I can imagine Patrick Gower with a microphone in Shearer’s face… what’s the vote count, how can we believe it’s what you say if you don’t give us the vote count? Even though it’s a secret ballot. Then Shearer getting blasted all over the news if he doesn’t give the secret answer…
Which MP’s are going to be true to their beliefs that Shearer is not leadership material?
It will be interesting to see how many, if any? of the Labour caucus back their convictions and cast a no confidence vote in Shearer as leader. Also there should be a number of MP’s taking direction from their LEC to force a wider vote from the party membership surely? I will find it hard to swallow if atleast 6 votes are not confirmed nay sayers.
Beautiful day today! Winning the Labour/Greens government the country so badly needs takes a big step forward in a few hours. Well done to all those LP activists who helped democratise the party, particularly those like myself who wanted Cunliffe but will work for the good of the party and for the good of NZ even if he won’t be leader.
Yep, but I wouldn’t expect major changes. Too early to dump dead wood like Mallard et al. That can wait till closer to the election, when it would be too risky to challenge Shearer’s call.
Apparently the only way to kill a zombie is to take out the head.
Anyhoo, in lieu of Rogue Trooper:
…Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter,
Eight miles high and falling fast.
It landed foul on the grass.
The players tried for a forward pass,
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast.
Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune.
We all got up to dance,
Oh, but we never got the chance!
`cause the players tried to take the field;
The marching band refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
Hope someone has an attack on the National government lined up for running alongside the leadership vote. One inch up for labour (provided quality vote etc) and one inch down for national.
Otherwise of course the only political news will be “more leadership conflict for labour”
The Independent (UK) this weekend has an article about an event “today” that commemorates the 2nd wave Women’s Movement in the UK.
Today hundreds of the veteran activists from some of Britain’s most famous protests, ranging from Greenham Common to the miners’ strike, will gather for the first time. The worlds of social campaigning, politics and art come together today in a “Silver Action” event at the Tate Modern, London, where some 400 women campaigners aged over 60 will talk about their work.
Damn! Wish I could be there. That was the context in which I truly became politicised while living in London. I recognise one or two names in the article of women I knew at some point back then. Also the women mentioned and the range of their activities back in the 60s and 70s, show just how strongly the UK Women’s Movement was embedded in the grass roots left: its origins in Ruskin College – a place for educating trade unionists and people from “disadvantaged” backgrounds, with no formal qualifications: initially set up for educating working class men.
Although, I guess commemorations are fine, but there’s still too many crucial political struggles going on.
More than 700 pedestrians have been hit by cars at Auckland intersections over the past four years, and most victims were not paying attention to vehicles around them, distracted by cellphones or music players or succumbing to their own impatience.
When we moved to Vienna we couldn’t work out why drivers were impatient with our pausing before crossing the road at uncontrolled intersections, else they very courteously waited for us to cross. What a difference. Then we found out that cars must stop for pedestrians. It’s the law. The world didn’t end.
Indeed, while many drivers here are sensitive to pedestrians, many others are totally intolerant and/or oblivious. Since my accident the year before last (a result of my own carelessness), I am way more sensitive to how one careless moment can cause devastating impacts on the body. It continues to amaze me the number of drivers who speed across pedestrian crossings unaware that some of us are waiting to cross.
When I took driving lessons in the UK, before going for my UK licence, I was strongly schooled to visually scan around up-coming pedestrian crossings, looking for pedestrians, and preparing to stop in case an unexpected pedestrian stepped out. It is now pretty much second nature to me to do that.
Yes, we found UK drivers, in smaller cities in particular, very observant. I was actually talking about driver behaviour at intersections while walking today, which is probably why I picked up on the article. With a trip back to NZ imminent I’d strangely drifted back into stopping and waiting for cars at T-junctions, as I would do in NZ, without realising it, after about 4 or 5 crossings with drivers waiting for us to cross it gradually dawned on me what I was doing. I’ll have to be careful not reverse the error while back home.
