfather. Comedian Kura Turuwhenua came over-prepared for her first day in the writers room of Only in Aotearoa: Wāhine Edition. “My job was supposed to ...
A stack of brilliant novels for children are out this year. Ten authors tell us why they write for kids, and what their books offer grown-ups, too.Aotearoa’s legacy of great children’s novels is a hefty one: Margaret Mahy, Maurice Gee, David Hill, Sherryl Jordan, Kate De Goldi, Elizabeth Knox, ...
The stakes are incredibly high for New Zealand’s biggest news media company as it takes on a transformational challenge.On Wednesday evening, Sinead Boucher and Juliet Peterson sat on stage at the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre in Auckland’s Aotea Centre, under a bright green screen headlined “it’s giving power couple ...
Drinking wasn’t just a pastime, it was my profession – and it got way out of control. The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.When I talk about my former life in Auckland, it’s hard not to talk about booze. Every neighbourhood had its ...
Full back: Christopher Luxon. Luxo is the helmsman of the team and that’s due to the fact the last helmsman we had, with all due respect to Chippy, was absolute rubbish. Critics say that Luxo lacks anything resembling a good idea. But he’s always keen to stomp around the field ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The 650 United Kingdom House of Commons seats are elected by first past the post (FPTP), in which the candidate with the ...
Alex Casey watches the final episode of Newshub, as Three farewells 34 years of making TV news.It is July 5, and there are three big news stories coming up on Newshub. Life-saving cancer drugs have been funded, the United Kingdom has voted Labour in an historic landslide, and Newshub ...
Analysis - The minister sets out his plan to solve the housing crisis and a survey shows business confidence crashing as more companies go into liquidation, Peter Wilson writes. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Wellings, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations, Monash University This is a historic moment in British politics. It’s a huge win for Labour. It’s a historic loss for the Conservatives. It also seems to have been the product of one ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, The University of Melbourne People living in southern Australia won’t have failed to notice how cold it is. Frosty nights and chilly days have been the weather for many of us since the start of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Sacks, Professor of Public Health Policy, Deakin University benjamas11/Shutterstock There are renewed calls this week for the Australian government to implement a range of measures aimed at improving our diets. These include restrictions on junk food advertising, improvements to food ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane McMahon, Research Associate, Discipline of Archaeology, University of Sydney Thalia Nitz/University of Sydney To date, little has been known about people living in north-western Saudi Arabia during the Neolithic – the period traditionally defined by the shift to humans controlling ...
Keir Starmer successfully bet on the British public wanting low-key, unfussy competence after the chaotic Tory years. But his New Zealand counterpart won’t be able to rely on a British-style wave of despair to carry him to victory in 2026 – something more inspiring is likely to be needed, writes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Veal, Adjunct Professor, Business School, University of Technology Sydney Growing populations and housing shortages are affecting cities worldwide, including in Australia. It’s driving them to adopt high-density development near public transport hubs instead of endless suburban sprawl on city fringes. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato An early Rocket Lab launch from Mahia Peninsula, 2017.Getty Images News of a potential new rocket launch site in Canterbury has largely been enthusiastically received. Boosts to the regional and national economies, and ...
The Free Speech Union welcomes proposed amendments to the Gang Insignia Bill by the Justice Select Committee, which go some way to addressing the weaknesses of this draft legislation, says Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union. ...
A new poem by Elizabeth Smither. The knowledge in grass The top sports field, now all games are ceased grows longer grass. It is the week of unaccredited exams whose students walk with books in front of their noses, in the stubble, talking to themselves. We, below them, can see ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.First, a quick PSA: Unity Books has a flash new website that lets you search and purchase ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University PopTika/Shutterstock Amazon has secured a A$2 billion contract with the Australian Signals Directorate – the agency responsible for foreign signals intelligence and information security. A local subsidiary of Amazon Web ...
The appointment of a project team to accelerate consenting, property acquisition, and design, in combination with the engagement of construction partners for the first seven roads shows this Government is serious about investing in infrastructure. ...
