phillip ure
I saw your piece mentioning Rick Bryant and he is in a replay of an interview with Kim Hill on radionz this a.m. What a guy. He is interesting and admirable, lots of interests and wise.
Myself, I’m more interested in the quaity and content of blogs. The whole rankings thing just buys into the whole competitive, dick waving culture of our capitalist system.
Too much of it is built into online social media – communities are about engagement and exchanges of ideas, not competitions that mirror commerical markets.
Well, it’s useful to have a pretty wide following, in order to make some impact, and connections. But, I think people can get overly obssessed with being numero 1…. or 2….or 20.
Phil, I used to find your blog incomprehensible. Perhaps I’ve just become accustomed to your sense of humour or your meds are working but I find myself visiting from time to time as it becomes more readable to me.
..heh..!..the only ‘meds’ i use/am ever ‘on’..is pot..
..legalisation now..!
..eh..?
..and as it happened..on new years eve i walked..with three other ‘sober’-friends.. into the post-midnite detritus of a mutual-friends’ (old-persons’) alcohol party in whangamata..(it’s a long story..)
..and whoar..!
..it’s been a long time since that appealed to me..
..and that peek just confirmed that stance..
..what do people see in it..?
..and glad that you are enjoying whoar..
..don’t forget to tell yr friends about it..eh..?
..i haven’t been able to monetise it yet..
..so i can’t afford to advertise..
..and i have been facebook-averse ever since finding out the cia gave zuckerberg the money to start the bloody thing..
Pope Francis has told Catholic priests to leave their comfort zone and get out among people on the margins of society or else risk becoming “abstract ideologists”.
Isn’t it the case that priests and nuns who abstain from sexual intercourse with the other sex, (but who advise their community to not withhold from intercourse, not to restrain from having children) are truly abstract ideologists?
And also that applies to all single sex participants, who cannot regard themselves as knowing about the human ability of creating life and living through their own personal experience, unless they engage in sexual intercourse with the other sex. (Turkey basters are only part of the process.)
Country Calendar repeat today on John and Bunny Mortimer, tree huggers of the most practical, experienced, informative and likable kind was so interesting. They are examples of great NZs, now in their 90’s. They are interested in trees from all views also bio-mass. http://www.taituabooks.co.nz/webapps/site/76334/136645/shopping/shopping-plus.html
Also Ken Vincent poultry breeder still at 78, who used to have 32 breeds now only 16. He says that his duck and hen breeds are becoming rare, and not much is being done in NZ to conserve them. You can see him if you click on show notes from the schedule listing of CC.
White leghorn hens are big layers – may lay 300 eggs a year. And this in a happy hen house, no battery stuff here. Ducks are particularly nice to have, the males never become aggressive as the roosters do. Possibly not as noisy also. He sends eggs for hatching, sells birds to start own henhouse. Worth considering. The major hen type used is called Shavers I think, the other breeds much less.
Pope Francis follows the principles of St Francis (poverty, charity and service might be a good description). I am not religious but came to Franciscan thought in my 40s, after having been imbued at Uni with rationalism, in particular Marxism. My take is that rationalism is Johnny Come Lately that has very conveniently pretended that two thousand years of faith and tradition can be quickly laid aside. Godless Marxism is (as are alternate market based faiths), which in turn means it lacks the spiritual dimension needed to make it truly “human”. Dont expect the RC church to use rationalist constructs, they have done well enough without them. With regard to chaste abstract ideologists you might want to consider that medieval orders usually took in people who had “completed” their lives in the community. They had intimate knowledge of the ways of the flesh. Is that so different today? I dont know. Not going to judge.
Tree huggers and poultry….this year I my form of civic responsibility and unblessed (by authorities) behavior will be to plant more things where they should be (guerrilla plantings, the revolution will come quietly and greenly). My chickens will likely approve, as only rare breeds can.
I got interviewed by Roy Morgan Research yesterday, for the first time ever.
The most interesting thing is that they called me on my cell phone. I asked them how they got the number and they said they do random dialing, and that’s why they asked me my postcode at the start of the interview, for screening purposes to ensure they got good coverage across the country.
Anyway, they asked a big range of questions, including the standard political polling. Here are some of the questions and my answers:
1. Electorate / party vote if election held today: Labour / Labour
2. Who do I want to win the next election: Labour
3. Is the country heading in the right direction or wrong direction: I said wrong. Only because I know this is (ridiculously) used as a ‘government confidence rating’ proxy.
4. Biggest problem facing the world at the moment: climate change. Why: because government’s aren’t doing anything about it.
5. Biggest problem facing NZ at the moment: child poverty. Why: because the government isn’t doing anything about it.
6. Should smoking marijuana be legal or illegal: legal.
7. Should religion be taught at least once a week in state schools: no.
There were also questions about the economy, eg expected inflation over the next two years, expected housing price increases over the next two years, whether my family is in a better financial situation than 1 year ago and whether we expect to be in better condition next year, those sorts of things.
2.5% inflation per year, 8% house price rises per year, better than last year, expect to be better next year.
There was also another one about how I expected the economy to go over the next 5 years, initially I was presented with “continually improving” and “continually worsening”, but when I said I couldn’t choose either of those he read out the full scale, whereupon I picked “some good, some bad”.
Are they still asking about tobacco-smoking Lanth?
Last time they caught me was just after the first big cost increase. I think they might have wondered whether there were any votes lost or gained.
I answered “legal” to whether it should be legal or illegal.
I’d prefer to see it decriminalised rather than completely legalised: allow cultivation for personal use, don’t bother cracking down on local/small-scale distribution, just go after the kingpins.
Ideally I think it should be regulated and sold like alcohol is, but that’s too big a jump for NZ I think.
Under my decriminalization policy, you can grow your own small supply at home or get it from friends, but it’s still not legal (ie, not sold in shops) because I don’t think the NZ public is really ready for that yet. So you go after the kingpins, eg gangs, to stop them from profiting.
Once it’s fully legalised and regulated, the bottom would drop out of the private market anyway, at which point there’d be no need to go after anyone. In the meantime though, police would still go after the gangs.
My reason for going with decriminalization, rather than full legalisation, is that I don’t think the NZ public is ready for full legalisation, and as such decriminalisation is a sensible stepping stone that is achievable by any government that is to be elected within the next 10 years.
Pining for the fjords doesn’t seem like a realistic policy to me.
If you really want to read something that will start a conversation Rebecca Camm’s latest article in the Herald takes some beating. The trouble is I do not know if she is being satirical or not …
Most definitely being satirical but it’s like she just grabbed a handful of random crap and fired it from a shotgun. Some of it hits the mark but so much of it is poorly held together drivel.
It didn’t work for me – not very clever really. I was kind of into it to start with, but then it just laboured a not very subtle point, and I was wondering whether she was attacking feminsm or sending up anti-feminism.
For anyone who might be interested and who hasn’t come across this yet, PJ Harvey was guest editor on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme – equivalent of ‘Morning Report’ (Could be a nice ‘touchstone’ for the next time anyone bangs on about supposed ‘left wing bias’ in the msm?)
Anyway, it’s three hours worth and I’ve only just begun to listen so can’t offer any opinion… (first 10 min is UK news and weather) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03mhyzh
heh – Anyway, I liked this from a telegraph article
Another Twitter user added: “Anyone who thinks the BBC is run by lefties needs to hear today’s #r4Today prog. This is what being run by lefties would be like. I like it.”
And I see ‘Stuff’ has a headline proclaiming “PJ Harvey radio show sparks complaints.”….and the second to last line of the article informs us that the BBC received….wait for it…a grand total of 37 complaints.
Anyway…the news and weather slots aside (which I could skip through, but it’s just sitting in the background anyway), the reports are bloody good so far.
This doesn’t surprise me. It’s what we thought was happening at the time. Too many people blame Scargill for the miners’ defeat – but Thatcher was dead set of destroying them and the UK left along with it:
If you think destroying some of Britain’s most cohesive communities was a great achievement, then these jottings are a token of genius. They reveal Mrs Thatcher engaged in battle micro-management worthy of a Monty or Wellington.
The documents show the Conservative government was, in the middle of the miners’ strike, facing defeat.
[…]
The miners strike is today depicted as one of those “inevitable” events that history is littered with: a doomed workforce staging a last ditch battle in the face of progress.
If you were there – I was – it was more complicated.
[…]
The miners at the time claimed the policing was politicised. The records show it was.
Arthur Scargill, the miners’ leader, was criticised afterwards for beginning a conflict he could never win. So the revelation that he was on the point of winning – or at least achieving a messy compromise – in July 1984 is an important addition to the record.
[….]
The use of troops to move essential goods was seriously considered, as was the declaration of a state of emergency – and changing the law to enable this. That would have seriously escalated the conflict.
[…]
Paul Symonds, a miner at Frickley Colliery during the strike, says:
“One lesson is this: they were much better organised than we were. Don’t trust them is the lesson. Don’t trust anything that they say.”
It’s an attitude towards government that is common now, but was not common then.
This is why I now say that we should never underestimate the ruthless determination of the corprorate elites to smash any successes of the left.
And why I say the left needs a multi-pronged strategy – grass roots collective energy from below + strategies for resisting, and challenging the power of the elites – and every kind of initiative in between.
The other lesson is, that the left clearly came close to resisting Thatcher. And that included mobilising all the networks within the left in support – fund raising, donations of food etc. Feminist, gay, anti-racist networks all joining in. Not an easy rleationship to start with – but lessons were being learned along the way.
And that’s why we need to network across diverse groups, even though we differ on priorities, and on how we approach some problems.
Correct, Zorr, Grumpy’s just getting desperate. The PSI organisation are righty climate change denialists who claim to be supporters of scientific principles while simultaneously publishing articles claiming Mossad and Bush engineered 9/11.
Let’s take the first sentence of that link at face value:
that “two naturally occurring climate cycles will combine to lower global temperatures during the next century.”
Assume this prediction is indeed true. In the meantime let’s also assume we keep adding CO2, ‘business as usual’ to the atmosphere and that by the time this naturally occurring cycle ends levels have doubled again – to say 800ppm.
So when this ‘cooling period’ ends – what do you imagine will happen?
A warm sea may mean a colder atmosphere, as cooling processes kit up a notch and expel more heat into space. The problem surely is that this will happen over the Northern Hemisphere continents, aka glaciers down to the med. How else did this happen in the past but for more energy being available to transport more moisture from a warmer sea to a colder continent.
Its been pointed out that when the seas are warmer and interior of the continents colder, humans migrated along the coast lines from Asia into the Americas.
What is the chance of a housing bubble pop in New Zealand. This interactive graph would suggest that the possibility is quite high, at some stage in the next 2 to 5 years (if you cant get NZ to show up on the interactive, our line is just below Britain)
Of course Treasury have identified this risk and implemented the LVR policy, which had the impact of reducing supply of newly built homes = bad. The right policy to implement is a CGT, but there is no way in hell that National will implement this because a huge % of their supporters have gained their wealth from capital gains (mainly investment houses and farms).
The scary thing for Labour is as house price inflation continues to build into an even bigger bubble then the chances that the CGT will create a POP of the bubble are getting higher, this could actually be catastrophic for our economy for a period. I don’t know what the answer is but I do know that the sooner a CGT (and perhaps other initiatives/policies to reduce the demand from investment housing) is implemented then the better our economy will be long term. Farrar et al can complain all they want about the legitimacy of the “living wage” but one thing is for sure, rising house prices only makes our poverty situation worse, it is the number one driver of poverty and inequality.
Capitals gain tax, exception own living space or residential address – only one allowed. Declaration of overseas trust funds keeping moneys earned in NZ and properties by residents and citizens. Cash business to be closer monitored and audited as these are the ones not paying tax at all. This is known in the community up and down the country. I think this would go a long way.
How and when do you believe a CGT will solve this issue?
You have made a comment that this (cgt) is the right policy yet no reason given. Everyone appears to be an expert in the property market, most are have minimal understanding of how it works let alone how to effect charge.
Get off the ban wagon and promote real solutions, not being a part of the scratch record of commenting re a CGT so often that it will become accepted as fact then in 5 years time wondering why there is no radical change in the property market that was promised, and that property ownership within Auckland is as unachievable as when the nats were previously in govt 🙁
When it will not become the main tool – it will in about 10 years time become one part of the tool box, and the tax will not change behaviour. I am sure property investors will still gladly accept tax advantages and on realising a gain on disposal accept paying a mere 15% tax.
Hi Herodotus
I do belief hat a CGT will curb the amount of properties being sold to investors. The increase in “market worth” also impacts on people who actually use a house as a home. The council rates are measured by this perceived value and a lot of people start to struggle to pay these taxes. And yet, the investment property is being traded as a non taxed commodity. This encourages overseas buying and because of the raising value an increase in apartment buildings as these are less costly. So those who make a business out of a vital necessity (roof over the head) it’s a win win situation all the way to the bank. I really don’t care whether some ideology is being trampled on with this issue, what i do see is that more and more young people have no hope to get into a home and build a family. Its a loss for NZ, certainly not for overseas investors.
Councils need rates anyway. They keep raising rates to pay for the massive debt they have – all of the councils in the country are effectively bankrupt on paper, it’s just a ponzi debt game that makes them look solvent.
So even if you had a CGT to reduce property prices, the council still need to get their rates money, so it ultimately won’t change that aspect – except to possibly become more regressive as the general house prices will flatten out, so rates will have to rise across the board, penalising those with low incomes / house values more-so than they otherwise would.
I doubt that this will happen as the council is also aware that you cannot get blood out of a stone. I do realize that authorities have the tendency to create new “needs” in order to disguise the “deeds” that have gone beforehand. But a remedy has to be started somewhere. This is a good a place as any. Poor families will not be able to afford increasing rates either way as the amount in untenable. What is and will increasingly happen in the current scenario is that people who have worked all their lives are now unable to stay in their home. Where are they suppose to be housed? There are not many council houses available, retirement homes will soon be out of space and it is not always the best way to put more people into overcrowded housing with relatives. There are consequences to everything.
I think it is the right policy because at the moment investment in housing/property provides a huge tax advantage over other forms of investments (equities etc). Personally I don’t think it is the only solution, I believe that polices need to put in place to disincentive investment housing, I would support limiting the use of Loss Attributing Qualifying Companies, and also a more aggressive CGT than the Aussie model (something that I heard Steve Keen mention on Radio NZ support, http://www.radionz.co.nz/radionz/programmes/featured-audio/audio/2520012/steve-keen-economic-crisis.) I agree with you that on its own it wont change behaviour but it will be one of the main tools to correct Kiwi’s obsession in property.