Yep, the entire population sems to have forgotten that the streets were created for pedestrians. Cars came much much later and should be secondary in importance. Good luck with that though as today when that fact is mentioned people merely glaze over as it has never occured to them, such is the presumption that the streets were created for cars.
The streets most places are pretty dismal today. Try walking somewhere and you will find hardly any other people walking the streets or even in public places. The streets are ugly places now with whizzing cars and fumes, grey-black tarseal and concrete covering as many square metres as possible, hard, glare, noise, danger.
+1
I’m probably a little oversensitive to this issue because I walk a lot and have had a fair few inconsiderate drivers on controlled and uncontrolled crossings (it also really annoys me that the traffic light phasing doesn’t favour pedestrians, but that’s another story). It’s become sort of a hobby to compare drivers’ general attitudes toward pedestrians in different places.
The car traffic seems to go very fast in Vienna. When the crossing is controlled by lights I think that car drivers (quite rightly) assume that there will be no pedestrians on the road nor any jaywalkers. Therefore traffic clears quickly until the next phase for pedestrians. I noticed that it was very unwise to cross without the green- angry drivers! Maybe we pedestrians should follow the rules, but after a lifetime of drifting across when I feel like it, hard to change.
On the arterial routes, yes they do. I don’t know if there are variable speed limits in town, but it’s likely given the difference between those roads and others. I guess also with pedestrians having the right of way every where else drivers are not too keen when you cross on a red on an arterial route. Same with driving slowly in the fast lane…
Having grown up and lived for many years in Vienna, my hometown, I agree that they do drive faster, especially the “professional traffic” after 8am and pedestrians are directed by a road code in the same way as drivers. Driving slow in the fast lanes will get the professional drivers to pressure you to change lanes. Of cause it all looks denser due to the sheer volume- Vienna has about 2 mil people on 400 m2, compare Auckland with 1.3mil people on 1000 m2 – and with it the amount of vehicles, private and company on that spec of land. The driver license is another point. It is obtained after a very rigorous process (expensive) and tests both written and oral. People need to be at least 18 and have to have a full license before being allowed onto the road – there are no learners licenses. All in all – certainly not a dreamy ride.
However, the number of private cars is actually only 390 approx per 1000 people. This is mostly due to the fact that one really does not need a car in Vienna due to the excellent public transport service. I really mean that, not because I am from there but it is true.
I love your hometown Foreign Waka! Half time here and half in New Zealand would be perfect 😉
Yes, we don’t have a car and use the integrated public transport (trains, buses and trams) or walk to get around. A reduction in car-parking has also reduced the value of car ownership. We were accosted once by a couple of FPO people to sign a petition against the reductions. We spent ages telling them how good the transport system was and how we didn’t need a car before we realised who they were and the answers they were after. Woops. Of course with the central city pedestrianised it also makes it easier to do without a car when living in the inner ring.
The driver’s training does show. Drivers are observant around town and know what they’re doing.
Hey look, I am sorry to be a bastard (ironic huh?) but as one of your favourite (and continual) assertions is that Labour is a right-wing party I really have to call you out on something.
Don’t humour the poor simple-minded soul, Draco. One of those post-menopausal late-developers who clog up lecture rooms and demand extra explanations all the time.
Or the private school debater who oozes confidence and stupidity, only to be shell-shocked at university when their textbook (read “pro forma”) presentation is identified as failing to address the single fundamental factor that collapses their entire position.
On RadioNZ National program the Slippery lead National Government’s focus for 2013 is to be discussed in terms of what the ‘life-time’ cost of beneficiaries is,
In other words the present National Government having absolutely no idea how to stem the flow of red ink in the Governments accounts will now discuss in quiet polite voices how they plan to take away from those legal entitlements to welfare so as to be able to trumpet some bullshit balancing of the books as an election strategy for November 2014,
Should be a good listen if only to see which group of those currently receiving benefits are about to get it in the neck the hardest during the next 12 months…
If that is the case then I hope opposition parties do similar on, for example, lifetime costs borne by wage and salary earners to support the little tax paid by businesses such as farmers who take their gains through tax-free capital gain.