Tara Ward reviews Three’s award-winning new local comedy-drama. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often a New Zealand television show wins two major international awards before a single episode has hit our screens, but Madam is breaking all the rules. ...
Tara Ward watches the emotional last episode of Three’s morning show. The final episode of AM began with the words “game over” sprawled across the studio’s big screen and Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time’ blasting into our living rooms. It may have been six o’clock in the morning, but presenters ...
Wellington-based climate scientist Nicholas Golledge has written a stunning book called Feedback: Uncovering the Hidden Connections Between Life and the Universe. In this excerpt, he takes us back 5,000 years to show the concept of feedbacks at work in neolithic society. Five thousand years ago, a unique and monumental episode ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Levinson, Professor of Transport, University of Sydney There’s nothing wrong with tolls on roads. Designed well, they can both pay for roads and ensure they are used efficiently. Without tolls, drivers considering whether or not to travel on particular roads at ...
New Zealand has a huge problem with court delays, given 43% of prisoners are unsentenced and awaiting court processes. This is a complete anomaly internationally and the team established to respond to this is now being cut. ...
If a song demands it, I just ask for quiet in the same way I would ask a friend for a hug. I risk looking like a twat every time, but I’ll take that on the chin if it means enhancing the collective experience, writes musician Vera Ellen. This story ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Martin, Senior Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock There’s a new bill before federal parliament calling for housing to be considered a fundamental human right. The bill, introduced last week by independent federal parliamentarians Kylea Tink ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Trelease, Senior Lecturer in Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology Still from Terrace House: Opening New Doors. Netflix Often when we think about reality TV, we think about mess, conflict and scandal – three things usually grouped under the umbrella ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Blair, Teaching Fellow in Music, University of Otago Getty Images I first saw A Hard Day’s Night at a film festival over 20 years ago, at the insistence of my mum. By then, it was already decades old, but I ...
“It’s clear to Kiwis that academic freedom in New Zealand is under threat. In recent years, both in New Zealand and abroad, we’ve seen the consistent pattern of universities stifling opinions, and individuals feeling unable to speak freely. ...
The plucky underdog goes offline, paving the way for a brand new – and experimental – TV news service, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. The curtain falls on Newshub Nothing in the media scene this year ...
The Don't Subsidize Pollution campaign has taken a 6000 strong petition to Parliament asking the government to scrap free carbon credits for major polluters. ...
The thing about floods is the water doesn’t tend to go to the right places. Housing minister Chris Bishop says he wants to flood the housing market. On Thursday, he unveiled a list of policies to deregulate the market and make it easier to build homes. His description of ...
Days before the lights go out one last time, 6pm anchors Sam Hayes and Mike McRoberts came up to The Spinoff for a candid, powerful conversation about the life and legacy of 3 News. Tonight Samantha Hayes and Mike McRoberts present their one last 6pm bulletin, the final act of ...
The mystery began in 2019. Keryn Martin and Logan Ainsworth were preparing the walls of the Paremata-Plimmerton Rugby clubrooms for a significant refurbishment when they removed eight framed jerseys. Seven of them bore the inscription “Presented by K Gray” and another black jersey was simply entitled “New Zealand Women’s Rugby” ...
Kāinga Ora has been purged, KiwiRail has lost three directors, senior public servants are retiring or being encouraged to pursue alternative careers. Where does it stop? This week on Raw Politics the panel tries to anticipate other targets in the public service and state-owned businesses which might fall ...
Comment: Decreased gas availability has prompted Genesis to import further coal, and that will continue barring a left-field solution The post Back to black – the return of coal power appeared first on Newsroom. ...
NONFICTION 1 Waitohu by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $35) A free copy of Hinemoa Elder’s latest blockbuster self-helper is up for grabs in this week’s giveaway. The blurbology tells us, “From the best-selling author of Aroha and Wawata comes a new and inspiring journal to help you make deeper connections using the energies ...
The Public Service Commissioner has thanked the Treasury Secretary and the Education Secretary for their service, as both confirm they’ll step down this year The post Call for Kiwi appointee as next Treasury Secretary appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The saga of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has come to an end – for now, at least. Last week, the WikiLeaks founder appeared in a US court in the Mariana Islands, pleaded guilty to one charge under the Espionage Act, then flew back to Canberra thanks to time already served ...