I will address a few issues
Council rates
When a property value increases we do not collect more rates overall. Each year, the council determines, through the annual plan process, how much money needs to be collected through rates to fund its activities and services for the year. This rates requirement is then divided between all the properties in the region based on council’s rating policies. http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/ratesbuildingproperty/ratesvaluations/aboutrates/Pages/faqs.aspx
There is an issue of increasing debt so as to keep increases to a minimum. No this just delays to the next council a major “unpalatable” increase. Really making in aucklands case “most liveable” pity most will not be able to afford to reside here.
So are all here saying that if a cgt was put into operation that property prices would decrease., as stated before when coy tax rate is 28% the top personnel tax rate is 30% that a 15% tax will change behaviour ? Haha
Investing in property should have no advantages over other investments and I would promote that this form of investment should have disincentives above and beyond other forms attached to it. Eg interest costs are non deductible. Why should a commercial activity incur mortgages at the same rate as a family home and with the same debt profile. Enter any other business and try to obtain debt funding beyond 50% and still be charged at the same rate as a mortgage ? Even those in property development have their values of land developed heavily discounted for bank valuation purposes and then be charged 3%+ above current mortgage rates, that is if you can find a current bank open to fund.
Limit debt funding by placing greater controls on bank loaning ratios.
As we will have a cgt, all property has its use recorded e.g. Residential owner/beneficiary of trust residing, holiday home, rented property etc.
non nz residents incur not a cgt but pay corporate tax rate and can only purchase a newly built property.
There are others but at least these points are wider reaching at solving this IMO important issues
And neglected to include, a cgt is on all property, but for those that the owner resides in at a minimal rate of say 5% so all property transactions are recorded within Linz and the ird and that all sales can be traced. To sell such a policy, labour will need to sell/inform us as where this added tax revenue will be allocated to, in 2011 at least we the voter knew that this added revenue from a cgt was to fund the $5k tax free zone policy and gst off F&V http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5284832/Labour-confirms-capital-gains-tax-new-rate
Now it appears any revenue will just be absorbed into paying for the auctioning/ buying for our votes.
Hi Herodotus
I am sorry to say, I don’t belief that many of the city Councillors have the rate payer in mind when they come up with their plans. If I remember correctly not so long ago the city council from Mangawhai was taken to court because they unilaterally decided to take on more debt and have the residents pay for it. The Auckland City council has approved a living wage that is now being paid for by exactly the low wage earning people you have mentioned. May I remind on Hamiltons V8?
As all property is listed with Linz (NZ wide) it would be possible to have residential households and their owners registered. I belief this to be not a big issue as the voting papers seem to find the owners. Any additional registration against the same owner will attract the tax. The owner of a property has to be of an age that allows Tax to be collected (excluding i.e. 2 days old sons or daughters to enter the market). Just an idea, but I belief that if the council can come up with pet projects they are able to come up with a solution.
Grumpy.
Principia scientific.
An political organization spreading spuriest made up science.
Crap dressed up for socold intelligent well educated Right Wing Deniers
That’s my peer review of you Gumpy.
Show me some peer reviews of this fantasy gumpy.
It just proves how gullible the right are.
Gumpy
They haven’t even got the cycles of the earths eliptical orbit and oscillations around the sun.
Just more evidence on how the Creed of short term greed is willing to sacrifice humanity
So the rich can have a few or a lot more baubles than everyone else.
Gump
I read this morning an article about the Cambodian textile workers protesting and being shot at. The government has sent the troops as they are firmly in the camp of the main shareholders of these factories that facilitate the export that is quite a high % of Cambodia’s income. Naturally this goes hand in hand with the political power. I got curious asking myself – who are the actual owners of these factories and one would think denier of higher wages? NZ’s news do no reveal anything, further research says that the nationality of the main shareholders are Taiwan, China, USA – no names. As any “open” information is just not obtainable in the Anglo Saxen world I went out into the Euro zone – Eureka, a local Newspaper (mentioned as right/liberal !) gave me quite decisive and frank information. See below.
Excerpt from the Newspaper article.
“400.000 Arbeiter nähen für internationale Modehäuser wie GAP, Nike und H&M.” Number of workers and named Distributes, not mentioned – Walmart.
This link gives you the breakdown of the price of a T-Shirt,in graphics.
Why is it that all those self professed reporters, commentators etc cannot provide information that is so freely shared overseas by the right/liberal press? Are they scared they will be sacked and if so are there any true reporters (not story tellers) out there?
It is feasible that any such company is registered only in Bangladesh and supplies the clothing companies here in NZ. It would not be so far fetched to see this in the manufacturing of uniforms. I am not saying that this is a fact but thinking aloud.
Ennui guerilla plantings I have been doing it since I was a kid.
If everyone did it wouldn’t take long to get a real change.
Living legends was a very good initiative getting famous rugby players to help plant native trees.
“Stripped naked, fed to 120 dogs as officials watched”
Another factoid for Te Reo and QoT to repeat ad nauseam
It’s as rigorous and has as much credibility as the fantastical case cooked up by the Swedish Director of Public Prosecution Marianne Ny, AKA the “Totalitarian Tolkien”…..
Kim Jong-un’s executed uncle Jang Song Thaek ‘stripped naked, fed to 120 dogs as officials watched’
‘First and foremost, let’s consider the source. The story originated in a Hong Kong newspaper called Wen Wei Po, which oddly makes the claim without citing a source. With a couple of high-quality exceptions, Hong Kong media have a reputation for sensationalist and tabloidy stories that do not always turn out to be true. But, even by Hong Kong standards, Wen Wei Po is considered an unusually unreliable outlet.’
I would be interested in peoples thoughts about the idea of
Not talking about Climate Change
Why?
I have a feeling that we all have an inbuilt mechanism that wants us to win the argument and loose the war.
In other words is the goal is to change behaviour or change belief?
I think we should focus on behaviour change not belief change. Behaviours are so much easier to change than beliefs
So focus on the desired outcome, and on the behaviours we need to change to get to that outcome rather than on the binary ‘do you believe’ stuff we have now that seems to serve little or no purpose and does not bring people along.
There are billions of habitual worlds in our galaxy, say some.
Well simple, its because the behaviors that break convention, that break ecological niches that hold a species in place, also break the worlds that species would need to get into space and come and meet us. The history of the rise of the west is the history of exploitation, disregard and disunity.
Behaviors resulting from pantheist and non-theist religions of the east were much more balance, better fitted, yet weren’t better fitted when it comes to Earth eating.
So the behaviors that balance with nature, turn off turn out of consumerism and individualism pushed by media in their great socialization efforts, are clearly the way forward.
How do we switch people onto them?
Well explain to them the hurt they are leaving their grand kids.
..so..really..anyone claiming to be ‘green’/’caring for the planet’/’caring for their childrens’ future’.. who is still eating animal-flesh/bye-products..
‘8 April. The morning spent paying bills: British Gas (and electricity), Thames Water, Yorkshire Water, Camden Council, Craven District Council and Mr Redhead the coal merchant in Ingleton. Many of the bills are overdue, about which I am unrepentant. The only one I pay promptly and with no feeling of resentment is Mr Redhead’s.
It wasn’t always so. Before the public utilities were privatised one paid bills more readily, not just because they were considerably cheaper, which of course they were, but because one had little sense of being exploited. Now as I pay my water bills for instance, I think of their overpaid executives and the shareholders to whom the profits go and I know, despite the assurances of all such companies, that they are charging what they know they can get away with. Competition has not meant better service nor has it brought down prices, with some corporate behaviour close to sharp practice. British Gas, for instance, regularly omits to send me a first bill but only a reminder, which has no details about consumption. When challenged they say this may be because bills have been sent online. But how can this be when we have no computer? If one telephones and manages eventually to get through one is dealt with by someone always charming and even-tempered (and often Scots) who promises to look into it. But when in due course the bill comes again it is still with no details and coupled with threats of court action. So whereas once upon a time I paid my bills as Auden said a gentleman should, as soon as they were submitted, these days I put them off, paying sometimes only at the third or fourth time of asking or when I am assured (rhetorically, I know) that the bailiffs are about to call. I am no crusader but I wish there was a consumers’ organisation which could co-ordinate individual resistance to these companies, setting up non or late payment on such a scale that it would put a dent in the dividends of the shareholders and the salaries of the executives concerned.
This was written a few hours before I learned of Lady Thatcher’s death and it’s an appropriate epitaph.’
is there really anything of that list that a left-wing party shouldn’t be doing? yes, it would be good if they talked about a living wage, given they recognise that ethnic minority communities are over-represented in terms of low wage jobs. but does that negate any of the other issues they have raised? should they stop advocating for these things and should we just ignore them because they are focusing on what we have in common?
i personally think it would be foolish for any political party to ignore this list of policies. it should be part of the range of things that need to be implemented to improve nz society.
You are not wrong and I was particularly pleased to see the recognition of the need for domestic assaults assistance. And I’ve have to say good luck with getting diversity througth the workforce and I hope the default position is “for both sexes”. FFS we have had many years of women born within the country and educated alongside males and we still don’t have even workplace gender diversity based on these groups.
Thatnks, stargazer. Yes they indicate a pay gap. Also under-representation of various ethnic groups in poltics and the public services.
It would also be good if the living wage, and/or poverty could be discussed more in connection with other aspects of diversity – gender, sexuality etc.
Government needs more representation of people from, and committed to others on low income background from diverse groups.
While use of debt pooling in the eurozone can reduce the need for restructuring or defaults, it comes at the cost of higher burdens for northern taxpayers. This could drag the EMU core states into a recession and aggravate their own debt and ageing crises. The clear implication of the IMF paper is that Germany and the creditor core would do better to bite the bullet on big write-offs immediately rather than buying time with creeping debt mutualisation.
I listened to some people talking about media overkill when mandela died. I was in europe when thatcher died. For 48 hoyes sky cnn and bbc beatified her. I began to wonder if different thatcher died.
perhaps mandela pricked their consciousness while thatcher pricked wallets
Ralph Nader: ‘The Country You Destroyed’: A Letter to George W. Bush
Today, Iraq remains a country (roughly the size and population of Texas) you destroyed, a country where over a million Iraqis, including many children and infants (remember Fallujah?) lost their lives, millions more were sickened or injured, and millions more were forced to become refugees, including most of the Iraqi Christians. Iraq is a country rife with sectarian strife that your prolonged invasion provoked into what is now open warfare. Iraq is a country where al-Qaeda is spreading with explosions taking 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 lives per day. Just this week, it was reported that the U.S. has sent Hellfire air-to-ground missiles to Iraq’s air force to be used against encampments of “the country’s branch of al-Qaeda.” There was no al-Qaeda in Iraq before your invasion. Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were mortal enemies.
For thse who smugly tell themselves that those on benefits are lazy and that todays youth are lazy and just dont want to work, please reconcile that view with this
I think its far more complicated than that, In my previous position I used to hire through the local winz as the company liked to try and employ from within the local community wherever possible. All we hired were keen and enjoyed to varying degrees the job which although relatively physical was outdoors and paid better than minimum by @$2 ph.
The startling thing was the peer pressure that went on these guys from there so called mates once they had a job to provide booze etc. I had one damn near assaulted in the street because he wasn’t replying to his mates txt msgs which went something along the lines of “you think you’re to good to talk to me now you’ve got a job c**t” the fact he was working made no difference…not long after his so called mates robbed his house while he was at work. Fortunately he stuck it out but there were others prior who didn’t due to this kind of crap. Generally it was mates getting upset if they didnt head out to party on a work night or as we worked in the public space they would spend the day driving by giving them shit.
Really hard for a 18-22 yr old to cope with and frankly I’m at a loss as how to solve what is effectively bullying. Certainly those that caved to a degree and partied during the week struggled big time on the job despite there best intentions…
That is interesting. I have looked at those late booze hours and wondered who was drinking, who was partying, and whether they could do a job the next day, and if not working where the money was coming from.
It is my opinion that the leaders and lawmakers have by allowing even encouraging long alcohol serving hours, that they have been deliberately trying to get money from these young people and not caring that it is leading them into unsupportable addiction and have degraded their lives. Temptation to keep drinking is not easily resisted when you are already half-way drunk and ‘relaxed’. Then while unemployed the bad habits have developed of using drink to fill in the day – because this shameless government has not organised work for the dole to keep the young ones out of the pubs.
Tbh most drink at home or at a house party before heading into a pub around 1 am for an hour or so…. its just two pricey otherwise. The opening hours wouldn’t really change much.
That said I would often wander down to my local 4 square early on a Sunday morning to find a queue waiting for alcohol to continue on from the sat. Im generalizing but as it was Taita/Pomare most could i’ll afford it.
I honestly believe these small neighbour shops are a big problem as like you say once tipsy its hard to stop. At least the supermarkets are further away and in my experience far more stringent. Certainly it’s a bigger step to drive 10 min to town than wander down the local booze store at 6 30 am….
cricklewood
Your points insightful I think. I have noticed that it seems immigrants, such as Indian, are running small suburban booze shops in suburban areas and it is not a healthy look to be trying to make profit from this alcohol drug. The small shop I went into was stacked to the ceiling with booze of all sorts.
This would be in a small shopping centre where in my day you might go down to have a milk shake at the milk bar. Alcohol was still there but was saved for parties, and organisation was needed to buy a dozen beer or so for teenagers. Now as I say it is waved in the face of people of all ages, and it seems like lemonade with some alcohol, but just the other way round. It’s spirits being drunk from vodka, bourbon bottles, very high alcohol count. If it is allowed it must be okay is the thought.
Some neighbourhoods have followed through with the thinking and come to the idea that it is wrong and that there is a powerful group that acts against their young people, willing to encourage them so they spend the money which as you say they can ill afford. And probably start a lifetime weakness. It is said that the government is the first party to be addicted though, to the excise taxes.
I have just found Dr David Nutt who is a psychiatrist, was a UK head in the control of drugs official organisation, before he was sacked because he started doing some whistleblowing. Sacked summarily actually. And I don’t think he got any golden parachutes.
(He just said ‘the thing about alcohol is it changes your judgment’. My point about the way Stat – falling off horses with brain damage for the rider has ratio 1:350 and similar damage for ecstasy ratio 1:10,000 (think) – interesting comparison.)
and if not working wondering? where the money was coming from.
Well, if some of the things I’ve heard are anything to go by – their parents.
It is my opinion that the leaders and lawmakers have by allowing even encouraging long alcohol serving hours, that they have been deliberately trying to get money from these young people and not caring that it is leading them into unsupportable addiction and have degraded their lives.
That’s exactly what’s been happening. It was the, IMO, main reason why the drinking age was lowered. Our whole social system is all about producing profits for the rich and the only way to do that is to have as many people as possible purchasing the product/service.
because this shameless government has not organised work for the dole to keep the young ones out of the pubs.
