Really not looking forward to the media frenzy of sanctimonious lecturing and 20/20 hindsight that will now ensue after yesterdays events in New Lynn. Probably just won't read any of it until about next Wednesday, like a lot of people I suspect I get my COVID news from watching the 1pm briefing and my other news from publications (LRB, TLS, The Atlantic, several reputable Youtube channels) other than most of the NZ MSM.
Kim Hill dealt with the central scandal in the first ten minutes of her show this morning – the glacial pace of progress of anti-terror law changes under successive governments. That is a failure that must now be immediately rectified. The rest of the coverage will be either right wing partisan flacks frantically trying to pin it on the government or "how do you feel" ghouls.
His point about the law change not necessarily preventing what happened yesterday was well made. For the earlier offending he may not have received any extra time. Yesterday appears to have been a completely opportunistic act.
Yesterday appears to have been a completely opportunistic act.
My sentiments too. The fact he presumably didn't come with a knife on him and grabbed one off a supermarket shelf suggests it was a spur of the moment act.
He may well have been incentifised to take some form of action by the ISIS terrorist attack on Kabul Airport a few days ago.
Nothing spur of the moment about it. He needed to be carrying a cutting tool like scissors to help remove the knife from its packaging. Had also been charged with planning exactly that sort of attack in exactly that sort of place.
Let's focus our kindness on the people affected by his actions.
He took advantage of a situation. That, in my book, constitutes a spur of the moment act. It doesn't mean he didn't intend to commit such an act, but rather took the opportunity when it presented itself.
Let's focus our kindness on the people affected by his actions.
If you are inferring… by my response to part of mickysavage's comment @ 2.2.1, that I am somehow not "focusing our kindness on the people affected by his actions" then I take that as a personal insult.
Who said mickey's comment or mine were in any way "finding reasons to excuse this guy."
Its a sad world if one cannot contemplate what may have (note: mayhave) gone through the perpetrator's mind at the precise moment he began to attack without it being interpreted as "making excuses".
Understanding how the minds of these types of people work is part of the prevention process the appropriate authorities have to take into account.
I tend to think of oppertunist crime being more like, I was driving home and I saw someone was moving house and had left their property unattended, so I nicked their coffee table (please excuse the trite example under these sad circumstances0.
I haven't read a lot of the details, but it seems the guy had been planning a terrorist attack and had homicial ideation over many years. He may have decided yesterday was the day, or he may have just reached a point where he acted on his thoughts.
I know very little about the legislation but surely planning a terrorist attact or planning to kill someone should land you in jail????
My sympathies to the victims and their families.
My thanks to the police, who would have had a very tedious job of tailing this guy over a long period of time and then acted promptlywhen they needed. to
What bad luck that he carried out his mad action yesterday. In a couple of weeks the new law would have been in place. How sad that the urgency was just a bit late.
The complete let down here is that he was never assessed on his mental health status. If he would have, he might never have been in the supermarket in the first place but behind closed doors. This was a neglect of protocol and no amount of deflection will steer away from that. This does not excuse what he did but it would explain that he had the opportunity and it might well have been preventable. No fault to anybody but perhaps follow protocol if known on the outset that a fanatic is being held. I hope there is something to be learned here.
Nothing can be changed now but the families affected and the people who were traumatized by it all need our support and help.
if you edit your comment and add width="100%" to inside the end of the tag, the image will fit the screen instead of being oversized. I've edited it now.
Critics of Texas’s new law have been filing hundreds of fake reports to the whistleblowing website in hopes of crashing it
The law makes it illegal to help women in Texas access abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy. To help enforce it, anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life established the digital tipline where people can send anonymous information about potential violations.
“Any Texan can bring a lawsuit against an abortionist or someone aiding and abetting an abortion after six weeks,” the website reads, and those proved to be violating the law can be fined a minimum of $10,000. An online form allows anyone to submit an anonymous “report” of someone illegally obtaining an abortion, including a section where images can be uploaded for proof.
But pro-choice users had other ideas, bombarding the site with false reports and fabricated data through a campaign primarily organized on Reddit and TikTok.
Though the site was launched a month ago, the fake reports came flooding in on the eve of the bill’s enactment. One TikTok user said they had submitted 742 fake reports of the governor, Greg Abbott, getting illegal abortions.
Many if not all organisations in NZ are starting to confront the issue of vaccination requirements for their staff and customers.
Lawyerly consensus seems to be that requiring vaccination for new hires is fairly straightforward. But imposing it as a new condition on existing employees is somewhat problematic.
Seems to me that here is where the government could help out by passing legislation specifically enabling the addition of a vaccination clause to existing employment contracts, as a health and safety measure for the workplace.
I find it interesting that in 'murica, land of freedumb and lawsuits, employers aren't the slightest bit shy about imposing vaccine mandates.
I'm just grateful that everyone I work with on even a semi-regular basis is already vaccinated. Mostly they're young immigrants that grew up seeing the devastation widespread disease causes and how vaccinations really do prevent that devastation.
Can we presume now that some of the most malicious propagandists in the world will now be shunned, instead of given a free platform, by Kim Hill?
RNZ National, Saturday 4 September 2021, 10:10 a.m.
In the course of an interesting discussion about the evolution of ethics, Kim Hill mentioned to her guest, the moral philosopher Tim Dean, that a certain "shock jock" in New Zealand regularly provokes outrage, and upsets people. Dr Dean counselled against wasting our time getting outraged about such provocateurs. It was better, he said, to not amplify them by retweeting their nonsense.
I hope Kim Hill took that advice to heart. I sent her the following email to encourage her in her resolve….
So no more free platforms for guests who use the media to destroy people?
Dear Kim,
Your guest Tim Dean this morning advised us to avoid giving publicity to people who seek to destroy others via Twitter and other media platforms. You seemed to agree with that. I take it that we can therefore presume that you will no longer give a free platform to the likes of Jonathan Freedland and Simon Schama, both of whom used your show in 2019 to spray evidence-free accusations against Jeremy Corbyn, and Alex Gibney, who in 2013 used your show to pour ridicule on the political dissident Julian Assange.