The latest government targets cover the cost of living, crime and public services, but have nothing for the environment The post Action plan: 40 shades of grey but no green appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: The NZer credited with salvaging the battered Trump-Biden transition proposes a new corporate-style approach to changing leaders The post Presidential candidates need a year’s head start appeared first on Newsroom. ...
How's the feedback to Labour from Aucklanders going?
Anyone here involved?
She seems nice.
/
A justice of the peace retired not long after ordering a young mother to remove a scarf, worn in solidarity with Palestinians.
Barbara Moses, a prominent member of the Jewish community, refused to verify the woman’s divorce papers until she put away her black-and-white keffiyeh.
The incident, at Remuera Library in March, was referred to the Royal Federation of NZ Justices’ Associations, the Ministry of Justice and Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/350322920/justice-peace-resigns-after-ordering-young-mother-remove-palestinian-scarf
https://archive.li/ePXxx
Good job she retired, if you can't do your job impartially then fuck off.
+100 Sanc.
Worthwhile reading the end of the story, which gives Moses's account. She says she asked her to take off the scarf because she felt unsafe. Tangling up pro-Palestinian support with anti-semitism is the emotional tangle she seems caught up in.
Hang about though, isn't old Barbs the wife of this guy?
https://www.goodreturns.co.nz/article/976520434/obituary-controversial-adviser-dies-at-80.html
She seemed to feel quite unsafe about the fallout back then as well.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/kerre-woodham-think-again-barbara/PBKYZWEVH6Y4JLW3NWOVM3GEGU/
And yes, that is the notorious local Zionist apologist Juliet Moses hanging on to her Mum’s arm.
Moses is the family name.
After reading the The Post link it looks as though Barbara made an 11th Commandment.
What a classic example of bigotry.
DPF has a post on Kiwblog today making the case that because some Jews see the river to the sea chant as anti-Zionist, it should be seen as anti-Semite.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/07/greens_believe_in_sensitivity_for_everyone_but_jews.html
Because, some see it that way, is the classic launch to justifying censorship of speech. Given DPF does not support restraint on free speech, it is an insincere criticism of the Green co-leader.
River to the sea..
Both Jews and Palestinian Arabs have sought a river to the sea state since the end of the Ottoman empire. However The UN devised a partition because Arabs opposed Jewish migration.
There are Jews who support a unitary river to the sea state (some with Palestinians as citizens, others a continuing river to the sea occupation and others WB Palestinians in self governing townships associated with Jordan with Gaza a separate state (however this is under review because of the offshore gas, so might be delayed until the fields are depleted).
DPF seems to support a continuing river to the sea occupation.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/07/hamas_and_terrorism_still_wildly_popular_with_palestinians.html
Polls also show a majority of Israelis do not support two states. And some members of the coalition government support the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and seizing land of Lebanon to the Litani river. Netanyahu has never supported a Palestinian state (he opposed the Oslo Accords).
It seems the Palestinians have become the Kurds, a people without a state. Until they are led by those who want a state, rather than the defeat of Israel, they will not have one. Their champions Iran and to a lesser extent Turkey, Syria and Iraq deny the Kurds a state. Saladin lies in his grave (his son spent decades trying to dismantle one pyramid and gave up).
Marxist philosopher Richard Seymour is damning on the Democratic party and Biden today –
"…The most powerful man in the world, entrusted with the commission of great crimes of state, ushered into his candidacy for a second term by a Democratic leadership desperate to avoid a real primary, is and evidently has been for some time incapable of tying his own shoelaces, or colouring inside the lines, or remembering the president’s name. His condition, despite an omerta observed by whispering courtiers and lobby journalists that wouldn’t be out of place in Pyongyang, been impossible to completely hide. But still, knowing his opponent is a television sadist who makes the audience laugh like dogs by deriding weakness, his viziers shuffle him into the studio when he is clearly in a fugue state, and push him out in front of the cameras, somehow not thinking to plead illness and cancel….