Work for the dole isn’t the answer and never has been. Get these people out doing something challenging and of value to society, i.e, running out telecommunications, upgrading power grids, building wind generators, electrifying the entire rail network.
There is no reason for there to be any unemployment except ideology: National’s, Labour’s and the business sectors desire to keep wages down.
Right now, we are in the midst of what’s been dubbed the “Sixth Great Extinction.” The fifth extinction was the one that killed off the dinosaurs and things are moving much, much faster now.
Depending on whose calculations you trust, we’re losing somewhere between 30,000 and 140,000 species a year. And we—meaning us humans—will not survive this loss.
So, still think we should cut back on the environmental protections in the RMA, drill up more oil and coal and build more roads?
As a recent arrival in N.Z, I am still trying to get my head around various aspects of NZ politics……I spent the best part of a decade in UK as an activist to the lbgt council. However that is low priority in these desperate times and we need to unite, as far as possible, to the concerns of the many,compared to the hobby horses of a few.
In the U.K one of the hot topics being discussed is the idea of a,living wage.There is a minimum wage set which as absolutely useless in the U.K.
What will Labour do towards providing a living wage?What is the minimum wage here and how much does it need to be to benefit people in this country?
as I recall the minimum wage is about $5ph under what would be a living wage. Some local bodies and companies have chosen to adopt it already, not sure of individual party policies but I’d expect it to be an issue in the election from ladgrnmana, if policies have not already been announced.
To ecossemaid – the current NZ minimum wage is $13.50 an hour and the “living wage” has been suggested as at least $18 an hour. Labour has said it would extend the living wage to all Parliamentary workers as a starting point. Wellington City has said something similar. Auckland City Mayor had it as a campaign policy but he hasn’t managed to get it passed in the council yet. Not sure about other local govtsin NZ.
Something new – an email inviting me to subscribe to The Standard to get email of coments on Jose Pagani thread to which I have posted. Normally I would just tick the box on the page. Is this a new feature lprent?
Actually I can’t cope with getting every email on a busy post. I find it better to make a personal check of what has gone down, or search my archive and work my way down the headings and click on each one to see if someone has commented to me.
In the immediate wake of Mandela’s death, I commented here on the way he, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other leaders of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa have argued that Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian territory represents the New Apartheid.
Despite a good deal of upset and gnashing of teeth from the Israel Lobby and its supporters, there’s really nothing controversial about the claim anymore. Hell, even a number of leading mainstream Israelis seem to accept it as apt.
Here’s an in-depth comparative analysis of South African and Israeli Apartheid from The Guardian’s Middle East (and former South African) correspondent, Chris McGreal.
Meanwhile, leading South African International Law Expert, long-time anti-apartheid activist and UN Special Rapporteur for the Middle East, Professor John Dugard. also sees striking similarities
I’ve just taken some time out.
Because I am really pissed off and finding it hard to remain objective., Also to decide if what I thought happened really did happen, to listen and think about what everyone said.
I was going to reply to Weka as promised, who seemed to be, finally, starting to do what she was asking me to do, Listen! I havn’t cooled down enough yet, however.
We all bring baggage, including different life experiences and points of view to the discussion.
At primary school I was a small geeky, bookworm who suffered a lot from the attentions of the school bullies.
The experience left me with a strongly developed sense of fairness, an instinct to fight for the underdog and and a contempt for those who hide behind their “Authority” abuse their power or position and “the rules”, (often of their own making).
I’ve found that the only way to deal with these people is to stand up to them. And , if you are different, be yourself. Most people will respect you for it.
Most of my life I have been getting into strife, standing up to authoritarian bullying types. (Most of them have been white males, by the way). Usually to help someone who hasn’t the power to stand up for themselves.
If you have been listening to me, you would know I am pretty pissed with the mess the current people in power (Also I agree, mostly white males, but not all), have been making.
I don’t think simply replacing authoritarian bullying white males with authoritarian bullying women, or authoritarian bullying RWNJ’s with authoritarian bullying lefties. is the answer however.
I, mostly stayed away from the conversation about rape.
That subject was hurtful enough. It was just a year since my daughters school friend had been murdered by her ex partner.
I didn’t need a discussion where I knew, unless I kept to every dotted I and crossed T of the QOT approved script I would be in the firing line.
This time I thought, “what gives QOT the right to dictate the terms of the conversation, and then bully people into submission with powerful accusations, which were neither fair, nor justified.. Moving into the house and walking around with hobnailed boots covered in dogshit from other conversations and then complaining that the males leave the toilet seat up.
I get it that some who are involved with the Labour party are angry with being marginalised and told to STFU. By “white dudes”. (Also I seem to remember by at least one brown dude and some white women). Taking it out on people here that are on your side though, is both unnecessarily divisive and counterproductive.
Respectful disagreement is healthy. I don;’t want to silence QOT or anyone else.
The point is we seem to be concentrating on one issue at a time, letting the right frame the debate and only getting the odd hard fought win.
I look around me and despair that, despite some wins, life for most of the people around me is getting shittier and shittier.
I see people in miserably paid dead end precarious jobs, if they have one. Women trying to bring up kids, in horrific circumstances, being pissed about by the gestapo at WINZ, and vilified by unthinking and judgmental people who have no clue about what they have to face. I talk kids out of committing suicide after yet another round between dodgy employers and WINZ. I saw the light go out in a gay kids eyes when he was bullied, and it came back at a gay wedding when he realised that he was not alone.
Like fuck, I don’t care about women’s rights, LBGT rights, the rights of people with disabilities. I have a mentally disabled son FFS. We are still hurting from fighting the system of mainstreaming, cost cutting and peoples attitude to the mentally ill.
When I suggest solutions like a UBI, Empowering those people is high in my thoughts.
The we have all the other important a necessary issues such as AGW and resource depletion. Making sure our kids still have a world to live in.
How do we use our energies on all the things that need doing?
The crazy thing here, is, that if QOT was really being told to STFU, on here, I would have backed her, for the same reasons I backed CV.
I would be surprised if CV regarded himself as a victim. He holds no punches when he disagrees with anyone and can be very forthright which, as a new poster some time ago, can be quite offputting. However, that’s the nature of a forum.
For what it is worth I dont want authoritarian women to replace authoritarian men. I am not sure I have read QOT s saying she would like that either.
Thanks KJT. I’m feeling much better. Not saying anything about anyone or anything. Just that I’m feeling much better. Haven’t particularly followed the CV and QOT thing anyway. Engagement seemed way too much like jumping into a serious blue between people both of whom touch me positively.
Hipkins is doing the right thing for New Zealanders already living in Australia, but there’s now a growing risk of a fresh surge of net emigration of frustrated young Kiwis across the Tasman. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Employers here in Aotearoa are desperate to keep their best-trained, most-productive ...
This post contains two guest posts from readers, both of which were sent to us after the flooding on Friday 27 January, both of which discuss how we handle our stormwater. This is a guest post from Ed Clayton, who’s written for us before about Auckland’s relationship with freshwater, ...
TLDR: For paying subscribers, here’s the key breaking news, scoops and links I’ve found since 4 am this morning, as of 7 am, including:A 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 2,200 in Turkey near its border with Syria; ReutersMetService has warned a new cyclone is forming north of Aotearoa that ...
The politics of Waitangi and the Treaty evident over the weekend have moved into a new space. The politics of Waitangi and the Treaty evident over the weekend have moved into a new space. There is a new wave of Maori activism, which sees the Treaty as a living ...
Originally published by The Hill After decades of failure to pass major federal climate legislation, Congress finally broke through last year with the Inflation Reduction Act and its close to $400 billion in clean energy investments. Energy modeling experts estimated that these provisions would help the U.S. cut its carbon pollution ...
Apology Accepted? “I dropped the ball on Friday, I was too slow to be seen …The communications weren’t fast enough – including mine. I’m sorry for that.”–Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown.HOW OFTEN do politicians apologise? Sincerely apologise? Not offer voters the weasel words: “If my actions have offended anyone, then I ...
At first blush, Christopher Luxon’s comment at the parliamentary powhiri at Waitangi this year sounded tone deaf. The Leader of the Opposition in talking about the Treaty of Waitangi described New Zealand as “a little experiment”. It seemed to diminish the treaty and the very idea of our nation. Yet ...
THE (new) Prime Minister said nobody understands what co-governance means, later modified to that there were so many varying interpretations that there was no common understanding. BRIAN EASTON writes: Co-governance cannot be derived from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It does not use the word. It ...
A brief postscript to yesterday’s newsletter…Watching the predawn speeches just now, the reverence of those speaking and the respectful nature of those listening under umbrellas in the dark. I felt a great sadness at the words from Christopher Luxon last evening still in my head. The singing in the dark accompanied ...
by Don Franks While on holiday,I stayed a few days in Scotland with a friend who showed me one of the country’s great working-class achievements. It was a few miles out of central Edinburgh, a huge cantilever bridge across the river Forth. The Forth Bridge was the first major structure ...
Time To Call A Halt: Chris Hipkins knows that iwi leaders possess the means to make life very difficult for his government. Notwithstanding their objections, however, the Prime Minister’s direction of travel – already clearly signalled by his very public demotion of Nanaia Mahuta – must be confirmed by an emphatic and ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 29, 2023 thru Sat, Feb 4, 2023. Story of the Week Social change more important than physical tipping points1.5-degree Goal not plausible Photo: CLICCS / Universität Hamburg Limiting global ...
So Long - And Thanks For All The Fish: In the two-and-a-bit years since Jacinda Ardern’s electoral triumph of 2020, virtually every decision she made had gone politically awry. In the minds of many thousands of voters a chilling metamorphosis had taken place. The Faerie Queen had become the Wicked ...
Look at us here on our beautiful islands in the South Pacific at the start of 2023, we have come so far.Ten days ago we saw a Māori Governor General swearing in our new PM and our first Pasifika Deputy PM, ahead of this year’s parliament where they will be ...
The Herald’s headline writers are at it again! A sensible and balanced piece by Liam Dann on the battle against inflation carries a headline that suggests that NZ is doing worse than the rest of the world. Check it out and see for yourself if I am right. Is this ...
Photo by Anna Demianenko on UnsplashTLDR: Here’s my longer reads and listens for the weekend for sharing with The Kaka’s paying subscribers. I’ve opened this one up for all to give everyone a taste of the sorts of extras you get as a full paying subscriber.Subscribe nowDeeper reads and listens ...
Hello from the middle of a long weekend where I’m letting the last few days unspool, not ready, not yet, to give words to the hardest of what we heard.Instead, today, here are some good words from other people.Mother CourageWhen I wrote last year about Mum and Dad’s move to ...
Workers Now is a new slate of candidates contesting this year’s general election. James Robb and Don Franks are the people behind this initiative and they are hoping to put the spotlight on working people’s interests. Both are seasoned activists who have campaigned for workers’ rights over many decades. Here is ...
Buzz from the Beehive Politicians keen to curry favour with Māori tribal leaders have headed north for Waitangi weekend. More than a few million dollars of public funding are headed north, too. Not all of this money is being trumpeted on the Beehive website, the Government’s official website. ...
Insurers face claims of over $500 million for cars, homes and property damaged in the floods. They are already putting up premiums and pulling insurance from properties deemed at high risk of flooding. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: This week in the podcast of our weekly hoon webinar for paying subscribers, ...
Our Cranky Uncle Game can already be played in eight languages: English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. About 15 more languages are in the works at various stages of completion or have been offered to be done. To kick off the new year, we checked with how ...
The (new) Prime Minister said nobody understands what co-governance means, later modified to that there were so many varying interpretations that there was no common understanding.Co-governance cannot be derived from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It does not use the word. It refers to ‘government’ on ...
It’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kaka. Jump on this link for our chat about the week’s news with special guests Auckland Central MP Chloe Swarbrick and Auckland City Councillor Julie Fairey, including:Auckland’s catastrophic floods, which ...
In March last year, in a panic over rising petrol prices caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the government made a poor decision, "temporarily" cutting fuel excise tax by 25 cents a litre. Of course, it turned out not to be temporary at all, having been extended in May, July, ...
This month’s open thread for climate related topics. Please be constructive, polite, and succinct. The post Unforced variations: Feb 2023 first appeared on RealClimate. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two fresh press releases had been posted when we checked the Beehive website at noon, both of them posted yesterday. In one statement, in the runup to Waitangi Day, Maori Crown Relations Minister Kelvin Davis drew attention to happenings on a Northland battle site in 1845. ...
It’s that time of the week again when I’m on the site for an hour for a chat in an Ask Me Anything with paying subscribers to The Kaka. Jump in for a chat on anything, including:Auckland’s catastrophic floods, which are set to cost insurers and the Government well over ...
Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers (left) has published a 6,000 word manifesto called ‘Capitalism after the Crises’ arguing for ‘values-based capitalism’. Yet here in NZ we hear the same stale old rhetoric unchanged from the 1990s and early 2000s. Photo: Getty ImagesTLDR: The rest of the world is talking about inflation ...
A couple of weeks ago, after NCEA results came out, my son’s enrolment at Auckland Uni for this year was confirmed - he is doing a BSc majoring in Statistics. Well that is the plan now, who knows what will take his interest once he starts.I spent a bit of ...
Kia ora. What a week! We hope you’ve all come through last weekend’s extreme weather event relatively dry and safe. Header image: stormwater ponds at Hobsonville Point. Image via Twitter. The week in Greater Auckland There’s been a storm of information and debate since the worst of the flooding ...
Hi,At 4.43pm yesterday it arrived — a cease and desist letter from the guy I mentioned in my last newsletter. I’d written an article about “WEWE”, a global multi-level marketing scam making in-roads into New Zealand. MLMs are terrible for many of the same reasons megachurches are terrible, and I ...
Time To Call A Halt: Chris Hipkins knows that iwi leaders possess the means to make life very difficult for his government. Notwithstanding their objections, however, the Prime Minister’s direction of travel – already clearly signalled by his very public demotion of Nanaia Mahuta – must be confirmed by an emphatic ...
Open access notables Via PNAS, Ceylan, Anderson & Wood present a paper squarely in the center of the Skeptical Science wheelhouse: Sharing of misinformation is habitual, not just lazy or biased. The signficance statement is obvious catnip: Misinformation is a worldwide concern carrying socioeconomic and political consequences. What drives ...
Mark White from the Left free speech organisation Plebity looks at the disturbing trend of ‘book burning’ on US campuses In the abstract, people mostly agree that book banning is a bad thing. The Nazis did us the favor of being very clear about it and literally burning books, but ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has undergone a stern baptisim of fire in his first week in his new job, but it doesn’t get any easier. Next week, he has a vital meeting in Canberra with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, where he has to establish ...
As PM Chris Hipkins says, it’s a “no brainer” to extend the fuel tax cut, half price public subsidy and the cut to the road user levy until mid-year. A no braoner if the prime purpose is to ease the burden on people struggling to cope with the cost of ...