There are countless others.
It is overdue for fire to be fought with fire. This government gets away with all sorts of bullshit and the oppositions just whimper around the edges like sooky cowards with no chutzpa. Wussies.
Long may the Stalinist purge continue with too many MPs scared to vote to give us a say. Now the King/Mallard cabal will come after you one by one.
Andrew Little just forget Rongotai but be very worried about your list ranking too. The Stalinist cabal are going to centralise their power on list selection….you heard it here first! And all the others on the list, or with a seat they want to retire you from, just watch it…Prasad, Chauvel, Dyson, Robertson, Street….you’re going down.
But I’m off, no more pamphlet deliveries, no more donations, wine auctions, fundraisers….not off to join another party but I won’t be voting for Labour again.
Yep – Ad, Benghazi, Draco – both of us are also sad, and resigned. At least it will free up any spare time over the next couple of years NOT feeling obliged to attend meetings, organise, deliver pamphlets, raise funds, etc.
Labour should be able to form a government, with Winston’s help, even if it gets as low as 31% or 32%. But, the historic mission and purpose of the Labour Party seems to have been forgotten, at the very time that it is needed more than ever.
That is actually the point, especially younger ones have lost faith in a voting system where 32% with a bit of wiggle is perceived to be able to govern. Why? That is so far away from any majority that one can only wonder. Is that what Mr Shearer builds his confidence on? If it is even contemplated that 32% can go anywhere than FPP has never been changed.
OK, that was all as enlightening as MUD, the only point of real interest was Paula, the Minister of removing people form their entitlements, giving as a reason for the disparity in the figures of actual unemployed and the number of those currently collecting the dole is that both Sickness beneficiaries and those who receive the DPB who also have children over the age of 5 are now being included in the figures of the unemployed,
What tho of the heart of the discussion,
This ‘discussion’ centers on the figures that if those currently receiving a welfare benefit were to receive that benefit for a ‘lifetime’ the cost to the Government would be 78 billion dollars, (shock horror spit),
Lets put aside the little ‘fact’ for the moment that such a proposition FAILS at the first hurdle in that very few of those people as a % will receive those benefits ‘for a lifetime’, instead lets play the game as the Paula’s (Bennett and Rebstock) do, as monetarists,
Remembering all the while that the GROSS COST of all those benefits over a ‘lifetime’ is 78 billion dollars,(gasp shock horror) we can judge this against Government revenue from the figure that this is currently 60.6 billion dollars a year, (leaving aside for the moment that we are in the middle of a recession),
So, in ten years that Government revenue would have been 600 billion dollars set against a ‘lifetime’ welfare bill of 78 billion dollars,
In fifty years of Government revenue the total Government revenue collected will be, excuses here as my riffmatic aint so hot, a ball park figure of 3000 billion dollars against a ‘lifetime’ welfare bill of 78 billion dollars, and, say that slowly to yourself to see just how ridiculous the Paula’s are being in using such a figure as a crude club to attempt to turn people against beneficiaries,
Now being good little monetarists, (well just for this morning anyway), we in all honesty have to look at this equation from around all aspects of this 78 billion dollars GROSS that the Government in all it’s largesse will pay out over that ‘lifetime’ of payment,
Taxation!!! yes TAXATION, the Paula’s (Bennett and Rebstock) are using GROSS figures to arrive at the figure of 78 billion dollars, SO, using back of an envelope figures we can ‘see’ that direct taxation of that 78 billion dollars will result in 15% of that 78 billion NOT being paid to those beneficiaries at all,
Indirect taxation, you know the stuff, petrol tax, tobacco tax, tax tax tax etc, will result in the Government within 2 days of having paid out any of this 78 billion dollars recouping another 10% of the 78 billion dollars,
And, last but not least GS fucking T, at 15% will mean that within 2 days of having paid out any of the 78 billion dollars the Government will have raked back in another 15% of that 78 billion dollars,
But wait there’s more, yes sadly more, Beneficiaries spend what little monies they receive as part of that 78 billion dollars within 2 days into the local economy, what’s left after taxation is extracted that is, the goods and services bought by those beneficiaries from local providers are again taxed as profit from the pockets of those the beneficiaries buy the goods and services off of,
So here’s the Paula’s(Bennett and Rebstock), equation again from a ballpark income of 3000 billion dollars over a ‘lifetime’, 78 billion dollars will be paid out in welfare benefits 40% of which the Government will have within 2 days of paying this money out recouped as TAXATION,
What then to make of the 2 Paula’s(Bennett and Rebstock) shock horror 78 billion dollar ‘lifetime’ cost of welfare benefits, bullshit, simply blatant fucking bullshit is the best i can at this point muster from my limited vocabulary…
Would such short statement not be the job of labor in the house when these figures are being thrown around and hence have to be reported in the same way as Mrs Bennets statement?