…Because the bipartisan gerontocracy, having so efficiently selected for mediocrity, obedience and venality among its juniors that it trusts no one else with the historical consciousness necessary to run the state, and clings to the reins of power, crying: from my cold dead hands!.."
Imagine if Republican Senators had the "courage" to rail against Trump like the Democrats and their "theorists" are to Biden.
Democrats are losing by defeating themselves.
I watched the first hour of the debate (that was all I could stomach)….Biden has to go.
Kinda the highlights the difference between left and right, the right unite behind greed for riches and power,
The left pull themselves apart with honesty and ideology
Labour slowly losing support on the media and housing I think. I can see the same happening on the cancer drugs issue. The Nats’ll bleed short term, but long term they’ll have enough of a fix the issue(s) won’t be a live one come the next election.
Goldsmith looks to be a capable minister and is running the Nats side of the two track with ACT very well on the media. Similarly on housing noises that prices have dropped and the minister isn’t unhappy will play well with the youth, even with massive asterisks attached.
Remembering that the key thing here is not to change everyone’s minds, but to change enough to win the next election, or to neutralise an apparently contentious issue so that few, if any votes are decided by it.
Labour had a chance to hammer home their wins here. I think the same way that the polls were kind of okay for a little while after Hipkins took over, Labour had a bit of an opportunity. Here the Nats started out right and are now taking a bit to the left to cover all bases. Hipkins moved the party right, but did nothing to excite the base.
Goldsmith seems like a David Parker, but with leadership support.
Labour’s public face has been Kieran McAnulty and occasionally Barbara Edmonds, but the Nats are in to their solid middle order, the above and Collins ,and the pitch is flattening out. I know a test cricket analogy is risky, but how can Labour counter this and did they make the most of the new ball and a green pitch?
Start with a new ball as hipkins is damaged goods then pitch left.
IMO his arrogance cost them any chance with the captains calls on wealth tax and he didnt properly sell 3 waters or the other policies remaining after his policy bonfire.
As you state they had a chance to hammer home their wins and didnt. Epic fail.
I find Hipkins still credible (see BigHairyNews, from 3-33 min). What he is leading currently is a bottom-up consult with Labour members. There are enough Labour spokespersons, like McNulty and Willie Jackson, who come out swinging. That's the sign of a collaborative leader, who (re-)builds strong teams.
To my ear, a lot of the 'Hipkins is a poor opposition leader' actually comes from right-leaning commentators.
I guess I wanted to see perhaps a few obvious lines drawn loudly in the sand.
We will never accept shady back room deals approved by fiat. We will repeal the legislation. We reserve the right to cancel projects approved or to seek further costs to mitigate the affect on the community.
We will keep the freight rail connection to the Mainland open!
We will set up a fair advertising revenue stream to keep NZ content funded and locally available. We don’t work for big corporations in the States!
Except better than those…
Something to lead the conversation so that if they adopt it you can say you’re glad they’re taking our ideas- cut out the middle man and elect us. Or a point of difference if they don’t.
The polls were positive, set the agenda.
tWig – I agree with you. As I have previously commented, blaming Chris Hipkins for Labour's election loss seems simplistic. Evidently most people weren't voting for a capital gains tax or a wealth tax, because more would have voted for Te Pāti Māori or the Green Party if these were the main policies of concern. Clearly many people voted against their own interests.
Huge donations assisted National with a relentless attack campaign against Labour. According to information in the following link, in 2023 National received $10,383,230.39 in donations.
https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/political-parties-in-new-zealand/party-donations-and-loans-by-year/
tc – How could Chris Hipkins "properly sell 3 waters or the other policies remaining after his policy bonfire" in the face of a constant, misleading attack by the Right, which appealed to many voters' fears, prejudices and resentment towards Maori?
"If we subtract negative posts from positive posts, about 63 percent more Labour posts included positive self-presentation than negative attacks. In comparison, when we do the same for National, it had a net positivity score of just 5.5 percent…..