Buzz from the Beehive Cost-of-living pressures loomed large in Beehive announcements over the past 24 hours. The PM was obviously keen to announce further measures to keep those costs in check and demonstrate he means business when he talks of focusing his government on bread-and-butter issues. His statement was headed ...
Poor Mike Hosking. He has revealed himself in his most recent diatribe to be one of those public figures who is defined, not by who he is, but by who he isn’t, or at least not by what he is for, but by what he is against. Jacinda’s departure has ...
New Zealand is the second least corrupt country on earth according to the latest Corruption Perception Index published yesterday by Transparency International. But how much does this reflect reality? The problem with being continually feted for world-leading political integrity – which the Beehive and government departments love to boast about ...
TLDR: Including my pick of the news and other links in my checks around the news sites since 4am. Paying subscribers can see them all below the fold.In Aotearoa’s political economyBrown vs Fish Read more ...
TLDR: Including my pick of the news and other links in my checks around the news sites since 4am. Paying subscribers can see them all below the fold.In Aotearoa’s political economyBrown vs Fish Read more ...
In other countries, the target-rich cohorts of swinging voters are given labels such as ‘Mondeo Man’, ‘White Van Man,’ ‘Soccer Moms’ and ‘Little Aussie Battlers.’ Here, the easiest shorthand is ‘Ford Ranger Man’ – as seen here parked outside a Herne Bay restaurant, inbetween two SUVs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / ...
In other countries, the target-rich cohorts of swinging voters are given labels such as ‘Mondeo Man’, ‘White Van Man,’ ‘Soccer Moms’ and ‘Little Aussie Battlers.’ Here, the easiest shorthand is ‘Ford Ranger Man’ – as seen here parked outside a Herne Bay restaurant, inbetween two SUVs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / ...
Transport Minister and now also Minister for Auckland, Michael Wood has confirmed that the light rail project is part of the government’s policy refocus. Wood said the light rail project was under review as part of a ministerial refocus on key Government projects. “We are undertaking a stocktake about how ...
Sometime before the new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced that this year would be about “bread and butter issues”, National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis decided to move from Wellington Central and stand for Ohariu, which spreads across north Wellington from the central city to Johnsonville and Tawa. It’s an ...
They say a week is a long time in politics. For Mayor Wayne Brown, turns out 24 hours was long enough for many of us to see, quite obviously, “something isn’t right here…”. That in fact, a lot was going wrong. Very wrong indeed.Mainly because it turns ...
One of the most effective, and successful, graphics developed by Skeptical Science is the escalator. The escalator shows how global surface temperature anomalies vary with time, and illustrates how "contrarians" tend to cherry-pick short time intervals so as to argue that there has been no recent warming, while "realists" recognise ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Here’s a quick roundup of the news today for paying subscribers on a slightly frantic, very wet, and then very warm day. In Aotearoa’s political economy today Read more ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Here’s a quick roundup of the news today for paying subscribers on a slightly frantic, very wet, and then very warm day. In Aotearoa’s political economy today Read more ...
Tomorrow we have a funeral, and thank you all of you for your very kind words and thoughts — flowers, even.Our friend Michèle messaged: we never get to feel one thing at a time, us grownups, and oh boy is that ever the truth. Tomorrow we have the funeral, and ...
Lynn and I have just returned from a news conference where Hipkins, fresh from visiting a relief centre in Mangere, was repeatedly challenged to justify the extension of subsidies to create more climate emissions when the effects of climate change had just proved so disastrous. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
Lynn and I have just returned from a news conference where Hipkins, fresh from visiting a relief centre in Mangere, was repeatedly challenged to justify the extension of subsidies to create more climate emissions when the effects of climate change had just proved so disastrous. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
A new Prime Minister, a revitalised Cabinet, and possibly revised priorities – but is the political and, importantly, economic landscape much different? Certainly some within the news media were excited by the changes which Chris Hipkins announced yesterday or – before the announcement – by the prospect of changes in ...
Currently the government's strategy for reducing transport emissions hinges on boosting vehicle fuel-efficiency, via the clean car standard and clean car discount, and some improvements to public transport. The former has been hugely successful, and has clearly set us on the right path, but its also not enough, and will ...
Buzz from the Beehive Before he announced his Cabinet yesterday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced he would be flying to Australia next week to meet that country’s Prime Minister. And before Kieran McAnulty had time to say “Three Waters” after his promotion to the Local Government portfolio, he was dishing ...
The quarterly labour market statistics were released this morning, showing that unemployment has risen slightly to 3.4%. There are now 99,000 people unemployed - 24,000 fewer than when Labour took office. So, I guess the Reserve Bank's plan to throw people out of work to stop wage rises "inflation", and ...
Another night of heavy rain, flooding, damage to homes, and people worried about where the hell all this water is going to go as we enter day twenty two of rain this year.Honestly if the government can’t sell Three Waters on the back of what has happened with storm water ...
* Dr Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Chris Hipkins continues to be the new broom in Government, re-setting his Government away from its problem areas in his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, and trying to convince voters that Labour is focused on “bread and butter” issues. The ministers responsible for unpopular ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins continues to be the new broom in Government, re-setting his Government away from its problem areas in his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, and trying to convince voters that Labour is focused on “bread and butter” issues. The ministers responsible for unpopular reforms in water and DHB centralisation ...
Hi,It’s weird to me that in 2023 we still have people falling for multi-level marketing schemes (MLMs for short). There are Netflix documentaries about them, countless articles, and last year we did an Armchaired and Dangerous episode on them.Then you check a ticketing website like EventBrite and see this shit ...
Nanaia Mahuta fell the furthest in the Cabinet reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: PM Chris Hipkins unveiled a Cabinet this afternoon he hopes will show wavering voters that a refreshed Labour Government is focused on ‘bread and butter cost of living’ issues, rather than the unpopular, unwieldy and massively centralising ...
Nanaia Mahuta fell the furthest in the Cabinet reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: PM Chris Hipkins unveiled a Cabinet this afternoon he hopes will show wavering voters that a refreshed Labour Government is focused on ‘bread and butter cost of living’ issues, rather than the unpopular, unwieldy and massively centralising ...
Shortly, the absolute state of Wayne Brown. But before that, something I wrote four years ago for the council’s own media machine. It was a day-in-the-life profile of their many and varied and quite possibly unnoticed vital services. We went all over Auckland in 48 hours for the story, the ...
Completed reads for January Lilith, by George MacDonald The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Christabel (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, by Anonymous The Lay of Kraka (poem), by Anonymous 1066 and All That, by W.C. Sellar and R.J. ...
Pity the poor Brits. They just can’t catch a break. After years of reporting of lying Boris Johnson, a change to a less colourful PM in Rishi Sunak has resulted in a smooth media pivot to an end-of-empire narrative. The New York Times, no less, amplifies suggestions that Blighty ...
On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth.Genesis 6:11-12THE TORRENTIAL DOWNPOURS that dumped a record-breaking amount of rain on Auckland this anniversary weekend will reoccur with ever-increasing frequency. The planet’s atmosphere is ...
Buzz from the Beehive There has been plenty to keep the relevant Ministers busy in flood-stricken Auckland over the past day or two. But New Zealand, last time we looked, extends north of Auckland into Northland and south of the Bombay Hills all the way to the bottom of the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters When early settlers came to the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers before the California Gold Rush, Indigenous people warned them that the Sacramento Valley could become an inland sea when great winter rains came. The storytellers described water filling the ...
Wayne Brown managed a smile when meeting with Remuera residents, but he was grumpy about having to deal with “media drongos”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: In my pick of the news links found in my rounds since 4am for paying subscribers below the paywall:Wayne Brown moans about the media and ...
Wayne Brown managed a smile when meeting with Remuera residents, but he was grumpy about having to deal with “media drongos”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: In my pick of the news links found in my rounds since 4am for paying subscribers below the paywall:Wayne Brown moans about the media and ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes – Last night’s opinion polls answered the big question of whether a switch of prime minister would really be a gamechanger for election year. The 1News and Newshub polls released at 6pm gave the same response: the shift from Jacinda Ardern to Chris Hipkins ...
Kia ora e te whānau. Today, we mark the anniversary of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi - and our commitment to working in partnership with Māori to deliver better outcomes and tackle the big issues, together. ...
We’ve just announced a massive infrastructure investment to kick-start new housing developments across New Zealand. Through our Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, we’re making sure that critical infrastructure - like pipes, roads and wastewater connections - is in place, so thousands more homes can be built. ...
The Green Party is joining more than 20 community organisations to call for an immediate rent freeze in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, after reports of landlords intending to hike rents after flooding. ...
When Chris Hipkins took on the job of Prime Minister, he said bread and butter issues like the cost of living would be the Government’s top priority – and this week, we’ve set out extra support for families and businesses. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to provide direct support to low-income households and to stop subsidising fossil fuels during a climate crisis. ...
The tools exist to help families with surging costs – and as costs continue to rise it is more urgent than ever that we use them, the Green Party says. ...
An historic Northland pā site with links to Ngāpuhi chief Hongi Hika is to be handed back to iwi, after collaboration by government, private landowners and local hapū. “It is fitting that the ceremony for the return of the Pākinga Pā site is during Waitangi weekend,” said Regional Development Minister ...
The Government is investing in a suite of initiatives to unlock Māori and Pacific resources, talent and knowledge across the science and research sector, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Two new funds – He tipu ka hua and He aka ka toro – set to ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta departs for India tomorrow as she continues to reconnect Aotearoa New Zealand to the world. The visit will begin in New Delhi where the Foreign Minister will meet with the Vice President Hon Jagdeep Dhankar and her Indian Government counterparts, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and ...
Over $10 million infrastructure funding to unlock housing in Whangārei The purchase of a 3.279 hectare site in Kerikeri to enable 56 new homes Northland becomes eligible for $100 million scheme for affordable rentals Multiple Northland communities will benefit from multiple Government housing investments, delivering thousands of new homes for ...
The Government is supporting one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most significant historic sites, the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, as it continues to recover from the impacts of COVID-19. “The Waitangi Treaty Grounds are a taonga that we should protect and look after. This additional support will mean people can continue to ...
A memorial event at a key battle site in the New Zealand land wars is an important event to mark the progress in relations between Māori and the Crown as we head towards Waitangi Day, Minister for Te Arawhiti Kelvin Davis said. The Battle of Ohaeawai in June 1845 saw ...
More Police officers are being deployed to the frontline with the graduation of 54 new constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. The graduation ceremony for Recruit Wing 362 at Te Rauparaha Arena in Porirua was the first official event for Stuart Nash since his reappointment as Police ...
The Government is unlocking an additional $700,000 in support for regions that have been badly hit by the recent flooding and storm damage in the upper North Island. “We’re supporting the response and recovery of Auckland, Waikato, Coromandel, Northland, and Bay of Plenty regions, through activating Enhanced Taskforce Green to ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has welcomed the announcement that Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, will visit New Zealand this month. “Princess Anne is travelling to Aotearoa at the request of the NZ Army’s Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals, of which she is Colonel in Chief, to ...
A new Government and industry strategy launched today has its sights on growing the value of New Zealand’s horticultural production to $12 billion by 2035, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said. “Our food and fibre exports are vital to New Zealand’s economic security. We’re focussed on long-term strategies that build on ...
25 cents per litre petrol excise duty cut extended to 30 June 2023 – reducing an average 60 litre tank of petrol by $17.25 Road User Charge discount will be re-introduced and continue through until 30 June Half price public transport fares extended to the end of June 2023 saving ...
The strong economy has attracted more people into the workforce, with a record number of New Zealanders in paid work and wages rising to help with cost of living pressures. “The Government’s economic plan is delivering on more better-paid jobs, growing wages and creating more opportunities for more New Zealanders,” ...
The Government is providing a further $1 million to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced today. “Cabinet today agreed that, given the severity of the event, a further $1 million contribution be made. Cabinet wishes to be proactive ...
The new Cabinet will be focused on core bread and butter issues like the cost of living, education, health, housing and keeping communities and businesses safe, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has announced. “We need a greater focus on what’s in front of New Zealanders right now. The new Cabinet line ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will travel to Canberra next week for an in person meeting with Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. “The trans-Tasman relationship is New Zealand’s closest and most important, and it was crucial to me that my first overseas trip as Prime Minister was to Australia,” Chris Hipkins ...
The Government is providing establishment funding of $100,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced. “We moved quickly to make available this funding to support Aucklanders while the full extent of the damage is being assessed,” Kieran McAnulty ...
As the Mayor of Auckland has announced a state of emergency, the Government, through NEMA, is able to step up support for those affected by flooding in Auckland. “I’d urge people to follow the advice of authorities and check Auckland Emergency Management for the latest information. As always, the Government ...
Ka papā te whatitiri, Hikohiko ana te uira, wāhi rua mai ana rā runga mai o Huruiki maunga Kua hinga te māreikura o te Nota, a Titewhai Harawira Nā reira, e te kahurangi, takoto, e moe Ka mōwai koa a Whakapara, kua uhia te Tai Tokerau e te kapua pōuri ...
Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Social Development and Employment, has activated Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG) in response to flooding and damaged caused by Cyclone Hale in the Tairāwhiti region. Up to $500,000 will be made available to employ job seekers to support the clean-up. We are still investigating whether other parts ...
The 2023 General Election will be held on Saturday 14 October 2023, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “Announcing the election date early in the year provides New Zealanders with certainty and has become the practice of this Government and the previous one, and I believe is best practice,” Jacinda ...
Jacinda Ardern has announced she will step down as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. Her resignation will take effect on the appointment of a new Prime Minister. A caucus vote to elect a new Party Leader will occur in 3 days’ time on Sunday the 22nd of ...
In Canberra Chris Hipkins has touched down in Australia’s capital – his first overseas visit since becoming prime minister just three weeks ago. After disembarking from the Airforce Boeing, Hipkins was greeted by his former caucus colleague and current high commissioner to Australia, Dame Annette King. The pair hugged on ...
The rise of TikTok-inspired ‘algospeak’ is making online communication even more of a nightmare, writes SYSCA‘s Lucy Blakiston.This is an excerpt from the Shit You Should Care About daily newsletter – sign up here.Content warning: sexual assault The other day I was chatting with a friend about algospeak – ...
School, finally, is back this week in the nation’s largest city to howls of relief from many parents and (one hopes) some students also. Yet the resumption of normal service shouldn’t obscure a curious inconsistency. The past few weeks have shown ...
MediaRoom column: On the eve of a Cabinet decision on the fate of the proposed public broadcasting merger, questions emerge over the engagement by the TVNZ chief executive of two former National government aides to change the narrative and push TVNZ's view on the Government's plan Within weeks of taking over ...