The epidemiologist guy on Kim Hill, RNZ at 9am this morning, was clearly in favour of saliva testing, saying it is accurate. He is sitting on the panel advising the government and was (while being diplomatic) clearly surprised these tests were not yet in use in NZ.
It occurs to me that this might work well as a border control mechanism. Negative Covid test 72 hours before flying and an instant saliva test on arrival.
I thought the saliva tests were really fast…I may be wrong on this. Having said that I head a doctor say on RNZ a couple of weeks ago that they can turn round a nasal test in 90 minutes in a hospital.
90 minutes will be because they have labs onsite and probably push the covid test to top of the work queue. And maybe the hardware they're working with in that particular lab.
If you're doing, say, 200 people off a plane and need to courier the samples across town, then process those samples and use limited lab resources while prioritising other contracted tests, the time per test might be the same or less but the time between swab and notification could be considerably longer.
Because Jetstar would still manage to offload the passengers and tests at different airports? lol
There'd still be the courier and bulk processing problems, and we'd also be ceding control of test administration to someone else.
Frankly, airport testing isn't even something I'd support with 30sec turnaround. It's a level up from preflight tests, but still insufficient in time-sensitivity to do away with MIQ (i.e. Jimjane might be exposed in a transit lounge and still have a low enough load that they don't ping a test when they get off the plane). And we already do 2 tests in MIQ, so extra testing isn't really needed.
I meant, why not process the samples on board? A PCR instrument is just a small benchtop instrument and could easily fit in a plane. Airlines handle a lot of official paperwork already.
Sure, why not? Many testing kits contain positive, negative, and other quality controls. Refrigeration is available, if necessary. Anything could be tested in theory: air (filters), saliva samples, and wastewater. Methodology and protocols will have to be developed, optimised, and validated, of course. Plenty of time too during intercontinental flights.
“Frequent testing using COVID-19 rapid tests could have curbed the pandemic and spared us multiple lockdowns, saved thousands of lives, and billions of dollars by keeping the economy running. Rapid self-tests are now available in many European countries in pharmacies and supermarkets, while in Canada, we are still debating their use. Even as we are vaccinated, rapid testing will still be needed because of people refusing or not eligible for vaccination, waning immunity for the ones vaccinated, the emergence of new COVID-19 variants, and seasonality aligned with the one of influenza.”
– David Juncker, Full Professor and Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering, McGill University https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/experts-covid-19-309919
Eliminate the wasted time and risks associated with securing pre-arrival COVID tests on international missions. Maximize your operational flexibility by self-administering your tests – safely and discretely – onboard your own aircraft.
You and Your Passengers Will Love It
Useful addition, but obviously no substitute for pre-flight testing.
Mustn't jeopardize the 'mission'
More tools, diverse tools, complementary tools, smarter use of existing tools (e.g., two shots of different vaccines instead of the same), innovative thinking, so-called ‘out of the box’ thinking, for example, don’t need to deter from ‘the mission’, but they could help it. IMHO.
Please don’t get sidetracked by the market segment to which they are pitching. It is about the principle and technical feasibility of in-flight PCR testing. It can be done, apparently 🙂
Anything can be done for enough money – that's where the segment comes in.
But clinical managers are not likely to rely on self-analysed tests unless solid pre-launch validation tells them otherwise. I would say even self-administration variability is one reason they require a handful of saliva tests to equate to one nasal swab test using the same PCR process, let alone if untrained airline staff are running the analysis process.
How much money is NZ already spending on testing? The enormous queues at the beginning of the outbreak were unnecessary and avoidable, IMO. Testing willy-nilly just as jabbing willy-nilly is not smart use of precious resources and money.
Clinical managers should have no or very little say in this!
Keeping abreast of new approaches/tools – all good. NZ's lucky – for any relatively resource-hungry implementation phase, we can select from a (diverse) range of tools already tested by others.
Time will tell if the (technically feasible) in-flight PCR testing of passengers for COVID is implemented on bog-standard international flights. I'm guessing not, but have been well wrong before.
Routine pre/post-flight COVID testing of passengers and crew will continue for a while in our South Pacific bubble.
In other regions some countries have already relaxed pre-flight COVID test requirements, particularly for the fully-vaccinated.
Personally, I don’t think we can afford the ‘luxury’ of being picky & choosy, but many good and not so good ideas end up in the bin without any due consideration because they are deemed: too hard, too costly, too threatening to fragile egos of control freaks running their little fiefdoms.
Relaxing pre-flight Covid testing is not a smart thing to do, IMO, and it will send a wrong message of false security from vaccination. What numpties!
The intricacies of it aren't my field. But it's a lot to put into a transtasman run between swabbing and testing the swabs, we'd need lab techs on the planes, and the obvious questions are around how the process and the machine itself will deal with turbulence.
But even then, we'd still have the "infected, but too early to detect" problem. So if we ramp up to even just 10k arrivals a week, how long before a positive [insert here the next variant that will make the sky fall if these trends continue] passenger starts wandering around the community? At 95% sensitivity and even 0.1% of passengers with an infection (lowballing the MIQ proportion of +tests to people going through), that's a hundred a week and 5 false negatives resulting in community exposure.
People taking their masks off to spit into a spoon to transfer to a vial or just spitting into a vial with dribble going every where. Not as good as a nasal swab going straight into a vial.
Saliva tests have many advantages over nasal swabs. For example, you can do it yourself without having to travel to a testing station where you might come into closer contact with many others.
You don’t actually “spit” into a spoon, you drool.
Great factsheet, thank you. Also confirms the current saliva test is not fast:
The processing of a saliva sample at the lab is very similar to the processing conducted for swab testing – the
analysis takes the same length of time.