Negative campaigning criticises socially relevant topics, uses stereotypical traits, highlights shortcomings as well as criticises and attacks qualities and behaviour of parties, politicians, and related issues. Exaggerations and evoking negative emotions such as fear, envy, blame, and anger are also considered as negative campaigning".
https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/news/2023/10/negative-campaiging-in-the-2023-new-zealand-election
Following repeated challenges about the affordability of National's tax plan from Labour, the CTU, the media, and analysis by economists, Nicola Willis admitted the following:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/10/election-2023-national-admits-it-knew-all-along-its-maximum-tax-cuts-would-only-go-to-3000-households.html
It seems many people knowingly voted for a party that lied by omission and implication, about the supposed benefits of a major policy; also likely due to resentment over Labour's planned water services reforms and the COVID-19 mandates, which reportedly saved the lives of about 20,000 people.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/499516/new-zealand-s-covid-19-response-saved-20-000-lives-research
Chris Hipkins has a higher approval rating than other MPs, so why are supposed Labour supporters suggesting that he should be replaced?
https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/06/26/poll-hipkins-outscores-luxon-in-approval-ratings
This is…
we should be able to point to current leadership, not re-litigate the tax issue or other pre-election issues.
There are (were?) a lot of things that Labour can clearly oppose and in fact lead on.
There was momentum in the country when it wanted to hear the alternative.
Waiting for the Tories to destroy themselves with arrogance so you can run a fairly RW third way is not a strategy. And a guy whose sales pitch is former human rights lawyer is starting from a better place than previous government bovver boy and border enforcer.
Part of the credit Goldsmith is getting should be Labour’s.
And if Hipkins doesn’t want criticism he’s in the wrong job. The moment there’s no criticism he’s failed utterly and no one cares anymore.
He needs a Labour team for the whole country which he leads, not a safe Chippy team he has vetted. Labour needs to go further left than his personal politics. We can see the Stanfords, Bishops, Collins and Goldsmiths. They are getting comfortable in office. Who’s making them uncomfortable? Mitchell has been messing up- is he being pressured?
Listening is all very well, but with the resource management overhaul we are now seeing productive land as fair game for crap developments that are not well served by public transport or infrastructure. Surely Labour doesn’t need to wait on that? Just cutting the rural/urban border is massive and unnecessary. Haven’t all the councils just done these unitary plans?
There was a lot of public consultation on the resource management bill, right? Does it need to be redone to have a position?
On Auckland you need to get Michael Wood back on side and back as MP in waiting. Hipkins looked best when he and his Auckland MPs and councilors turned out post the flooding. There is a Labour history of service at local and state level from Goff bequeathed to Wood. Whatever BS it was was not a hanging offense and Hipkins is equally culpable of failed leadership in not managing it. The same way he was connected to Mallard and the Clark Labour government, so is Michael Wood. Starting from scratch there is a massive ask. Being able to say I knew something was up with the flooding because I went and checked our local stream is credibility.
Now he’s got no core Auckland team, just a Westie one. Now he’s cap in hand asking Wayne Brown about electorates which have been Labour’s for a long long long time.
Get the Auckland team back together and get the ground game functioning.
If there’s no alternative, what happened in Italy will happen here. The far right will jag right, and the right will cover the centre.
No one will want a fiscal hawk party of the left without a team of diverse experience and skills, if compassionate conservatism is winning the day, they’ve got tax cuts and the searing missteps are being corrected or somewhat smoothed over by experienced and relatively likeable ministers.
The PM is inexperienced, but has some strong team members who are relishing power. What’s Labour got? Without government resources and out in the cold. The resources are their people. Give them something to rally around. Or at least communicate some clear points of opposition. And stick a few lines in the sand when the government does something wrong. Cutting all of Seymour’s play ministry could be a start. The bureau of bureaucracy to count the bureaucrats. No thanks.
Bill English polled well after the 2017 defeat, as did Bridges till the lockdown. They were waiting for NZF to fall in 2020.
The CofC is dependent on NZF (never more than one term in government) staying above 5%.
Goff should have stayed leader after 2011 and moved on if defeated in 2014 (division has a cost). Moore would have won in 1993 under MMP, Clark won at the second go.