Olivia Sisson performs a good old-fashioned cost comparison – and it might change the way you buy your veges.The price of food in New Zealand is shocking. So, how to cope? The recommendations are starting to feel like the avo-toast-flat-white trope. Cut those items out and there it is, ...
An early morning fire at an egg-laying farm in Orini, Waikato yesterday has claimed the lives of at least 50,000 hens. The farm is operated by New Zealand’s largest egg producer Zeagold, the country’s biggest egg producer, whose eggs are sold under ...
The Natural and Built Environment Bill and Spatial Planning Bill will make resource management issues worse and should be withdrawn, Federated Farmers has told the Environment Select Committee. "Farmers agree the costly, slow and unpredictable processes ...
It’s Tuesday, February 7 and welcome to a special edition of The Spinoff’s live updates. Stewart Sowman-Lund will be on the ground in Canberra today as PM Chris Hipkins meets with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese. What you need to know Chris Hipkins will meet Australian PM ...
New police minister Stuart Nash has met with new health minister Ayesha Verrall to talk about the issue with the aim of preventing ram raids. Nash wants to speed up the scheduled reduction of dairies that can sell cigarettes. Nash made the comments at a police graduation ceremony in Porirua last ...
Politicking by politicians was less overt but whether there was less politics probably depends on your definition of the word and what lay beneath the optics, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Why is it becoming harder to achieve debt-free status? Money Sweetspot is a new company that uses compassion and incentives to help people pay off their debts. Co-founder Sasha Lockley talks to Simon about using gamification to increase financial literacy, breaking the cycle of poverty, and how she intends to ...
Prime minister Chris Hipkins is heading to Australia today for his first face-to-face meeting with an international leader. He’ll be meeting with Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese during his single-day visit to Canberra. The Spinoff live updates will be on the ground in Australia as the meeting takes place and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney Pexels/Uriel Mont The question of whether and to what extent face masks work to prevent respiratory infections such as COVID and influenza ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Mackinnon, Professor and Director, Centre for Clean Energy Technologies and Practices, Queensland University of Technology Superconducting cables transmit electicity without lossesShutterstock For most of us, transmitting power is an invisible part of modern life. You flick the switch and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Munro, Professor, Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University Shutterstock Many students are returning to school this year face a renewed focus on grammar. Just before Christmas, the NSW curriculum was overhauled to include the “explicit teaching of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debra Dudek, Associate professor, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University Universal Life is full of surprises – some pleasant and some painful – but there can be no surprises without expectations. We expect the sun to come up ...
News stories have honed in on the fact Wayne Brown and his staff were left off a ‘vital’ email distribution list on the night of the Auckland floods. But internal emails from the mayor’s chief of staff show he was getting regular briefings from officials.Internal council emails obtained by ...
In a reality shaped by climate crisis, how do you think and feel about the changed present – and the changing future – without spiralling into despair?In the midst of a flood there’s not much time to think about the future. But when the water recedes, the reality of ...
06 Feb The news today of the death of 75,000 chickens at an egg farm in Waikato is yet another outrageous and avoidable tragedy. “The fact that so many hens died in this fire in the Waikato is a testament to the systemic neglect and disregard ...
Lawmakers are being urged to bridge the legal and scientific divide over braided rivers. David Williams reports What is a river? More particularly, what is a braided river? An expert group known as The Land The Law Forgot is urging politicians considering the Natural and Built Environment Bill – one ...
Fiordland National Park is the crowning jewel of our national parks and arguably our greatest tourist magnet. But conservationists warn that marine life has been put at risk because the park’s waters are unprotected. Heidi Bendikson’s investigation shows they are right. Tourists on the 'M.V Sinbad' clamber to the bow to ...
As Auckland copes with unprecedented flooding, Mairi Jay points to lessons from extreme weather events in British Columbia that could be vitally important for policy-makers and administrators here “Expect extreme weather events” the climate scientists tell us. But sometimes the extreme is beyond our imagining. On Thursday January 26, New Zealand’s Met Service predicted ...
UK and US deals for NZ novels Three of the best New Zealand novels of recent years are about to be published in the UK and the US. All three books – She's a Killer by Kirsten McDougall, Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly, and The New Animals ...
Confidence from US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell kept markets buoyant. But mortgage payments and job losses could dampen consumer spending in NZ ...
Someone left the Swift out in the rain - insurance agents are overloaded with calls about flood-damaged vehicles It’s been a big week for testing the submarining abilities of the family station wagon. Thousands of cars around the upper North Island have been written off following the devastating floods of ...
The first of the air force's new Poseidon aircraft has landed in New Zealand. But is this the sort of workhorse the military needs? Our old heroes of the Air Force, the P-3 Orions, have retired after 56 years of service - and the first of the flash new Poseidon ...
Chris Hipkins’ first overseas trip as Prime Minister comes on relatively friendly territory. But while there have been marked improvements in the trans-Tasman relationship since a change in Canberra, there is still plenty to discuss, as Sam Sachdeva writes In many ways, it is fitting Chris Hipkins should make Australia the ...
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RNZ News New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has described today’s Waitangi Day dawn service as moving and says he welcomes the shift away from a focus on politics. Hundreds of people gathered before dawn to commemorate 183 years since Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed. Hipkins said the national ...
By Hilaire Bule, RNZ Pacific Vanuatu correspondent in Port Vila Vanuatu’s prime minister has stressed any future employment within the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat must be from MSG member countries. Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau, who is also chair of the MSG Secretariat, made the statement following the recruitment of ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Yamin Kogoya On Friday 10 February 2023, it will be one month since the Papua Governor Lukas Enembe was “kidnapped” at a local restaurant during his lunch hour by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and security forces. The crisis began in September 2022, when Governor Enembe was ...
By Kālino Lātū, editor of Kaniva News Dr Sitiveni Halapua, former deputy leader of Tonga’s Democratic Movement, has died aged 74. Born on February 13, 1949, he was a respected academic, a pioneer of Tonga’s democratic reforms and pioneer of a conflict resolution system based on traditional practices. Halapua earned ...
COMMENTARY:By Richard Naidu in Suva Five weeks on from Christmas Eve, I think most of us are still a bit stunned at what has happened in Fiji. A new government came to power in dramatic circumstances. It took not one but two Sodelpa management board meetings to change it, ...
By Red Tsounga Another house done, and onto the next . . . Volunteers working in Mount Roskill community over the past few days helping those suffering from Auckland’s flash flood devastation have done us proud. Tremendous work by everybody. Here are some random photos of our volunteer teams on ...
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 Mick Tsikas/AAP Senator Lidia Thorpe announced on Monday that she would be leaving the Greens. Thorpe had split with the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis B. Desmond, Lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, University of the Sunshine Coast The news of a so-called “Chinese spy balloon” being shot down over the US has reignited interest in how nation-states spy on one another. It’s not confirmed that the ...
Today, at a Waitangi ki Waititi concert hosted by Te Whānau o Waipareira at Hoani Waititi Marae, West Auckland; Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp was officially announced as Te Pāti Māori Candidate for Tāmaki Makaurau for the 2023 Election. Hailing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Daniel Pockett/AAP Victorian Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe has defected from the Greens to sit on the crossbench, declaring she wants to fully represent the “Blak Sovereign Movement” in parliament. The announcement by ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Daniel Pockett/AAP Victorian Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe has defected from the Greens to sit on the crossbench, declaring she wants to fully represent the “Blak Sovereign Movement” in parliament. The announcement by ...
Sure, Scotty Morrison’s Māori At Work is a wonderful resource for Aotearoa’s collective te reo Māori journey. But is it judgemental enough for the modern office environment?First published September 12 2019 The growing strength of te reo is palpable across Aotearoa, with record numbers of people participating in Mahuru ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Mills, Professor and Dean La Trobe Rural Health School, La Trobe University Shutterstock It can be tough to access front-line health care outside the cities and suburbs. For the seven million Australians living in rural communities there are significant ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donald Rothwell, Professor of International Law, Australian National University Chad Fish/AP Was the balloon that suddenly appeared over the US last week undertaking surveillance? Or was it engaging in research, as China has claimed? While the answers to these ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Walker-Munro, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The generative AI industry will be worth about A$22 trillion by 2030, according to the CSIRO. These systems – of which ChatGPT is currently the best known – can write ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Doug Drury, Professor/Head of Aviation, CQUniversity Australia Shutterstock When booking a flight, do you ever think about which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not. Most people book seats for comfort, such as leg room, ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has described this morning's Waitangi dawn service as moving and says he welcomes the shift away from a focus on politics. ...
Screenwriter Dana Leaming’s debut comedy series Not Even is out now on Prime and Neon. This is the out the gate story of how it got there.Kia ora, Hi, What up? Up to? U up? …I’m Dana. I wrote and co-directed (with Ainsley Gardiner) the TV show Not Even ...
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 Mick Tsikas/AAP A federal Newspoll, conducted February 1-4 from a sample of 1,512, gave Labor a 55-45 lead, unchanged on ...
The Human Rights Commission, Te Kāhui Tika Tangata, last week released two reports on racism and the impact of colonialism in Aotearoa. Among their many insights was the necessity of a wider understanding of how racism manifests itself. I was honoured to accept an invitation by Te Kāhui Tika Tangata ...
Vincent O’Malley reviews a history of the battle of Gate Pā.First published February 5, 2019 Head up Cameron Road, one of Tauranga’s main arterial routes, a few kilometres out of the city centre and you drive over one of New Zealand’s most important historical sites. The road, named after ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Murray Goot, Emeritus Professor of Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University Support for embedding an Indigenous Voice to parliament in the Constitution has fallen. The polls provide good evidence once you work out how to find it. However, the voters who have ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Doug Drury, Professor/Head of Aviation, CQUniversity Australia Shutterstock When booking a flight, do you ever think about which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not. Most people book seats for comfort, such as leg room, or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Libby Rumpff, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne David Crosling/AAP The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 were cataclysmic: a landmark in Australia’s environmental history. They burnt more than 10 million hectares, mostly forests in southeast Australia. Many of our most ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Grové, Fulbright Scholar and Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Monash University Anete Lusina/Pexels School attendance levels in Australia are a massive issue according to Education Minister Jason Clare. As he told reporters last week, he hopes to talk to state colleagues ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marion Terrill, Transport and Cities Program Director, Grattan Institute Revising the generous fuel tax credits given to businesses should be a priority for the Albanese government, because keeping them would conflict with two other pressing priorities: reducing carbon emissions and repairing the ...
For nine years he steered the ship he built, but last week Duncan Greive announced his surprise resignation as CEO of The Spinoff. He joins guest host, Jane Yee, to discuss how doing things differently took The Spinoff from an irreverent TV blog to a respected online magazine, and why ...
Three decades ago one of the giants of New Zealand thinking and writing, Ranginui Walker, published Ka Whawhai Tonu Mātou, Struggle Without End. The book, originally released in 1990 and revised in 2004, is a history of Aotearoa from a Māori perspective. It had a profound influence and today remains ...
A review for Waitangi weekend The bestselling novel Kāwai: For Such a Time as This by Monty Soutar feels like the story Matua Monty has been working toward telling his entire life. It aims for the loftiest mountain peak in a valiant attempt at the fabled Great New Zealand ...
Unfortunately the great flood of January 27 was not a one-off but a precursor to more emergencies likely to strike the city because of environmental effects of climate change. While the Auckland floods are proving devastating, costly and far-reaching, they have also had the strange effect of revealing Tamaki Makaurau's original landscape. ...
Health inequities between Pākehā and Māori are often framed as complex and difficult to change. But making access to GPs and dentists free will not only save money for whānau using these services, it will also save money for the health system and ensure Māori rights to good governance and equity ...
One of New Zealand's most promising fast bowlers, Molly Penfold, was surprised to get the call-up for the T20 World Cup, but she has a great support team around her, Merryn Anderson reports. She's only played one T20 for the White Ferns, and she's yet to take a wicket, but Molly ...
Labour and National’s leaders came to Waitangi agreed on which areas need more investment in election year. But as political editor Jo Moir writes, the country is going to see a big debate on how Māori should benefit from it Prime Minister Chris Hipkins used his speech at Sunday’s pōwhiri ...
Securing the right to housing will require us to challenge the very systems and ideologies that are doing such harm to our planet.Opinion: The images of rivers running down our streets, cars floating down the motorway, houses flooded and half-submerged buses ferrying people across the causeway, will stick with ...
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It is hard to separate the politics from Waitangi, but the day party leaders were welcomed on to Te Whare Rūnanga was largely free of inflammatory rhetoric and political point scoring. ...
Rheive Grey pays tribute to one political party’s unapologetic commitment to markers of Māori identity, from hei tiki to waiata to tikitiki. I’m proud to be Māori. If you’re like me, it’s hard to read that sentence without singing it in your head. That’s either the power of good campaigning, ...
gig-alert for auckland-readers..
if you remember the great local bands of the late 70’s..at all..you probably remember the band ‘rough justice’…
..they are doing a gig 2nite..at the kings’ arms..
(their first since then..and part of a tour winding its’ way down the country..)
..the original members are back together..
..(rick bryant/tony backhouse et. al..)
..and it promises to go off..
..eh..?
phillip ure..
phillip ure
I saw your piece mentioning Rick Bryant and he is in a replay of an interview with Kim Hill on radionz this a.m. What a guy. He is interesting and admirable, lots of interests and wise.
indeed greywarbler..indeed…
..he has a big brain…that rick bryant..
..and has problems ‘suffering fools’..(heh..!..)
(and as an aside..is quite withering about ‘vegans’..and their ilk..but nobodys’ perfect..eh..?..)
..i heard that replay too..cool..eh..?
..(it is available online @ rnz..)
..i must link to it later..
phillip ure
the daily blog has the december blog-rankings posted..
..and what a pile of steaming horse-shit they are..
[email protected] a website audit by the internet company zeald told me i have 22,000+ subscribers..in 96 different countries..
..taking everything i do/post..
..and i post 40-50 stories a day..every day..
..(how many ‘page-views’ is that..?..eh..?..)
..yet whoar is nowhere on this list..
..nowhere to be seen..
‘shine on..you crazy blog-rankings..!’..eh..?
..heh..!
..phillip ure..
“never mind the width, feel the quality.”
i have both..
..eh..?
phillip ure..
Myself, I’m more interested in the quaity and content of blogs. The whole rankings thing just buys into the whole competitive, dick waving culture of our capitalist system.
Too much of it is built into online social media – communities are about engagement and exchanges of ideas, not competitions that mirror commerical markets.
with whoar you can admire both the quality of the width..
..and the width of the quality..
..eh..?
phillip ure..