Yes, the PCR assay is the same, once the sample has been pre-processed. Logistics & admin always add more time too. Downside of current saliva tests is that genomic testing is not possible, as mentioned in the fact sheet.
Which saliva test the quick test has a 60% efficay rate and to be accurate needs several tests to bring up its efficacy to the PCR nasal or saliva test .saliva being spat into spoons or vials is far more messy and risks the testers health.
Does anyone else think about this issue (and/or want to read about it)?
"The colonial project is the ongoing strategic occupation and exploitation of Indigenous lands for the purposes of the colonizers. 2 Africa, Australia, the Americas, Southeast Asia, and New Zealand are the Indigenous lands to which I refer. As part of the imperial project, these continents and countries were respatialized. 3 Entire landscapes were re-ordered to fragment, disorient, and ultimately destroy the social ecologies of the peoples who inhabited them. Now the question is unignorable: How, in the umbra of decolonization, should these landscapes be redesigned? How can environmental designers participate in the struggle of peoples who have lived through a brazen confiscation of their precolonial spatialities in order to reimagine the way they live together, within the vast re-ordering of planet earth that is the Anthropocene? And is this not itself, after all, the hugest of all hyperobjects? The most ambitious and most thorough colonization of the globe by a hegemonic mentalité to date? Demanding nothing less than the co-option of all peoples to a planetary master narrative that is by its very nature out of control?
I’m hardly the only landscape architect currently mobilizing concepts from theories and practices of decolonization (or decol). 4 But since I’ve recently relocated to my homeland Aotearoa New Zealand, in this essay I’m using Aotearoa as my example. Therefore Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa, are central to my inquiry."
I have often thought our fisheries needed decolonizing – locals scarcely see any seafood these days unless they catch it themselves. The artisanal fishers that supported and enriched local families and communities have largely faded away like the eels above the elver-proof Waitaki dams.
Yep – and the ability to catch it yourself doesn't come cheap. With the denuding of inshore stocks you need a boat (or a decent kayak at a minimum) to catch fish reliably. This further limits its availability.
Colonisers had a system to disenfranchise indigenous people .De humanize dislocate etc.Keep indigenous people on the bottom of the heap impoverished and powerless.
The British Empire used Ireland as a template for its world wide imperial conquests.
Buying off leaders,making the indigenous language illegal ,starving the population,stealing their land.
And even after Ireland gained independence tariff's were imposed from 1922 till 1972 when Ireland became a member of the EU.Britain sided with the free market side in the civil war in Ireland .
Similar tactics to breakdown Maori by portraying them as inferior keeping Maori poor systematically imprisoning Maori continually making Maori look bad.All the while profiteering out stolen land and land they were conned and bullied off,insider trading and fraud it's called today .Then only compensating Maori 1%to3% not including the loss of income and economic status caused by the illegal dispossesion.
While others had 100% legal rights to illegal land transactions Maori were denied.
The latest issue contains pieces by two of their most experienced journalists – and both Clare Trevett and Fran O’Sullivan make no bones about their conviction that Judith Collins’ recent mistakes and false steps mean that her fate is sealed.
…
The scenario they apparently see unrolling is that Bridges will replace Collins and lead National to yet another election defeat, whereupon there will be yet another leadership coup, which will bring forward the untested Christopher Luxon, supported by one of the “young Turks” as his deputy.
Indeed wonderful & encouraging news. I'm sitting at the jab drive thru at the Edgar Centre & I'm so impressed with the people running this! Music, sun, professional. Very happy to be living in NZ right now.
It would be like NSW and all the numbskulls out there (and there's plenty of them) would be expressing their sympathy for the Nat. government…convinced it was not their fault.
Given just about all conservative constituencies have uncontrollable outbreaks ,no mask wearing,slow or no lockdown ,much lower comparative vaccination rates,low tax poor public health funding.
With National in charge we would have hospitals over run a complete melt down especially given they can't even organize their own caucus.
Then look at the number of Cock ups in the Canterbury earthquake rebuild the South Canterbury Finance debacle National is a hands off govt.
Private contractors like in Australia's response to border control is the reason why they are in such a mess.
Family in NSW are really worried. They already have two 18 year olds sick with Delta.
Their whole family is fully vaccinated, and the girls are through the worst, but were really sick.
The failure to contain Delta in NSW and the attitude of the leadership is really upsetting, with casual throw away lines of "living with the virus", 8 million having freedom to decide!!
My brother's family consisting of 17 people, are really at risk. They say the lock downs were late and light, and really useless.
Patricia part of the Problem is that no one wanted to follow Gladys's orders because of her Morality she had been outed cheating on her husband for up to 10 yrs and implicated in corruption.
If you want people to follow you have to set an example.
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David Farrar writes – The Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled: Comments by radio host Kate Hawkesby suggesting Māori and Pacific patients were being prioritised for surgery due to their ethnicity were misleading and discriminatory, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found. It is a fact such patients are prioritised. ...
PRC and its proxies in Solomons have been preparing for these elections for a long time.A lot of money, effort and intelligence have gone into ensuring an outcome that won’t compromise Beijing’s plans. Cleo Paskall writes – On April 17th the Solomon Islands, a country of ...
Is speeding up the trip to and from Wellington airport by 12 minutes worth spending up more than $10 billion? Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me in the last day to 8:26 am today are:The Lead: Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced ...
You're a fraud, and you know itBut it's too good to throw it all awayAnyone would do the sameYou've got 'em goingAnd you're careful not to show itSometimes you even fool yourself a bitIt's like magicBut it's always been a smoke and mirrors gameAnyone would do the sameForty six billion ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The June general election in Mexico could mark a turning point in ensuring that the country’s climate policies better reflect the desire of its citizens to address the climate crisis, with both leading presidential candidates expressing support for renewable energy. Mexico is the ...
2024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?When I say 2024 I really mean the state of humanity in 2024.Saturday night, we watched Civil War because that is one terrifying cliff we've ...