Lolz, i dont’t think Bullshit is a word allowed,(under standing orders), to be uttered in the House, i wonder tho if ‘equine defecation’ might slip through…
“This ‘discussion’ centers on the figures that if those currently receiving a welfare benefit were to receive that benefit for a ‘lifetime’ the cost to the Government would be 78 billion dollars, (shock horror spit),”
and any journo worth the title would respond with “yeah but thats a sack or horseshit and you know it”
Paula, the Minister of parting people from what was once their legal entitlements, unintentionally painted Her and the other Paula’s (Rebstocks), monetary assertion of the ‘lifetime’ cost of beneficiaries as bullshit in the RadioNZ National interview this morning pointing out that the unemployment figures show that that benefit isn’t the ‘problem’ as the majority of those who access the unemployment benefit do so for short periods,
So, we now know that Paula has no pressing inducement to further attack unemployment benefit recipients besides having them prove that they have been looking for work,
She said as much also about the recipients of DPB, which just leads me to the conclusion that the most vulnerable cohort of mostly single people in our society are in the next 18 months to be subjected to Paula’s ‘help’ to move them off of that particular benefit,
Paula a number of times during the interview pointed out that Invalids Beneficiaries are paid a higher rate of benefit than those who receive the unemployment benefit, this is of course because the invalids benefit is expected by those who receive it and the Medical Professionals who test these individuals for work capability befor signing the relevant paper-work do not expect such people to be in any condition to work for a number of years if ever,
Paula tho knows best and we can assume that the National Government ‘plan’ to move 40,000 individuals ‘off benefit’ will be directed at these individuals, the economics of which National have given as much thought to as the 78 billion dollar ‘lifetime cost’ of benefits i will get down to discussing later…
now, anyhoo, this is just for the locals, and then i will sit back out of your hair.
an argillaceous liason around the ear as a scruffily draped phaethon parked a Malt magnesia exertion beneath the quasia dilantern.purslonely, it’s a bitter sweet sola number. Mind the salt Sister shiney washer, Let Robin save the day from the pun under your bed. To the emperor we dispose (please don’t let my tyre down; I enjoyed the walk) A pound a round The Globe. Beep Beep bop a loo bop
a little melting. Talk about pissisting down a man’s deep furrows.tick The Other Kind a pair of brown eyes walk alone (to be Farr, I’ve always followed the news to see what’s blown up today)
spinning wheel goes round and round the Gestalt chair, yet no bodies there.took the money and run.
On his way into the caucus, David Cunliffe said it was a secret ballot so he would not discuss how he would vote. In January he had said he would endorse Mr Shearer. Mr Shearer outflanked Mr Cunliffe in an effective challenge at the party conference last year.
Many other MPs going in also refused to say how they would vote, saying it was a secret ballot.
Slight difference between a frontbencher refusing to endorse the leader at conference while voting to change the election format into a form that might be advantageous for him (while the leader abstained from that vote), and a backbencher who has previously endorsed the leader walking into the caucus room on the day of what looks like a routine confidence endorsement.
A secretive funding organisation in the United States that guarantees anonymity for its billionaire donors has emerged as a major operator in the climate “counter movement” to undermine the science of global warming, The Independent has learnt . . .