Well, it’s useful to have a pretty wide following, in order to make some impact, and connections. But, I think people can get overly obssessed with being numero 1…. or 2….or 20.
ouch..!..i’ve got passive-aggression bruises coming up on my body..
..why would that be..?
phillip ure..
You have to have told Ken at open parachute your public sitemeter / stat counter /whatever URL.
@lprent..
chrs 4 that..
i know it is one of those things you have to sign up to/for..install site-meters..boil water..
..which just really emphasises how sketchy/incomplete a picture it actually is..
..i’ll just plug on..it seems to be working..
..and i don’t like signing up for things..
..phillip ure..
Phil, I used to find your blog incomprehensible. Perhaps I’ve just become accustomed to your sense of humour or your meds are working but I find myself visiting from time to time as it becomes more readable to me.
@ grumpy..
..heh..!..the only ‘meds’ i use/am ever ‘on’..is pot..
..legalisation now..!
..eh..?
..and as it happened..on new years eve i walked..with three other ‘sober’-friends.. into the post-midnite detritus of a mutual-friends’ (old-persons’) alcohol party in whangamata..(it’s a long story..)
..and whoar..!
..it’s been a long time since that appealed to me..
..and that peek just confirmed that stance..
..what do people see in it..?
..and glad that you are enjoying whoar..
..don’t forget to tell yr friends about it..eh..?
..i haven’t been able to monetise it yet..
..so i can’t afford to advertise..
..and i have been facebook-averse ever since finding out the cia gave zuckerberg the money to start the bloody thing..
..so..
..phillip ure..
News I noticed on Radionz
Pope Francis has told Catholic priests to leave their comfort zone and get out among people on the margins of society or else risk becoming “abstract ideologists”.
Isn’t it the case that priests and nuns who abstain from sexual intercourse with the other sex, (but who advise their community to not withhold from intercourse, not to restrain from having children) are truly abstract ideologists?
And also that applies to all single sex participants, who cannot regard themselves as knowing about the human ability of creating life and living through their own personal experience, unless they engage in sexual intercourse with the other sex. (Turkey basters are only part of the process.)
Country Calendar repeat today on John and Bunny Mortimer, tree huggers of the most practical, experienced, informative and likable kind was so interesting. They are examples of great NZs, now in their 90’s. They are interested in trees from all views also bio-mass.
http://www.taituabooks.co.nz/webapps/site/76334/136645/shopping/shopping-plus.html
Also Ken Vincent poultry breeder still at 78, who used to have 32 breeds now only 16. He says that his duck and hen breeds are becoming rare, and not much is being done in NZ to conserve them. You can see him if you click on show notes from the schedule listing of CC.
White leghorn hens are big layers – may lay 300 eggs a year. And this in a happy hen house, no battery stuff here. Ducks are particularly nice to have, the males never become aggressive as the roosters do. Possibly not as noisy also. He sends eggs for hatching, sells birds to start own henhouse. Worth considering. The major hen type used is called Shavers I think, the other breeds much less.
Two comments Grey….
Pope Francis follows the principles of St Francis (poverty, charity and service might be a good description). I am not religious but came to Franciscan thought in my 40s, after having been imbued at Uni with rationalism, in particular Marxism. My take is that rationalism is Johnny Come Lately that has very conveniently pretended that two thousand years of faith and tradition can be quickly laid aside. Godless Marxism is (as are alternate market based faiths), which in turn means it lacks the spiritual dimension needed to make it truly “human”. Dont expect the RC church to use rationalist constructs, they have done well enough without them. With regard to chaste abstract ideologists you might want to consider that medieval orders usually took in people who had “completed” their lives in the community. They had intimate knowledge of the ways of the flesh. Is that so different today? I dont know. Not going to judge.
Tree huggers and poultry….this year I my form of civic responsibility and unblessed (by authorities) behavior will be to plant more things where they should be (guerrilla plantings, the revolution will come quietly and greenly). My chickens will likely approve, as only rare breeds can.
I got interviewed by Roy Morgan Research yesterday, for the first time ever.
The most interesting thing is that they called me on my cell phone. I asked them how they got the number and they said they do random dialing, and that’s why they asked me my postcode at the start of the interview, for screening purposes to ensure they got good coverage across the country.
Anyway, they asked a big range of questions, including the standard political polling. Here are some of the questions and my answers:
1. Electorate / party vote if election held today: Labour / Labour
2. Who do I want to win the next election: Labour
3. Is the country heading in the right direction or wrong direction: I said wrong. Only because I know this is (ridiculously) used as a ‘government confidence rating’ proxy.
4. Biggest problem facing the world at the moment: climate change. Why: because government’s aren’t doing anything about it.
5. Biggest problem facing NZ at the moment: child poverty. Why: because the government isn’t doing anything about it.
6. Should smoking marijuana be legal or illegal: legal.
7. Should religion be taught at least once a week in state schools: no.
There were also questions about the economy, eg expected inflation over the next two years, expected housing price increases over the next two years, whether my family is in a better financial situation than 1 year ago and whether we expect to be in better condition next year, those sorts of things.
it’ll be an interesting barometer-reading/snapshot to see the results from the pot-question..
phillip ure..
Interesting..
Just wondering about your answers to the latter questions……?
2.5% inflation per year, 8% house price rises per year, better than last year, expect to be better next year.
There was also another one about how I expected the economy to go over the next 5 years, initially I was presented with “continually improving” and “continually worsening”, but when I said I couldn’t choose either of those he read out the full scale, whereupon I picked “some good, some bad”.
You did better With the second half than the first 🙂
Are they still asking about tobacco-smoking Lanth?
Last time they caught me was just after the first big cost increase. I think they might have wondered whether there were any votes lost or gained.
Yes. They asked whether I smoked cigarettes, roll-your-owns, cigars and something else in the last month, which I don’t.
@ lanth..but do you support legalisation/regulation/taxation of cannabis..?
phillip ure
I answered “legal” to whether it should be legal or illegal.
I’d prefer to see it decriminalised rather than completely legalised: allow cultivation for personal use, don’t bother cracking down on local/small-scale distribution, just go after the kingpins.
Ideally I think it should be regulated and sold like alcohol is, but that’s too big a jump for NZ I think.
@ lanth..why do you think it is ‘too big a jump’..?
..especially with the now working-model..in colorado..(and many more soon to come..)
..to be able to point at..?
..plus there is the serious amount of revenue to be garnered from legalisation/regulation/taxation..
..plus there is the serious savings from stopping playing cops ‘n robbers with it..
..plus..the pot would be tested to ensure there are no contaminants ..from pest-sprays/w.h.y..
..which a blackmarket makes impossible..
..the reasons to take that ‘big-jump’ are multiple..eh..?
..and i can’t see any reasons not to..(can you..?..aside from the public-disquiet you herald..?)
..why make do with the halfway-house/way-station of partial decriminalisation..?
..with the revenue-losses/cost-implications/safety-issues that come with it..?
..a uneasy ‘solution’ that would suit nobody..
..but the gangs currently running the biz..
..and those cops who love flying around in helicopters/and crashing thru the bush in 4wd’s..
..eh..?
phillip ure..
Colorado already had medical marijuana since 2000.
“..plus there is the serious savings from stopping playing cops ‘n robbers with it..”
You get that from decriminalization.
@ lanth..
sorry..i am missing the point you are trying to make..?
..and forfeiting all that tax-revenue..?..why..?
..and those health-implications..?
..and of course..one of the major forces against legalisation/regulation/taxation…is the booze-pushers….
..’cos they know that legalisation will see a major drop off in consumption of their product..
..especially amongst the young..
..and isn’t that a good thing..?
..and maybe if you had been with me in my car slowly weaving my way thru the swarms of drunken teenagers in whanga..post midnite..
..i’m sure you would agree it would have been better for them to have smoked a little bit of bud..?..instead..?
..(and..btw..that healthier switch-process will be hurried by legalisation ..
…accompanied by a serious hike in the tax-component of that booze..)
phillip ure..
More contagion!.
http://www.abqjournal.com/330203/news/legislator-wants-nm-constitutional-amendment-to-legalize-pot.html
Legislate all you like but until there’s a base level set there doesn’t appear to a way around employer mandates.
http://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_24799683/employers-can-still-fire-pot-smokers-legal-use
Portugal seems to be doing ok but I’ll be interested to see how it goes in Denver
Portugal seems to be doing ok but I’ll be interested to see how it goes in Denver
“don’t bother cracking down on local/small-scale distribution, just go after the kingpins.”
I don’t understand. Why go after “kingpins”?
Under my decriminalization policy, you can grow your own small supply at home or get it from friends, but it’s still not legal (ie, not sold in shops) because I don’t think the NZ public is really ready for that yet. So you go after the kingpins, eg gangs, to stop them from profiting.
Once it’s fully legalised and regulated, the bottom would drop out of the private market anyway, at which point there’d be no need to go after anyone. In the meantime though, police would still go after the gangs.
@ lanth..
you didn’t answer the question from felix:..’why..?’..
and actually..quite an enlightening exercise is to try to compile a list of reasons why pot should languish in prohibition..
..and then a list of the positive outcomes from legalising/regulating/taxing..
..i invite those favouring prohibition..to do/try this..
..you may find you will struggle to find even one reason..
..(save for fun for those helicoptering/4wd-ing pot-chasing cops..)
..strip out those (now disproved) traditional lies..
..and there is nothing left standing..
..phillip ure..
Actually, I did. Right here:
“So you go after the kingpins, eg gangs, to stop them from profiting.“
@ lanth..ok..
..but legalising/regulating/taxing will put them out of business..
..so will achieve that (desired) result..without having to fund ‘chasing’ them..
..(‘chasing’ being a tactic which has worked really well up until now..eh..?..)
..see what i mean..?
..so is that..and yr warning of public disquiet..
..is that the extent of yr ‘reasons to retain’ prohibition’-list..?
..how about the other list..?
..you could put ‘putting ‘drug-kingpins’ out of business..overnight..
..at the top of that list..eh..?
..see what i mean..?
..phillip ure..
My reason for going with decriminalization, rather than full legalisation, is that I don’t think the NZ public is ready for full legalisation, and as such decriminalisation is a sensible stepping stone that is achievable by any government that is to be elected within the next 10 years.
Pining for the fjords doesn’t seem like a realistic policy to me.
If you really want to read something that will start a conversation Rebecca Camm’s latest article in the Herald takes some beating. The trouble is I do not know if she is being satirical or not …
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11180931
Most definitely being satirical but it’s like she just grabbed a handful of random crap and fired it from a shotgun. Some of it hits the mark but so much of it is poorly held together drivel.
+1
Kamm, MS.
It’s rubbish, btw. I imagine it’s intended to be satire, but, sheesh, what a waste of space.
It’s actually very funny but maybe you have to be a feminist woman to understand it 🙂
It didn’t work for me – not very clever really. I was kind of into it to start with, but then it just laboured a not very subtle point, and I was wondering whether she was attacking feminsm or sending up anti-feminism.
For anyone who might be interested and who hasn’t come across this yet, PJ Harvey was guest editor on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme – equivalent of ‘Morning Report’ (Could be a nice ‘touchstone’ for the next time anyone bangs on about supposed ‘left wing bias’ in the msm?)
Anyway, it’s three hours worth and I’ve only just begun to listen so can’t offer any opinion… (first 10 min is UK news and weather) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03mhyzh
Here’s what Tom Chivers of the telegraph thought:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100252541/please-bbc-radio-4-can-we-drop-the-today-programme-guest-editors-thing/
heh – Anyway, I liked this from a telegraph article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10546604/BBC-Radio-4-Today-criticised-for-left-wing-tosh-chosen-by-guest-editor-PJ-Harvey.html
And I see ‘Stuff’ has a headline proclaiming “PJ Harvey radio show sparks complaints.”….and the second to last line of the article informs us that the BBC received….wait for it…a grand total of 37 complaints.
Anyway…the news and weather slots aside (which I could skip through, but it’s just sitting in the background anyway), the reports are bloody good so far.
@ bill..
i’ve been collecting/reading reviews over the last couple of days..
(..and going on what i have read…that stuff report is utter corporate-media-shite..(and the sooner they go behind a fucken paywall..the better..)
..here are two more reasoned/literate takes/reviews..
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/julian-assange-rails-against-surveillance-on-today-programme/
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/five-things-we-learned-from-pj-harveys-today-show/
phillip ure..
this one is actually about ‘stuff’..and its’ ilk…
http://www.utne.com/media/the-myth-of-journalisms-golden-age.aspx#comments
“..The crisis in journalism today shouldn’t obscure mainstream media’s long history of masking the truth –
– and acquiescing to power.
From the Vietnam War – to credit default swaps – to climate change –
– in many ways American journalism brought crisis on itself..”
(cont..)
phillip ure..
Here’s a transcript of John Pilger’s contribution to the programme…
http://www.mediareform.org.uk/blog/media-now-just-another-word-control-john-pilgers-today-programme-statement
De-classified 1984 cabinet papers reveal Thatchers deceit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25549596
BBC 4 radio.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03mj8lz/UK_Confidential_1984/
The series.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ukconfidential
And this, from Channel 4.
This doesn’t surprise me. It’s what we thought was happening at the time. Too many people blame Scargill for the miners’ defeat – but Thatcher was dead set of destroying them and the UK left along with it:
This is why I now say that we should never underestimate the ruthless determination of the corprorate elites to smash any successes of the left.
And why I say the left needs a multi-pronged strategy – grass roots collective energy from below + strategies for resisting, and challenging the power of the elites – and every kind of initiative in between.
The other lesson is, that the left clearly came close to resisting Thatcher. And that included mobilising all the networks within the left in support – fund raising, donations of food etc. Feminist, gay, anti-racist networks all joining in. Not an easy rleationship to start with – but lessons were being learned along the way.
And that’s why we need to network across diverse groups, even though we differ on priorities, and on how we approach some problems.
Good news!…….or, maybe not…….
http://www.principia-scientific.org/german-scientists-predict-a-century-of-global-cooling.html
So where is the peer-reviewed paper detailing their findings?
Or, can I assume, this is just more of the same… more climate science denialism with no basis in demonstrable fact
Correct, Zorr, Grumpy’s just getting desperate. The PSI organisation are righty climate change denialists who claim to be supporters of scientific principles while simultaneously publishing articles claiming Mossad and Bush engineered 9/11.
ps, 2013 Oz’s hottest year on record: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/2013-confirmed-as-australias-hottest-year-on-record-20140103-308ek.html
Grumpy.
Let’s take the first sentence of that link at face value:
that “two naturally occurring climate cycles will combine to lower global temperatures during the next century.”
Assume this prediction is indeed true. In the meantime let’s also assume we keep adding CO2, ‘business as usual’ to the atmosphere and that by the time this naturally occurring cycle ends levels have doubled again – to say 800ppm.