Buzz from the Beehive A pet project and governmental tunnel vision jump out from the latest batch of ministerial announcements. The government is keen to assure us of its concern for the wellbeing of our pets. It will be introducing pet bonds in a change to the Residential Tenancies Act ...
A recent report generated from a Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) survey of 1,224 rangatahi Māori aged 11-12 found: Cultural connectedness was associated with fewer depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms and better quality of life. That sounds cut and dry. But further into the report the following appears: Cultural connectedness is ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: From the gory details of job-cuts news, you’d think the public service was being eviscerated. While the media’s view of the cuts is incomplete, it’s also true that departments have been leaking the particulars faster than a Wellington ...
Remember the good old days, back when New Zealand had a PM who could think and speak calmly and intelligently in whole sentences without blustering? Even while Iran’s drones and missiles were still being launched, Helen Clark was live on TVNZ expertly summing up the latest crisis in the Middle ...
Costello did not pass on analysis of the benefits of the smokefree reforms to Cabinet, emphasising instead the extra tax revenues of repealing them. Photo: Hagen Hopkins, Getty Images TL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me at 7:26 am today are:The Lead: Casey Costello never passed on ...
True loveYou're the one I'm dreaming ofYour heart fits me like a gloveAnd I'm gonna be true blueBaby, I love youI’ve written about the job cuts in our news media last week. The impact on individuals, and the loss to Aotearoa of voices covering our news from different angles.That by ...
While commentators, including former Prime Minister Helen Clark, are noting a subtle shift in New Zealand’s foreign policy, which now places more emphasis on the United States, many have missed a key element of the shift. What National said before the election is not what the government is doing now. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 7, 2024 thru Sat, April 13, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week is about adults in the room setting terms and conditions of ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Changes to minimum wage and benefit indexation means many New Zealanders will get less this year, as the Government gives a big tax break to landlords instead. ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced further New Zealand cooperation with the United States in the Pacific Islands region through $16.4 million in funding for initiatives in digital connectivity and oceans and fisheries research. “New Zealand can achieve more in the Pacific if we work together more urgently and ...
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle Helen Clark, how I miss you. The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held ...
The government's released the list of organisations provided with information on how to apply - just hours before public submissions on the bill close. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Before climate change really got going, eastern Australia’s flash floods tended to concentrate on our coastal regions, east of the Great Dividing Range. But that’s changing. Now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Finkel, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University Sia Duff / South Australian Museum In February, the South Australian Museum “re-imagined” itself. In the face of rising costs and inadequate government funds, CEO David Gaimster, who took the reins last June, declared ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Pearce, Professor, School of Allied Heath, Human Services & Sport, La Trobe University, La Trobe University This week, Collingwood AFL player Nathan Murphy announced his retirement, brought on by his concussion history and ongoing issues. The 24-year-old’s seemingly sudden retirement, ...
The Mental Health Foundation provides support and resources for those facing the loss of their job, so it’s wrong in the very week the Government adds another 1000 jobs to its tally of cuts, that this is happening. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney Daniel Boud/Sydney Theatre Company Decay, terror, revulsion. These are three of the central themes of Thomas Bernhard’s rarely performed play The President. The Austrian is one of the greatest ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says threats by ministers Shane Jones and David Seymour to reform or close down the Waitangi Tribunal were “ill-considered”, as legal experts say the ministers may have breached Cabinet Manual conventions. “I think those comments are ill-considered and we expect all ministers to actually exercise good ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ye In (Jane) Hwang, Postdoctoral Research Associate at School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy. We need only to look back ten ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Newton, Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University Pexels/RDNE stock project You’re not in your 20s or 30s anymore and you know regular health checks are important. So you go to your GP. During the appointment they measure your waist. ...
A new poem by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. Mitochondrial Problem I. It was long drive to Kansas for the man and his dog but you have to understand he said She doesn’t fly. Which calls to mind not carsick shitting barking or whining but a dog who chooses not to as ...
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.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)Hot off the press, this debut ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Wajnryb McDonald, PhD candidate in Criminology, University of Sydney Less than 24 hours after Ashlee Good was murdered in Bondi Junction, her family released a statement requesting the media take down photographs they had reproduced of Ashlee and her family without ...
Chief executive Shaun Robinson said it has not had any government funding cut, but government-funded contracts have not kept pace with rising costs. ...
The Ministry of Health has delayed the release of its evidence brief on the safety, reversibility and mental health and wellbeing outcomes for puberty blockers. While we wait, Julia de Bres speaks to those with firsthand experience. Best practice gender-affirming healthcare is based on trans people’s self-determination and agency. The ...
Barcelona’s city streets have gone from traffic-clogged to pedestrian-friendly. How? Superblocks. Ellen Rykers explains. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week I read a great interview with renowned urbanist Janette Sadik-Khan by The Spinoff’s Wellington editor Joel MacManus: “You can reimagine streets, ...
Student groups ‘Climate Action VUW’, Schools Strike 4 Climate and VUWSA will be on the street in Wellington today, the last day for submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Bill, with a message that the fight against the Government’s ‘War on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sofia Ammassari, Research Fellow, Griffith University Since 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity has grown exponentially – and so has the formidable organisational machine of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). These two factors will be key to delivering the BJP a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon Hyndman, Associate Professor of Education (Adjunct) & Senior Manager (BCE), Charles Sturt University During COVID almost all Australian students and their families experienced online learning. But while schools have long since gone back to in-person teaching, online learning has not gone ...
Yes, they’re better for the environment. No, that’s not a good enough reason for me to use them. Once every 26 days or so, my period arrives, and if struck by an act of God, I am caught red-crotched without products. How, after 17 years of this, do I still ...
“It will cause significant harm to our environment and communities. It is completely at odds with New Zealanders’ relationship with nature and our need for a low-carbon, sustainable economic future." ...