In my internet travelling, I often come across the denialist position that climate change is a conspiracy. Ironic situation is ironic.
Well, after THAT news today it may be safe to assume that the only champagne corks popping tonight will be in the abodes of Team Shearer and those of the right wingers.
Instead lets raise a glass of red to The Greens and give a nod to Mana. All power to you. All power to us as voters too. We need to rally togther and to unify. Its up to us as well. Collectively and individually we have to get those non voters educated and motivated. Its a big task ahead.
. . . Shooting the messenger is still a favourite pastime of despotic regimes and corporate institutions and their lawyers, who use various types of silencers on their weaponry, aimed at those who light even a candle to disturb the dark of corruption . . .
Just for something different eh vto? You Cantabrians must be built of strong stuff. I’d have been a mess along time ago if I was in your shoes. The heaving earth beneath your feet is one thing but it must be something else to have the strength to take on insurers and cope with being treated like irksome peasants by a contemptuous govt. Kia Kaha.
Ha, yeah cheers, but we are mere mortals and I think most populations would just deal with it all the same way. As for being a mess – yep, there is plenty mess in the population. Strung out and worn out. Especially when the Great Earth Monster lets loose right under your arse…
“The Panel” continues its ghastly decline
Radio NZ National, Monday 4 March, 2013
Jim Mora, Jonathan Krebs, Tino Pereira
We are already into the fourth week of this year’s version of Jim Mora’s program “The Panel”. Sadly, the producers have made no innovations or improvements to the format at all; Jim’s volubility is as insufferable as ever, his blithe condescension is if anything even worse, and the “talent” is drawn from the same stagnant pool of lacklustre sycophants as it was last year, and the year before.
Today’s edition was typical….
MORA: All right, the next subject is ACC payouts. Some of these claims to ACC are hilarious! There were fifty claims for sunburn! Hur hur hur hur hur!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha!
MORA: Hur hur hur hur hur! Fourteen thousand claims for insect bites…
TINO PEREIRA: Ha ha ha ha ha!
MORA: There were one hundred and ninety-five claims for windsurfing and—hur, hur, hur, hur!—two hundred and eleven for bodyboard injuries!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha ha!
JIM MORA: Hur hur hur! And 938 barbecue injuries! Hur hur hur hur hur!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha ha!
TINO PEREIRA: Ha ha ha ha ha!
MORA: Professor Grant Duncan from Massey University joins us. Hur hur
hur hur!
PROFESSOR DUNCAN: I am concerned about this apparent trivialization of injuries.
MORA: Uhhhh….
PROFESSOR GRANT DUNCAN: I don’t think these injuries are trivial. If you get stung by a swarm of wasps you need to get yourself to hospital. I think it’s dangerous if we start to trivialize injuries like this.
MORA: Hmmmm. Inevitable with media reportage though….
SOAPBOX….
MORA: Now’s the time we find out what our Panelists have been thinking about. Jonathan, you want to talk about university fees?
KREBS: Yeah, I don’t have anything that’s really NEEDLING me at the moment, Jim, but my daughter Harriet is off to university and I have had to pay $6,000 for her accommodation and $7,000 for course fees, which made me pucker up a bit!
Thankfully rain fade brought me to my senses but it’s a doozy ain’t it? Poor buggers! Still, I guess it pays the mortgage aye and its cleaner than the usual form of prostitution. They can probably wait till they get home before they have to have a shower!
What if David Cunliffe started his own party, i’m sure he would get a truckload of
support, who needs the s–t that has been dished out to him, just a thought.
UNWATCHABLE! SEVEN SHARP IS A DISASTER
One’s dreadful new current affairs show will not survive
SEVEN SHARP, Inaugural broadcast, Television One, Monday 4 March 2013
Alison Mau, Greg Boyed, Jesse Mulligan and assorted others
Alison Mau’s credibility, already pretty unimpressive, has plunged to an all-time low over the weekend, following her ludicrous few days of dishonestly lionizing “Sir” Paul Holmes as the greatest broadcaster who ever lived. It was ominous that she debased her currency so grievously just before this show’s opening.