So when this ‘cooling period’ ends – what do you imagine will happen?
A warm sea may mean a colder atmosphere, as cooling processes kit up a notch and expel more heat into space. The problem surely is that this will happen over the Northern Hemisphere continents, aka glaciers down to the med. How else did this happen in the past but for more energy being available to transport more moisture from a warmer sea to a colder continent.
Its been pointed out that when the seas are warmer and interior of the continents colder, humans migrated along the coast lines from Asia into the Americas.
What is the chance of a housing bubble pop in New Zealand. This interactive graph would suggest that the possibility is quite high, at some stage in the next 2 to 5 years (if you cant get NZ to show up on the interactive, our line is just below Britain)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/11/global-house-prices?fsrc=scn/tw/te/dc/locationlocationlocation
Of course Treasury have identified this risk and implemented the LVR policy, which had the impact of reducing supply of newly built homes = bad. The right policy to implement is a CGT, but there is no way in hell that National will implement this because a huge % of their supporters have gained their wealth from capital gains (mainly investment houses and farms).
The scary thing for Labour is as house price inflation continues to build into an even bigger bubble then the chances that the CGT will create a POP of the bubble are getting higher, this could actually be catastrophic for our economy for a period. I don’t know what the answer is but I do know that the sooner a CGT (and perhaps other initiatives/policies to reduce the demand from investment housing) is implemented then the better our economy will be long term. Farrar et al can complain all they want about the legitimacy of the “living wage” but one thing is for sure, rising house prices only makes our poverty situation worse, it is the number one driver of poverty and inequality.
Capitals gain tax, exception own living space or residential address – only one allowed. Declaration of overseas trust funds keeping moneys earned in NZ and properties by residents and citizens. Cash business to be closer monitored and audited as these are the ones not paying tax at all. This is known in the community up and down the country. I think this would go a long way.
How and when do you believe a CGT will solve this issue?
You have made a comment that this (cgt) is the right policy yet no reason given. Everyone appears to be an expert in the property market, most are have minimal understanding of how it works let alone how to effect charge.
Get off the ban wagon and promote real solutions, not being a part of the scratch record of commenting re a CGT so often that it will become accepted as fact then in 5 years time wondering why there is no radical change in the property market that was promised, and that property ownership within Auckland is as unachievable as when the nats were previously in govt 🙁
When it will not become the main tool – it will in about 10 years time become one part of the tool box, and the tax will not change behaviour. I am sure property investors will still gladly accept tax advantages and on realising a gain on disposal accept paying a mere 15% tax.
Hi Herodotus
I do belief hat a CGT will curb the amount of properties being sold to investors. The increase in “market worth” also impacts on people who actually use a house as a home. The council rates are measured by this perceived value and a lot of people start to struggle to pay these taxes. And yet, the investment property is being traded as a non taxed commodity. This encourages overseas buying and because of the raising value an increase in apartment buildings as these are less costly. So those who make a business out of a vital necessity (roof over the head) it’s a win win situation all the way to the bank. I really don’t care whether some ideology is being trampled on with this issue, what i do see is that more and more young people have no hope to get into a home and build a family. Its a loss for NZ, certainly not for overseas investors.
+1000…exactly FW.
Councils need rates anyway. They keep raising rates to pay for the massive debt they have – all of the councils in the country are effectively bankrupt on paper, it’s just a ponzi debt game that makes them look solvent.
So even if you had a CGT to reduce property prices, the council still need to get their rates money, so it ultimately won’t change that aspect – except to possibly become more regressive as the general house prices will flatten out, so rates will have to rise across the board, penalising those with low incomes / house values more-so than they otherwise would.
I doubt that this will happen as the council is also aware that you cannot get blood out of a stone. I do realize that authorities have the tendency to create new “needs” in order to disguise the “deeds” that have gone beforehand. But a remedy has to be started somewhere. This is a good a place as any. Poor families will not be able to afford increasing rates either way as the amount in untenable. What is and will increasingly happen in the current scenario is that people who have worked all their lives are now unable to stay in their home. Where are they suppose to be housed? There are not many council houses available, retirement homes will soon be out of space and it is not always the best way to put more people into overcrowded housing with relatives. There are consequences to everything.
@Herodotus
I think it is the right policy because at the moment investment in housing/property provides a huge tax advantage over other forms of investments (equities etc). Personally I don’t think it is the only solution, I believe that polices need to put in place to disincentive investment housing, I would support limiting the use of Loss Attributing Qualifying Companies, and also a more aggressive CGT than the Aussie model (something that I heard Steve Keen mention on Radio NZ support, http://www.radionz.co.nz/radionz/programmes/featured-audio/audio/2520012/steve-keen-economic-crisis.) I agree with you that on its own it wont change behaviour but it will be one of the main tools to correct Kiwi’s obsession in property.
I will address a few issues
Council rates
When a property value increases we do not collect more rates overall. Each year, the council determines, through the annual plan process, how much money needs to be collected through rates to fund its activities and services for the year. This rates requirement is then divided between all the properties in the region based on council’s rating policies.
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/ratesbuildingproperty/ratesvaluations/aboutrates/Pages/faqs.aspx
There is an issue of increasing debt so as to keep increases to a minimum. No this just delays to the next council a major “unpalatable” increase. Really making in aucklands case “most liveable” pity most will not be able to afford to reside here.
So are all here saying that if a cgt was put into operation that property prices would decrease., as stated before when coy tax rate is 28% the top personnel tax rate is 30% that a 15% tax will change behaviour ? Haha
Investing in property should have no advantages over other investments and I would promote that this form of investment should have disincentives above and beyond other forms attached to it. Eg interest costs are non deductible. Why should a commercial activity incur mortgages at the same rate as a family home and with the same debt profile. Enter any other business and try to obtain debt funding beyond 50% and still be charged at the same rate as a mortgage ? Even those in property development have their values of land developed heavily discounted for bank valuation purposes and then be charged 3%+ above current mortgage rates, that is if you can find a current bank open to fund.
Limit debt funding by placing greater controls on bank loaning ratios.
As we will have a cgt, all property has its use recorded e.g. Residential owner/beneficiary of trust residing, holiday home, rented property etc.
non nz residents incur not a cgt but pay corporate tax rate and can only purchase a newly built property.
There are others but at least these points are wider reaching at solving this IMO important issues
And neglected to include, a cgt is on all property, but for those that the owner resides in at a minimal rate of say 5% so all property transactions are recorded within Linz and the ird and that all sales can be traced. To sell such a policy, labour will need to sell/inform us as where this added tax revenue will be allocated to, in 2011 at least we the voter knew that this added revenue from a cgt was to fund the $5k tax free zone policy and gst off F&V
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5284832/Labour-confirms-capital-gains-tax-new-rate
Now it appears any revenue will just be absorbed into paying for the auctioning/ buying for our votes.
Hi Herodotus
I am sorry to say, I don’t belief that many of the city Councillors have the rate payer in mind when they come up with their plans. If I remember correctly not so long ago the city council from Mangawhai was taken to court because they unilaterally decided to take on more debt and have the residents pay for it. The Auckland City council has approved a living wage that is now being paid for by exactly the low wage earning people you have mentioned. May I remind on Hamiltons V8?
As all property is listed with Linz (NZ wide) it would be possible to have residential households and their owners registered. I belief this to be not a big issue as the voting papers seem to find the owners. Any additional registration against the same owner will attract the tax. The owner of a property has to be of an age that allows Tax to be collected (excluding i.e. 2 days old sons or daughters to enter the market). Just an idea, but I belief that if the council can come up with pet projects they are able to come up with a solution.
Grumpy.
Principia scientific.
An political organization spreading spuriest made up science.
Crap dressed up for socold intelligent well educated Right Wing Deniers
That’s my peer review of you Gumpy.
Show me some peer reviews of this fantasy gumpy.
It just proves how gullible the right are.
Gumpy
They haven’t even got the cycles of the earths eliptical orbit and oscillations around the sun.
Just more evidence on how the Creed of short term greed is willing to sacrifice humanity
So the rich can have a few or a lot more baubles than everyone else.
Gump
I read this morning an article about the Cambodian textile workers protesting and being shot at. The government has sent the troops as they are firmly in the camp of the main shareholders of these factories that facilitate the export that is quite a high % of Cambodia’s income. Naturally this goes hand in hand with the political power. I got curious asking myself – who are the actual owners of these factories and one would think denier of higher wages? NZ’s news do no reveal anything, further research says that the nationality of the main shareholders are Taiwan, China, USA – no names. As any “open” information is just not obtainable in the Anglo Saxen world I went out into the Euro zone – Eureka, a local Newspaper (mentioned as right/liberal !) gave me quite decisive and frank information. See below.
Excerpt from the Newspaper article.
“400.000 Arbeiter nähen für internationale Modehäuser wie GAP, Nike und H&M.” Number of workers and named Distributes, not mentioned – Walmart.
This link gives you the breakdown of the price of a T-Shirt,in graphics.
http://images02.kurier.at/46-59345073.jpg/43.974.977
Why is it that all those self professed reporters, commentators etc cannot provide information that is so freely shared overseas by the right/liberal press? Are they scared they will be sacked and if so are there any true reporters (not story tellers) out there?
And here a link to a french newspaper that really goes a bit more into the details and provides a list of companies.
Sadly, there is also a NZ company mentioned.
http://www.humanite.fr/monde/bangladesh-des-groupes-francais-laxistes-avec-leur-sous-traitant-textile-509527
http://www.humanite.fr/sites/default/files/vignettes/2012-11-26sous-traitant-bangladesh.gif
What is this Tex Bangla NZ company that is listed? Anyone?
Perhaps?
Finding under this page the company as below
http://www.nzgroupbd.com/nzBusinessAreas.html
http://www.nzgroupbd.com/nzHome.html
It is feasible that any such company is registered only in Bangladesh and supplies the clothing companies here in NZ. It would not be so far fetched to see this in the manufacturing of uniforms. I am not saying that this is a fact but thinking aloud.
Ennui guerilla plantings I have been doing it since I was a kid.
If everyone did it wouldn’t take long to get a real change.
Living legends was a very good initiative getting famous rugby players to help plant native trees.
“Stripped naked, fed to 120 dogs as officials watched”
Another factoid for Te Reo and QoT to repeat ad nauseam
It’s as rigorous and has as much credibility as the fantastical case cooked up by the Swedish Director of Public Prosecution Marianne Ny, AKA the “Totalitarian Tolkien”…..
Kim Jong-un’s executed uncle Jang Song Thaek ‘stripped naked, fed to 120 dogs as officials watched’
Wasn’t that Django Unchained?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/kim-jonguns-executed-uncle-jang-song-thaek-stripped-naked-fed-to-120-dogs-as-officials-watched-9037109.html
Phoney baloney:
‘First and foremost, let’s consider the source. The story originated in a Hong Kong newspaper called Wen Wei Po, which oddly makes the claim without citing a source. With a couple of high-quality exceptions, Hong Kong media have a reputation for sensationalist and tabloidy stories that do not always turn out to be true. But, even by Hong Kong standards, Wen Wei Po is considered an unusually unreliable outlet.’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/01/03/no-kim-jong-un-probably-didnt-feed-his-uncle-to-120-hungry-dogs/
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1388773533.html
Boy, that chip on your shoulder about Julian Assange’s rapeyness sure hasn’t shrunk with time.
I would be interested in peoples thoughts about the idea of
Not talking about Climate Change
Why?
I have a feeling that we all have an inbuilt mechanism that wants us to win the argument and loose the war.
In other words is the goal is to change behaviour or change belief?
I think we should focus on behaviour change not belief change. Behaviours are so much easier to change than beliefs
So focus on the desired outcome, and on the behaviours we need to change to get to that outcome rather than on the binary ‘do you believe’ stuff we have now that seems to serve little or no purpose and does not bring people along.
Why haven’t we met aliens?
There are billions of habitual worlds in our galaxy, say some.
Well simple, its because the behaviors that break convention, that break ecological niches that hold a species in place, also break the worlds that species would need to get into space and come and meet us. The history of the rise of the west is the history of exploitation, disregard and disunity.
Behaviors resulting from pantheist and non-theist religions of the east were much more balance, better fitted, yet weren’t better fitted when it comes to Earth eating.
So the behaviors that balance with nature, turn off turn out of consumerism and individualism pushed by media in their great socialization efforts, are clearly the way forward.
How do we switch people onto them?
Well explain to them the hurt they are leaving their grand kids.
Do you love your grand kids?
“..I think we should focus on behaviour change..”
yeah..!..go vegan/plant-based..
..that’s a large part of our problem solved..
..and just buying a couple of solar-panels..
..and driving a prius..
..really does diddly-squat..
..eh..?
..so..really..anyone claiming to be ‘green’/’caring for the planet’/’caring for their childrens’ future’.. who is still eating animal-flesh/bye-products..
..is just engaging in auto-eroticism..
..eh..?
(greenpeace/green party-bbq..?..anyone..?..)
phillip ure..
These thoughts from Alan Bennett’s diary for 2013 say it all for me.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n01/alan-bennett/diary
‘8 April. The morning spent paying bills: British Gas (and electricity), Thames Water, Yorkshire Water, Camden Council, Craven District Council and Mr Redhead the coal merchant in Ingleton. Many of the bills are overdue, about which I am unrepentant. The only one I pay promptly and with no feeling of resentment is Mr Redhead’s.
It wasn’t always so. Before the public utilities were privatised one paid bills more readily, not just because they were considerably cheaper, which of course they were, but because one had little sense of being exploited. Now as I pay my water bills for instance, I think of their overpaid executives and the shareholders to whom the profits go and I know, despite the assurances of all such companies, that they are charging what they know they can get away with. Competition has not meant better service nor has it brought down prices, with some corporate behaviour close to sharp practice. British Gas, for instance, regularly omits to send me a first bill but only a reminder, which has no details about consumption. When challenged they say this may be because bills have been sent online. But how can this be when we have no computer? If one telephones and manages eventually to get through one is dealt with by someone always charming and even-tempered (and often Scots) who promises to look into it. But when in due course the bill comes again it is still with no details and coupled with threats of court action. So whereas once upon a time I paid my bills as Auden said a gentleman should, as soon as they were submitted, these days I put them off, paying sometimes only at the third or fourth time of asking or when I am assured (rhetorically, I know) that the bailiffs are about to call. I am no crusader but I wish there was a consumers’ organisation which could co-ordinate individual resistance to these companies, setting up non or late payment on such a scale that it would put a dent in the dividends of the shareholders and the salaries of the executives concerned.
This was written a few hours before I learned of Lady Thatcher’s death and it’s an appropriate epitaph.’
heh
Mrs Thatcher was a mirthless bully and should have been buried, as once upon a time monarchs used to be, in the depths of the night.