The Chair of the National Maori Authority, Matthew Tukaki, has warned a Parliamentary Select Committee that fast-tracking legislation is a perilous practice that undermines the core tenets of democracy, transparency, and accountability. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Tenbensel, Associate Professor, Health Policy, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images Since coming into power, the coalition government has adopted a simple but shrewd see-how-fast-we-can-move political strategy. However, in the health sector this need for speed entails ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Hronis, Clinical Psychologist, University of Technology Sydney Darya Sannikova/Pexels Whether you’re watching TV, attending a footy game, or eating a meal at your local pub, gambling is hard to escape. Although the rise of gambling is not unique to Australia, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Wong, Forrest Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia Have you ever wondered if there are more insects out at night than during the day? We set out to answer this question by combing through the scientific ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol T Kulik, Research Professor, University of South Australia IR Stone/Shutterstock In Australia, it’s not the done thing to know – let alone ask – what our colleagues are paid. Yet, it’s easy to see how pay transparency can make pay ...
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is sounding a warning to migrants, that running foul of the law may see them leaving the country prematurely. ...
The government’s plan to get 50,000 people off jobseeker support by 2030 has had a rocky start, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Beneficiary numbers are up – and so are ...
Raglan Roast is a staple of Wellington coffee culture. But with five branches across the capital, which one is the best? I am a die-hard Raglan Roast fan. It’s consistently the most affordable cafe in Wellington, and one of the only places you can get a coffee after 3pm. So, ...
Residents of University of Auckland halls are being urged to withhold their accommodation fees from May 1, in a bid to force the university to take student concerns over rent hikes seriously.The University of Auckland is facing a strike from students over the cost of on-campus accommodation. The Students ...
New Zealand and the Philippines have signed a new maritime security agreement and stated their concerns over activity in the South China Sea, as Chinese vessels continue to flout international law. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Philippines President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos committed to signing a Mutual Logistics Supporting Arrangement by ...
The thousands of government “back-office” job cuts are causing widespread pain in the capital city. In today’s episode of The Detail, we speak to three journalists and a think tank researcher, looking at the larger picture around the cuts and what effect it will have on Wellington, a city that’s ...
Opinion: The famed American architect and urban designer Daniel Burnham once said, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood!” Burnham wouldn’t have been referring to the transport plans in Aotearoa New Zealand over the past five years; projects so big they hadn’t the credibility to ...
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Opinion: With maths understanding at 42 percent for Year 8 students, there’s no doubt something has to be done. But how? The post Financial literacy should be on all of us appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Hineaupounamu ‘Missy’ Nuku has been scaling mountains in Canada for her college basketball team, the Lakeland Rustlers. Alberta is currently home for the 20-year-old point guard, who is in her first year of a scholarship at Lakeland College, where she is studying for a business degree. She has certainly made ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra When ASIO boss Mike Burgess delivered his annual threat assessment earlier this year, he stressed the rising danger posed by espionage and foreign interference. “In 2024, threats to our way of life have surpassed ...
The Tribunal had called on Minister for Children Karen Chhour to provide evidence at an urgent inquiry into the repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University Midjourney image by T.J. Thomson As more than half of Australian office workers report using generative artificial intelligence (AI) for work, we’re starting to see this technology affect every ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Nicole Sharwood, Injury epidemiologist | Expert Witness, UNSW Sydney Sergey Novikov/Shutterstock Injuries are the leading cause of disability and death among Australian children and adolescents. At least a quarter of all emergency department presentations during childhood are injury-related. Injuries can ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Di Winkler, Adjunct Associate Professor, Living with Disability Research Centre, La Trobe University Shutterstock/Ground PictureMany Australians with disability feel on the edge of a precipice right now. Recommendations from the disability royal commission and the NDIS review were released late ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Salman Shooshtarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University Salman Shooshtarian Asbestos has been found in mulch used for playgrounds, schools, parks and gardens across Sydney and Melbourne. Local communities naturally fear for the health of their ...
Family First says that the latest abortion statistics make grim and upsetting reading, with a 25% increase in abortions since the decriminalisation of abortion in March 2020. According to an Official Information Act request received by Right to Life ...
Ipsos New Zealand's inaugural participation in a global study on populism reveals a pervasive sense of societal and economic decline among New Zealanders. MORE DETAILS AND FULL REPORT HERE Ipsos New Zealand's inaugural participation in a global study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, Industry Professor and Chief Economist, University of Technology Sydney Steve Smith, one of this generation’s finest batters, has conquered much of the cricketing world during his career, and he now has set his sights on a new frontier: the United ...
Madeleine Ballard reviews the debut novel from romesh dissanayake.when I open the shop, the debut novel by Naarm-based Aotearoa writer romesh dissanayake (Sri Lankan, Koryo Saram), is a narrative of grief. Devendra loses his mother, opens a noodle shop on The Terrace, grieves, and emerges changed. But just as ...
Really not looking forward to the media frenzy of sanctimonious lecturing and 20/20 hindsight that will now ensue after yesterdays events in New Lynn. Probably just won't read any of it until about next Wednesday, like a lot of people I suspect I get my COVID news from watching the 1pm briefing and my other news from publications (LRB, TLS, The Atlantic, several reputable Youtube channels) other than most of the NZ MSM.
It's like sadness overload.
Few ppl are boycotting the sites that screened the video of the man being shot. I've not seen it, bloody ghoulish really.
Kim Hill dealt with the central scandal in the first ten minutes of her show this morning – the glacial pace of progress of anti-terror law changes under successive governments. That is a failure that must now be immediately rectified. The rest of the coverage will be either right wing partisan flacks frantically trying to pin it on the government or "how do you feel" ghouls.
Gosh Sanctuary, is it Wednesday already?
Rip Van Winkling. 🙂
Her chat with Law professor Andrew Geddes was interesting subsequently. Clips will be here eventually: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/20210904
His point about the law change not necessarily preventing what happened yesterday was well made. For the earlier offending he may not have received any extra time. Yesterday appears to have been a completely opportunistic act.