Got to have a job to be able to afford a house, the economy is tanking , unemployment is rocketing, national applied a tourniquet to stem perceived bleeding of government spending but are to stupid to realise if you don't release it the limb will rot and kill its owner
Labour should not oppose for the sake of it.
It can agree on granny flats, on media negotiating with on line platforms use of content and having a tax on digital advertising as well (- a stick, the size dependent on online platforms acting in good faith).
And they should criticise such as on cancer and lack of action on anti-stalking legislation to get better outcomes. And on the need for rail enabled ferries.
Prices have dropped because of the number of homes consented in 2022 and now coming on market. This includes rentals. Labour should make this clear.
That “Joe has to go” becomes more obvious by the minute–not to forget multi thousands of butchered Palestinians, that he could have saved with a phone call if so inclined.
The Yoo Ess Ayy is on a dark road towards authoritarianism given the millions of alienated non voters, industrial strength Gerrymandering, voter suppression of myriad kinds–some states forbid giving queuing voters a bottle of water! for chrissakes, and a bent Electoral College and FPTP system.
The only hope is demographic change with millions of eligible younger potential voters coming on stream, and maybe even MAGA women will vote on the basis of the Roe vs Wade roll back of female rights.
You may as well be running Republican script.
The only hope is
I'm hoping that Biden's doing a machiavellian strategy: play the fool by simulating a mental defect. Worked like a dream for Trump so no surprise if Biden's controller is coping the formula. Plan B: run an AI cyborg at the convention as a positive alternative to tempt the progressives.
You could program it to do a tap and dance routine when it gets up onstage to front the media. Yanks love that shit – been swallowing it since the 19th century.
"The only hope is demographic change with millions of eligible younger potential voters coming on stream …. "
That's making the rather large assumption that there'll be a candidate allowed to run and for whom they can vote (if indeed they're still eligible to vote at all). When did Poots last allow a real opponent into the contest?
Smaller apartments are not family homes. Reducing minimum apartment size doesn’t solve the housing crisis. It makes hen crates for people and trading chips for property investors, stalling until foreign investors can buy them to cram in foreign students.
Before we get too carried away with flooding the market once more we need to make sure we have the correct insurance and materials so that people aren’t entirely invested and left high and dry. They don’t buy a house, see it written off by a disaster and then have their life put on hold for years while their capital is held ransom by councils and insurance companies.
We don’t want to take people from old mouldy housing and put them into new sunless soon to-be-mouldy ground floor apartments that are too small for their 3 seater sofa and their washing.
Get it right first time, don’t make people pay their savings to fix the mistakes made in haste and to stand still.
Agree with Hipkins here, but curiously only the sales pitch (made uninterrupted on Morning Report) made it to the midday news, not the response.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/521250/loosening-build-rules-comes-with-big-risks-chris-hipkins
RNZ know where their breads buttered.
And again, criticism of Hipkins being weak, where some of the issue is media story choice. If you don't make an emotive, fact-free critique, a al National before the election, then you don't get the front-page soundbite.
Criticising RNZ for running Bishop’s sales pitch at least twice without proper context! No criticism of Hipkins here.
He is weak.
Gotta talk to Aucklanders to find out what his values and principles are for next election.
It’s his job to get coverage. And his shadow ministers. And it’s a difficult time with a splintering media, sure. And then the gatekeepers who are left in jobs.
But the message doesn’t have to get to everyone, just the voters likely to change. But the message has to be symbolic as well as spoken. A large diverse, competent team, some fresh and some experienced, harrying the government’s fly by the seat of their pants approach, behind the boss.
The COC wants standardised testing for all primary students. One more step of requiring schools to report students achievement against national norms and we are bacl to their national standards policy of 2008. Bacl then it did little at all to lift literacy and numery levels but costs 10s of millions of dollars. Are we again seeing Act and National about to waste a load of time and money on a failed scheme, as we are seeing with a return of charter schools.
I thought this was a wonderful response.
https://x.com/McNghton1/status/1808331810671325522
The Sun is backing Starmer. Says it all.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/03/the-sun-support-labour-general-election
Follow the
moneypower. Turncoats.