So now we are overwhelmingly, okay, a majority non-religious society, do we get to hang heretics too?
Oh no fair.
Its the economy stupid.
Christchurch Earthquake will add 1% to GDP. Key did not cause the Earthquakes.
Child demand for Milk. Key did not create Fonterra.
China-NZ trade growth, due to Labour freetrade agreement is attracting Australian companies to NZ.
Caveats.
Globally milk producers increasing their supply to China.
Slowdown in China.
Collapse in house prices.
Key did little to help and a lot of harm to the NZ economy.
multicultural nz (formerly the federation of ethnic councils) have put out this list of draft election policies: https://www.facebook.com/notes/multicultural-new-zealand-federation-of-multicultural-councils/multicultural-new-zealand-draft-election-policies-on-ethnic-affairs/665181876865340
is there really anything of that list that a left-wing party shouldn’t be doing? yes, it would be good if they talked about a living wage, given they recognise that ethnic minority communities are over-represented in terms of low wage jobs. but does that negate any of the other issues they have raised? should they stop advocating for these things and should we just ignore them because they are focusing on what we have in common?
i personally think it would be foolish for any political party to ignore this list of policies. it should be part of the range of things that need to be implemented to improve nz society.
You are not wrong and I was particularly pleased to see the recognition of the need for domestic assaults assistance. And I’ve have to say good luck with getting diversity througth the workforce and I hope the default position is “for both sexes”. FFS we have had many years of women born within the country and educated alongside males and we still don’t have even workplace gender diversity based on these groups.
Thatnks, stargazer. Yes they indicate a pay gap. Also under-representation of various ethnic groups in poltics and the public services.
It would also be good if the living wage, and/or poverty could be discussed more in connection with other aspects of diversity – gender, sexuality etc.
Government needs more representation of people from, and committed to others on low income background from diverse groups.
More multi-lingual focus – yes.
LEST WE FORGET:
Why they want to destroy Julian Assange
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”—George Orwell
IMF paper warns of ‘savings tax’ and mass write-offs as West’s debt hits 200-year high
TLDR: Austerity ain’t working.
Colour me surprised.
JO
plus 100
I listened to some people talking about media overkill when mandela died. I was in europe when thatcher died. For 48 hoyes sky cnn and bbc beatified her. I began to wonder if different thatcher died.
perhaps mandela pricked their consciousness while thatcher pricked wallets
Ralph Nader: ‘The Country You Destroyed’: A Letter to George W. Bush
Today, Iraq remains a country (roughly the size and population of Texas) you destroyed, a country where over a million Iraqis, including many children and infants (remember Fallujah?) lost their lives, millions more were sickened or injured, and millions more were forced to become refugees, including most of the Iraqi Christians. Iraq is a country rife with sectarian strife that your prolonged invasion provoked into what is now open warfare. Iraq is a country where al-Qaeda is spreading with explosions taking 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 lives per day. Just this week, it was reported that the U.S. has sent Hellfire air-to-ground missiles to Iraq’s air force to be used against encampments of “the country’s branch of al-Qaeda.” There was no al-Qaeda in Iraq before your invasion. Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were mortal enemies.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/03
For thse who smugly tell themselves that those on benefits are lazy and that todays youth are lazy and just dont want to work, please reconcile that view with this
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/02/one-in-10-jobless-yougov-poll
I think its far more complicated than that, In my previous position I used to hire through the local winz as the company liked to try and employ from within the local community wherever possible. All we hired were keen and enjoyed to varying degrees the job which although relatively physical was outdoors and paid better than minimum by @$2 ph.
The startling thing was the peer pressure that went on these guys from there so called mates once they had a job to provide booze etc. I had one damn near assaulted in the street because he wasn’t replying to his mates txt msgs which went something along the lines of “you think you’re to good to talk to me now you’ve got a job c**t” the fact he was working made no difference…not long after his so called mates robbed his house while he was at work. Fortunately he stuck it out but there were others prior who didn’t due to this kind of crap. Generally it was mates getting upset if they didnt head out to party on a work night or as we worked in the public space they would spend the day driving by giving them shit.
Really hard for a 18-22 yr old to cope with and frankly I’m at a loss as how to solve what is effectively bullying. Certainly those that caved to a degree and partied during the week struggled big time on the job despite there best intentions…
That is interesting. I have looked at those late booze hours and wondered who was drinking, who was partying, and whether they could do a job the next day, and if not working where the money was coming from.
It is my opinion that the leaders and lawmakers have by allowing even encouraging long alcohol serving hours, that they have been deliberately trying to get money from these young people and not caring that it is leading them into unsupportable addiction and have degraded their lives. Temptation to keep drinking is not easily resisted when you are already half-way drunk and ‘relaxed’. Then while unemployed the bad habits have developed of using drink to fill in the day – because this shameless government has not organised work for the dole to keep the young ones out of the pubs.
Tbh most drink at home or at a house party before heading into a pub around 1 am for an hour or so…. its just two pricey otherwise. The opening hours wouldn’t really change much.
That said I would often wander down to my local 4 square early on a Sunday morning to find a queue waiting for alcohol to continue on from the sat. Im generalizing but as it was Taita/Pomare most could i’ll afford it.
I honestly believe these small neighbour shops are a big problem as like you say once tipsy its hard to stop. At least the supermarkets are further away and in my experience far more stringent. Certainly it’s a bigger step to drive 10 min to town than wander down the local booze store at 6 30 am….
cricklewood
Your points insightful I think. I have noticed that it seems immigrants, such as Indian, are running small suburban booze shops in suburban areas and it is not a healthy look to be trying to make profit from this alcohol drug. The small shop I went into was stacked to the ceiling with booze of all sorts.
This would be in a small shopping centre where in my day you might go down to have a milk shake at the milk bar. Alcohol was still there but was saved for parties, and organisation was needed to buy a dozen beer or so for teenagers. Now as I say it is waved in the face of people of all ages, and it seems like lemonade with some alcohol, but just the other way round. It’s spirits being drunk from vodka, bourbon bottles, very high alcohol count. If it is allowed it must be okay is the thought.
Some neighbourhoods have followed through with the thinking and come to the idea that it is wrong and that there is a powerful group that acts against their young people, willing to encourage them so they spend the money which as you say they can ill afford. And probably start a lifetime weakness. It is said that the government is the first party to be addicted though, to the excise taxes.
I have just found Dr David Nutt who is a psychiatrist, was a UK head in the control of drugs official organisation, before he was sacked because he started doing some whistleblowing. Sacked summarily actually. And I don’t think he got any golden parachutes.
(He just said ‘the thing about alcohol is it changes your judgment’. My point about the way Stat – falling off horses with brain damage for the rider has ratio 1:350 and similar damage for ecstasy ratio 1:10,000 (think) – interesting comparison.)
Link for Dr Nutt – this is 11.28m version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cVEAxaLq-M
and
this is 58 m version downloaded by Uni of Otago NZ
and
http://addiction-dirkh.blogspot.co.nz/2013/09/dr-david-nutt-on-alcohol.html
and
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-nutt-alcohol-more-dangerous-than-crack/
Well, if some of the things I’ve heard are anything to go by – their parents.
That’s exactly what’s been happening. It was the, IMO, main reason why the drinking age was lowered. Our whole social system is all about producing profits for the rich and the only way to do that is to have as many people as possible purchasing the product/service.
Work for the dole isn’t the answer and never has been. Get these people out doing something challenging and of value to society, i.e, running out telecommunications, upgrading power grids, building wind generators, electrifying the entire rail network.
There is no reason for there to be any unemployment except ideology: National’s, Labour’s and the business sectors desire to keep wages down.
The Biodiversity Bubble: How What We Don’t Know Could Get Us Killed
So, still think we should cut back on the environmental protections in the RMA, drill up more oil and coal and build more roads?
National’s re-writing of history continues with the YoungNats claiming the success of the marriage equality bill as their own.
I actually think it’s pretty embarassing for them that only 27 voted.
urg – I should never have looked
Now I am arguing with idiots on the internet again… >_<
As a recent arrival in N.Z, I am still trying to get my head around various aspects of NZ politics……I spent the best part of a decade in UK as an activist to the lbgt council. However that is low priority in these desperate times and we need to unite, as far as possible, to the concerns of the many,compared to the hobby horses of a few.
In the U.K one of the hot topics being discussed is the idea of a,living wage.There is a minimum wage set which as absolutely useless in the U.K.
What will Labour do towards providing a living wage?What is the minimum wage here and how much does it need to be to benefit people in this country?
as I recall the minimum wage is about $5ph under what would be a living wage. Some local bodies and companies have chosen to adopt it already, not sure of individual party policies but I’d expect it to be an issue in the election from ladgrnmana, if policies have not already been announced.
To ecossemaid – the current NZ minimum wage is $13.50 an hour and the “living wage” has been suggested as at least $18 an hour. Labour has said it would extend the living wage to all Parliamentary workers as a starting point. Wellington City has said something similar. Auckland City Mayor had it as a campaign policy but he hasn’t managed to get it passed in the council yet. Not sure about other local govtsin NZ.
Something new – an email inviting me to subscribe to The Standard to get email of coments on Jose Pagani thread to which I have posted. Normally I would just tick the box on the page. Is this a new feature lprent?
Actually I can’t cope with getting every email on a busy post. I find it better to make a personal check of what has gone down, or search my archive and work my way down the headings and click on each one to see if someone has commented to me.
gw, that feature has been around for a while. Sometimes it seems to come and go. I also tend to try to switch it off when I can.
Well glad there are some out there working towards it.Thanks for you replies
In the immediate wake of Mandela’s death, I commented here on the way he, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other leaders of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa have argued that Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian territory represents the New Apartheid.
Despite a good deal of upset and gnashing of teeth from the Israel Lobby and its supporters, there’s really nothing controversial about the claim anymore. Hell, even a number of leading mainstream Israelis seem to accept it as apt.
Here’s an in-depth comparative analysis of South African and Israeli Apartheid from The Guardian’s Middle East (and former South African) correspondent, Chris McGreal.
Part One – here…… http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/06/southafrica.israel
and Part Two – here…… http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/07/southafrica.israel
Meanwhile, leading South African International Law Expert, long-time anti-apartheid activist and UN Special Rapporteur for the Middle East, Professor John Dugard. also sees striking similarities
Here ……http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/23/israelandthepalestinians.unitednations , here…….. http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/the-law-and-practice-of-apartheid-in-south-africa-and-palestine.html and here……. http://epalestine.blogspot.co.nz/2009/08/epalestine-john-dugard-two-states-or.html
Sasha Polakow-Suransky on Israel’s very close alliance with Apartheid South Africa during the 70s and 80s here…….http://mideastafrica.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/10/gold_stones_glass_houses
Norman Finkelstein on the fact that the SA Apartheid analogy is by no means controversial among sectors of the Israeli elite, here………http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/12/28/the-ludicrous-attacks-on-jimmy-carter-s-book/ and here…….http://www.democracynow.org/2007/1/8/norman_finkelstein_vs_gil_troy_on
I’ve just taken some time out.
Because I am really pissed off and finding it hard to remain objective., Also to decide if what I thought happened really did happen, to listen and think about what everyone said.
I was going to reply to Weka as promised, who seemed to be, finally, starting to do what she was asking me to do, Listen! I havn’t cooled down enough yet, however.
We all bring baggage, including different life experiences and points of view to the discussion.
At primary school I was a small geeky, bookworm who suffered a lot from the attentions of the school bullies.
The experience left me with a strongly developed sense of fairness, an instinct to fight for the underdog and and a contempt for those who hide behind their “Authority” abuse their power or position and “the rules”, (often of their own making).
I’ve found that the only way to deal with these people is to stand up to them. And , if you are different, be yourself. Most people will respect you for it.
Most of my life I have been getting into strife, standing up to authoritarian bullying types. (Most of them have been white males, by the way). Usually to help someone who hasn’t the power to stand up for themselves.
If you have been listening to me, you would know I am pretty pissed with the mess the current people in power (Also I agree, mostly white males, but not all), have been making.
I don’t think simply replacing authoritarian bullying white males with authoritarian bullying women, or authoritarian bullying RWNJ’s with authoritarian bullying lefties. is the answer however.
I, mostly stayed away from the conversation about rape.
That subject was hurtful enough. It was just a year since my daughters school friend had been murdered by her ex partner.
I didn’t need a discussion where I knew, unless I kept to every dotted I and crossed T of the QOT approved script I would be in the firing line.
This time I thought, “what gives QOT the right to dictate the terms of the conversation, and then bully people into submission with powerful accusations, which were neither fair, nor justified.. Moving into the house and walking around with hobnailed boots covered in dogshit from other conversations and then complaining that the males leave the toilet seat up.
I get it that some who are involved with the Labour party are angry with being marginalised and told to STFU. By “white dudes”. (Also I seem to remember by at least one brown dude and some white women). Taking it out on people here that are on your side though, is both unnecessarily divisive and counterproductive.
Respectful disagreement is healthy. I don;’t want to silence QOT or anyone else.
The point is we seem to be concentrating on one issue at a time, letting the right frame the debate and only getting the odd hard fought win.
I look around me and despair that, despite some wins, life for most of the people around me is getting shittier and shittier.
I see people in miserably paid dead end precarious jobs, if they have one. Women trying to bring up kids, in horrific circumstances, being pissed about by the gestapo at WINZ, and vilified by unthinking and judgmental people who have no clue about what they have to face. I talk kids out of committing suicide after yet another round between dodgy employers and WINZ. I saw the light go out in a gay kids eyes when he was bullied, and it came back at a gay wedding when he realised that he was not alone.
Like fuck, I don’t care about women’s rights, LBGT rights, the rights of people with disabilities. I have a mentally disabled son FFS. We are still hurting from fighting the system of mainstreaming, cost cutting and peoples attitude to the mentally ill.
When I suggest solutions like a UBI, Empowering those people is high in my thoughts.
The we have all the other important a necessary issues such as AGW and resource depletion. Making sure our kids still have a world to live in.
How do we use our energies on all the things that need doing?
The crazy thing here, is, that if QOT was really being told to STFU, on here, I would have backed her, for the same reasons I backed CV.
I would be surprised if CV regarded himself as a victim. He holds no punches when he disagrees with anyone and can be very forthright which, as a new poster some time ago, can be quite offputting. However, that’s the nature of a forum.
For what it is worth I dont want authoritarian women to replace authoritarian men. I am not sure I have read QOT s saying she would like that either.
Thanks KJT. I’m feeling much better. Not saying anything about anyone or anything. Just that I’m feeling much better. Haven’t particularly followed the CV and QOT thing anyway. Engagement seemed way too much like jumping into a serious blue between people both of whom touch me positively.