Specific link inside tweet:
https://twitter.com/BMHayward/status/1433906979446018051
My sentiments too. The fact he presumably didn't come with a knife on him and grabbed one off a supermarket shelf suggests it was a spur of the moment act.
He may well have been incentifised to take some form of action by the ISIS terrorist attack on Kabul Airport a few days ago.
Nothing spur of the moment about it. He needed to be carrying a cutting tool like scissors to help remove the knife from its packaging. Had also been charged with planning exactly that sort of attack in exactly that sort of place.
Let's focus our kindness on the people affected by his actions.
He took advantage of a situation. That, in my book, constitutes a spur of the moment act. It doesn't mean he didn't intend to commit such an act, but rather took the opportunity when it presented itself.
If you are inferring… by my response to part of mickysavage's comment @ 2.2.1, that I am somehow not "focusing our kindness on the people affected by his actions" then I take that as a personal insult.
I am saying let's not find reasons to excuse this guy. I disagree with both you and Greg that there is any evidence this was opportunistic.
Who said mickey's comment or mine were in any way "finding reasons to excuse this guy."
Its a sad world if one cannot contemplate what may have (note: may have) gone through the perpetrator's mind at the precise moment he began to attack without it being interpreted as "making excuses".
Understanding how the minds of these types of people work is part of the prevention process the appropriate authorities have to take into account.
I tend to think of oppertunist crime being more like, I was driving home and I saw someone was moving house and had left their property unattended, so I nicked their coffee table (please excuse the trite example under these sad circumstances0.
I haven't read a lot of the details, but it seems the guy had been planning a terrorist attack and had homicial ideation over many years. He may have decided yesterday was the day, or he may have just reached a point where he acted on his thoughts.
I know very little about the legislation but surely planning a terrorist attact or planning to kill someone should land you in jail????
My sympathies to the victims and their families.
My thanks to the police, who would have had a very tedious job of tailing this guy over a long period of time and then acted promptlywhen they needed. to
I agree with you Anne
He may well have had homicidal urges and contemplated how he would execute such an attack as well as taken the opportunity there and then
I dont see how such a notion is excusing the guy
Thanks francesca. To contemplate the state of mind of the individual at the time is a valid point of discussion.
My apologies. Police now saying it could be considered that way. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/126285369/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-says-government-was-hurrying-new-terror-laws-after-supermarket-terrorist-was-released-into-the-community
"She also said the Government had sought to hurry changes to the terrorism laws in the months after the man was released into the community. The justice minister made a phone call to make this happen the day the attack happened.".
What bad luck that he carried out his mad action yesterday. In a couple of weeks the new law would have been in place. How sad that the urgency was just a bit late.
The complete let down here is that he was never assessed on his mental health status. If he would have, he might never have been in the supermarket in the first place but behind closed doors. This was a neglect of protocol and no amount of deflection will steer away from that. This does not excuse what he did but it would explain that he had the opportunity and it might well have been preventable. No fault to anybody but perhaps follow protocol if known on the outset that a fanatic is being held. I hope there is something to be learned here.
Nothing can be changed now but the families affected and the people who were traumatized by it all need our support and help.
Therapeutic. Best read out loud.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/oh-my-fucking-god-get-the-fucking-vaccine-already-you-fucking-fucks
if you edit your comment and add width="100%" to inside the end of the tag, the image will fit the screen instead of being oversized. I've edited it now.
Good, so 100% is working now?
I think it always was, I just could never remember how to do it. I have the code saved now.
The kids are alright:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/02/texas-abortion-law-tiktok-reddit-whistleblower
Thanks for posting Arkie
That's hilarious, the kids are alright!
Many if not all organisations in NZ are starting to confront the issue of vaccination requirements for their staff and customers.
Lawyerly consensus seems to be that requiring vaccination for new hires is fairly straightforward. But imposing it as a new condition on existing employees is somewhat problematic.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/126254100/covid19-employers-seek-help-to-navigate-vaccination-minefield
Seems to me that here is where the government could help out by passing legislation specifically enabling the addition of a vaccination clause to existing employment contracts, as a health and safety measure for the workplace.
I find it interesting that in 'murica, land of freedumb and lawsuits, employers aren't the slightest bit shy about imposing vaccine mandates.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccine-mandates-are-lawful-effective-and-based-on-rock-solid-science/
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/majority-us-companies-may-mandate-covid-19-vaccine-coming-months-survey-2021-09-01/
I'm just grateful that everyone I work with on even a semi-regular basis is already vaccinated. Mostly they're young immigrants that grew up seeing the devastation widespread disease causes and how vaccinations really do prevent that devastation.
Can we presume now that some of the most malicious propagandists in the world will now be shunned, instead of given a free platform, by Kim Hill?
RNZ National, Saturday 4 September 2021, 10:10 a.m.
In the course of an interesting discussion about the evolution of ethics, Kim Hill mentioned to her guest, the moral philosopher Tim Dean, that a certain "shock jock" in New Zealand regularly provokes outrage, and upsets people. Dr Dean counselled against wasting our time getting outraged about such provocateurs. It was better, he said, to not amplify them by retweeting their nonsense.
I hope Kim Hill took that advice to heart. I sent her the following email to encourage her in her resolve….
So no more free platforms for guests who use the media to destroy people?
Dear Kim,
Your guest Tim Dean this morning advised us to avoid giving publicity to people who seek to destroy others via Twitter and other media platforms. You seemed to agree with that. I take it that we can therefore presume that you will no longer give a free platform to the likes of Jonathan Freedland and Simon Schama, both of whom used your show in 2019 to spray evidence-free accusations against Jeremy Corbyn, and Alex Gibney, who in 2013 used your show to pour ridicule on the political dissident Julian Assange.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday
The epidemiologist guy on Kim Hill, RNZ at 9am this morning, was clearly in favour of saliva testing, saying it is accurate. He is sitting on the panel advising the government and was (while being diplomatic) clearly surprised these tests were not yet in use in NZ.
It occurs to me that this might work well as a border control mechanism. Negative Covid test 72 hours before flying and an instant saliva test on arrival.
The saliva tests I have seen mentioned use the same PCR testing as current nasal swabs. Far from instant.
If there is indeed an 'instant' variety, how accurate is that compared with the PCR tests?
I thought the saliva tests were really fast…I may be wrong on this. Having said that I head a doctor say on RNZ a couple of weeks ago that they can turn round a nasal test in 90 minutes in a hospital.
Covid Yesterday just reported:
NSW 1533 cases (Pop 8.2m)
NZ 20 cases (Pop 5.1m)
90 minutes will be because they have labs onsite and probably push the covid test to top of the work queue. And maybe the hardware they're working with in that particular lab.
If you're doing, say, 200 people off a plane and need to courier the samples across town, then process those samples and use limited lab resources while prioritising other contracted tests, the time per test might be the same or less but the time between swab and notification could be considerably longer.
Why not run the tests on the plane and in-flight?
Because Jetstar would still manage to offload the passengers and tests at different airports? lol
There'd still be the courier and bulk processing problems, and we'd also be ceding control of test administration to someone else.
Frankly, airport testing isn't even something I'd support with 30sec turnaround. It's a level up from preflight tests, but still insufficient in time-sensitivity to do away with MIQ (i.e. Jimjane might be exposed in a transit lounge and still have a low enough load that they don't ping a test when they get off the plane). And we already do 2 tests in MIQ, so extra testing isn't really needed.
I meant, why not process the samples on board? A PCR instrument is just a small benchtop instrument and could easily fit in a plane. Airlines handle a lot of official paperwork already.
Could reliable sample preparation and PCR testing with +ve and -ve controls be performed in-flight? Is the process is more streamlined now?
Coronavirus testing – how does it work?
Or 'sample' the plane's cabin air filters – turn the flight around if positive?
Sure, why not? Many testing kits contain positive, negative, and other quality controls. Refrigeration is available, if necessary. Anything could be tested in theory: air (filters), saliva samples, and wastewater. Methodology and protocols will have to be developed, optimised, and validated, of course. Plenty of time too during intercontinental flights.
'Why not?' is the question. Air turbulence?
Maybe ASSURED PCR-based COVID-19 in-flight tests will be developed and used routinely at some stage, but I'm not holding my breath.
Antigen-based testing seems more likely, at least for the symptomatic, but who knows? It's an active market – time will tell.
https://www.finddx.org/covid-19/
https://www.nbcnews.com/shopping/wellness/best-home-covid-tests-n1275687
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/nih-study-suggests-rapid-antigen-and-pcr-tests-for-covid-19-are-equally-reliable-when-used
Development of a new field-deployable RT-qPCR workflow for COVID-19 detection [pdf]
Portable RT-PCR System: a Rapid and Scalable Diagnostic Tool for COVID-19 Testing
https://www.universalweather.com/products-and-services/aircraft-pcr-testing/
Some people have been tested 2 to 3 times with the PCR test and haven't shown a positive result yet after a 3 or 4 th test have tested positive.
Saliva testing is messy and creates risks for those testing spitting into spoon then transferring that to vial.
This information might help:
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-public/assessment-and-testing-covid-19/how-covid-19-testing-works#timing
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-public/assessment-and-testing-covid-19/covid-19-test-results-and-their-accuracy#accuracy
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-public/assessment-and-testing-covid-19/covid-19-test-results-and-their-accuracy#what
Google is your friend.
Useful addition, but obviously no substitute for pre-flight testing.
Mustn't jeopardize the 'mission'
More tools, diverse tools, complementary tools, smarter use of existing tools (e.g., two shots of different vaccines instead of the same), innovative thinking, so-called ‘out of the box’ thinking, for example, don’t need to deter from ‘the mission’, but they could help it. IMHO.
"onboard your own aircraft"
quite
Please don’t get sidetracked by the market segment to which they are pitching. It is about the principle and technical feasibility of in-flight PCR testing. It can be done, apparently 🙂
Anything can be done for enough money – that's where the segment comes in.
But clinical managers are not likely to rely on self-analysed tests unless solid pre-launch validation tells them otherwise. I would say even self-administration variability is one reason they require a handful of saliva tests to equate to one nasal swab test using the same PCR process, let alone if untrained airline staff are running the analysis process.
One word: accreditation.
How much money is NZ already spending on testing? The enormous queues at the beginning of the outbreak were unnecessary and avoidable, IMO. Testing willy-nilly just as jabbing willy-nilly is not smart use of precious resources and money.
Clinical managers should have no or very little say in this!
Keeping abreast of new approaches/tools – all good. NZ's lucky – for any relatively resource-hungry implementation phase, we can select from a (diverse) range of tools already tested by others.
Time will tell if the (technically feasible) in-flight PCR testing of passengers for COVID is implemented on bog-standard international flights. I'm guessing not, but have been well wrong before.
Routine pre/post-flight COVID testing of passengers and crew will continue for a while in our South Pacific bubble.
In other regions some countries have already relaxed pre-flight COVID test requirements, particularly for the fully-vaccinated.
Vive la diversité!
Personally, I don’t think we can afford the ‘luxury’ of being picky & choosy, but many good and not so good ideas end up in the bin without any due consideration because they are deemed: too hard, too costly, too threatening to fragile egos of control freaks running their little fiefdoms.
Relaxing pre-flight Covid testing is not a smart thing to do, IMO, and it will send a wrong message of false security from vaccination. What numpties!
Yes – hope Kiwis will be encouraged not to relax too soon. It’s prudent to keep our guard up for at least a few months more, imho.
The intricacies of it aren't my field. But it's a lot to put into a transtasman run between swabbing and testing the swabs, we'd need lab techs on the planes, and the obvious questions are around how the process and the machine itself will deal with turbulence.
But even then, we'd still have the "infected, but too early to detect" problem. So if we ramp up to even just 10k arrivals a week, how long before a positive [insert here the next variant that will make the sky fall if these trends continue] passenger starts wandering around the community? At 95% sensitivity and even 0.1% of passengers with an infection (lowballing the MIQ proportion of +tests to people going through), that's a hundred a week and 5 false negatives resulting in community exposure.
People taking their masks off to spit into a spoon to transfer to a vial or just spitting into a vial with dribble going every where. Not as good as a nasal swab going straight into a vial.
Saliva tests have many advantages over nasal swabs. For example, you can do it yourself without having to travel to a testing station where you might come into closer contact with many others.
You don’t actually “spit” into a spoon, you drool.
For your information and edification: https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/saliva-testing-general-faqs-9aug21.pdf
Great factsheet, thank you. Also confirms the current saliva test is not fast:
Yes, the PCR assay is the same, once the sample has been pre-processed. Logistics & admin always add more time too. Downside of current saliva tests is that genomic testing is not possible, as mentioned in the fact sheet.
Google is our friend.
Which saliva test the quick test has a 60% efficay rate and to be accurate needs several tests to bring up its efficacy to the PCR nasal or saliva test .saliva being spat into spoons or vials is far more messy and risks the testers health.
Does anyone else think about this issue (and/or want to read about it)?
"The colonial project is the ongoing strategic occupation and exploitation of Indigenous lands for the purposes of the colonizers. 2 Africa, Australia, the Americas, Southeast Asia, and New Zealand are the Indigenous lands to which I refer. As part of the imperial project, these continents and countries were respatialized. 3 Entire landscapes were re-ordered to fragment, disorient, and ultimately destroy the social ecologies of the peoples who inhabited them. Now the question is unignorable: How, in the umbra of decolonization, should these landscapes be redesigned? How can environmental designers participate in the struggle of peoples who have lived through a brazen confiscation of their precolonial spatialities in order to reimagine the way they live together, within the vast re-ordering of planet earth that is the Anthropocene? And is this not itself, after all, the hugest of all hyperobjects? The most ambitious and most thorough colonization of the globe by a hegemonic mentalité to date? Demanding nothing less than the co-option of all peoples to a planetary master narrative that is by its very nature out of control?
I’m hardly the only landscape architect currently mobilizing concepts from theories and practices of decolonization (or decol). 4 But since I’ve recently relocated to my homeland Aotearoa New Zealand, in this essay I’m using Aotearoa as my example. Therefore Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa, are central to my inquiry."
https://placesjournal.org/article/redesigning-colonial-landscapes/
Thanks Robert, sounds interesting
I have often thought our fisheries needed decolonizing – locals scarcely see any seafood these days unless they catch it themselves. The artisanal fishers that supported and enriched local families and communities have largely faded away like the eels above the elver-proof Waitaki dams.
Yep – and the ability to catch it yourself doesn't come cheap. With the denuding of inshore stocks you need a boat (or a decent kayak at a minimum) to catch fish reliably. This further limits its availability.
Colonisers had a system to disenfranchise indigenous people .De humanize dislocate etc.Keep indigenous people on the bottom of the heap impoverished and powerless.
The British Empire used Ireland as a template for its world wide imperial conquests.
Buying off leaders,making the indigenous language illegal ,starving the population,stealing their land.
And even after Ireland gained independence tariff's were imposed from 1922 till 1972 when Ireland became a member of the EU.Britain sided with the free market side in the civil war in Ireland .
Similar tactics to breakdown Maori by portraying them as inferior keeping Maori poor systematically imprisoning Maori continually making Maori look bad.All the while profiteering out stolen land and land they were conned and bullied off,insider trading and fraud it's called today .Then only compensating Maori 1%to3% not including the loss of income and economic status caused by the illegal dispossesion.
While others had 100% legal rights to illegal land transactions Maori were denied.
From the sidebar, Bryan Gould very briefly says the Herald has decided Judith's time has come: https://bryangould.com/a-grim-future-for-national/
Bring back Siomon ?
Yeah the gossip is swirling
https://twitter.com/David_Cormack/status/1434027727745474563?s=20
Several people whose sources have been good in past, yes.
Trev will be aswoon at the prospect of Ponyboy (or a clone thereof) resuming his rightful place on the throne.
Some good news only 20 community cases today Thanks my fellow 5 million.
Indeed wonderful & encouraging news. I'm sitting at the jab drive thru at the Edgar Centre & I'm so impressed with the people running this! Music, sun, professional. Very happy to be living in NZ right now.
Imagine what the number would be if National were in power.
None on paper and 2000 odd on or waiting for ventilators.
touché
They wouldn’t be counted because they’re no longer part of the community.
It would be like NSW and all the numbskulls out there (and there's plenty of them) would be expressing their sympathy for the Nat. government…convinced it was not their fault.
Given just about all conservative constituencies have uncontrollable outbreaks ,no mask wearing,slow or no lockdown ,much lower comparative vaccination rates,low tax poor public health funding.
With National in charge we would have hospitals over run a complete melt down especially given they can't even organize their own caucus.
Then look at the number of Cock ups in the Canterbury earthquake rebuild the South Canterbury Finance debacle National is a hands off govt.
Private contractors like in Australia's response to border control is the reason why they are in such a mess.
testing
Family in NSW are really worried. They already have two 18 year olds sick with Delta.
Their whole family is fully vaccinated, and the girls are through the worst, but were really sick.
The failure to contain Delta in NSW and the attitude of the leadership is really upsetting, with casual throw away lines of "living with the virus", 8 million having freedom to decide!!
My brother's family consisting of 17 people, are really at risk. They say the lock downs were late and light, and really useless.
Sorry about the "really"!! The edit feature vanished.
Patricia part of the Problem is that no one wanted to follow Gladys's orders because of her Morality she had been outed cheating on her husband for up to 10 yrs and implicated in corruption.
If you want people to follow you have to set an example.