Anybody who has looked at his Twitter account or seen him try to ad-lib while reading the News knows that Greg Boyed is about as funny as a parking ticket. On the evidence of tonight’s show, his idea of humour is to make sarcastic remarks. Not funny sarcastic remarks, though; Boyed is no Charlie Brooker. His first contribution to the dreadful three-person opening remarks sequence, was to make a sarcastic swipe at Titewhai Harawira, smirking with derision as he called her “that paragon of reason.” It was the sort of remark that the late Paul Holmes would have made, but Boyed has none of Holmes’s leavening wit.
Jesse Mulligan, who is billed as a comedian, decided to go for the big laughs: “Now we were going to have the Prime Minister cut a ribbon for the start of the show, but he wasn’t available.” Then he laughed: “Naaah, actually he WAS available, he just didn’t want to come on. Ha ha ha ha ha!” Tellingly, neither Alison Mau nor Greg Boyed could squeeze out a laugh to support the poor fellow. They were clearly wishing the ground would swallow them up. And so, no doubt, were most viewers.
Barry Soper’s South African squeeze Heather Du Plessis-Allan announced that she was going to do a “puff-piece” on John Key. “What else would you expect?” she laughed. And that’s just what she did.
I bailed after five minutes. It was simply unwatchable.
observing the political machinations (under the hood and on the deck) in this country, it is no surprise we have wrong-headed where we are going. Kubrick may be correct, no amount of writing on The Wall this season and as for roman Ghosts! In ADDition, any suggestions other than auto-pilot or Siberia? What is reaped is what is grown to make of no effect when one leg is shorter than the other or missing benignly. It’s a minefield on a moon lit night through vanity and vineyards across the red cod reef Clive; If not, a co-ordinated portamanto is being drawn as we pick up after others (my notes have been binned in the recycling, blown away like the sand of a mandala) I really don’t mind if we sit this one Out (we may make you feel but we can’t help but think…back to the scrap heap) 🙁
Last Post for our loyal side-kick soldier.
Get LAo Daily (this cat’s not comin’ back) arrivederci, auf wiedersehen pets. bye 🙁 🙂
observing the political machinations in this country, it is no surprise we have wrong-headed where we are going. Kubrick may be correct; no amount of writing will break down The Wall this season and as for roman Ghosts? In Addition, any suggestions other than auto-pilot or Siberia? What is reaped is what is grown to make of no effect when one leg is shorter than the other or missing altogether.It’s a mine-field on a moonlit night through vanity and vineyards across a red cod sand-Bar.If not a co-ordinated portamanto is being drawn.Picking up after others as I deposited my own notes in a recycling bin, blown away like a sand mandala. Really don’t mind if I sit this one Out
(we may make you feel but we can’t help but think…off to the scrap heap again).
Last Post for our trusty side-kick soldier.Get LAotea Daily. (this cat’s not coming back).
2/3rd of the page down on the left side entitles Inside John Keys Office a nice little 4.5 min vomit fest of Key love in talk about 1 sided reporting. But they have to do somethinf after that crap 7 Sharp Maybe they could get Hooton on it a crap writer on a crap show.
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AN OPEN LETTER FOR SIGN ON BY ORGANISATIONS AND MOVEMENTS ACROSS THE WORLD, ALLIED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INEQUALITY. This letter was released at the UN Political Forum on 9 July, where the Sustainable Development Goal on inequality was reviewed. The purpose of the letter is to call out the ...
We asked a young gay science student and critic of trans ideology and the trans activists’ assault on women’s and gay rights to outline his views on Redline. Thanks to him for his article. by Cian Ó Catháin Gender identity ideology (Gender ID) is ripping through western society at full ...
The Environment Committee is currently hearing submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill, and Stuff is reporting on the submissions. Today, they're covering yesterday they heard from "NZ" Steel:NZ Steel has told MPs it may be forced to close with the loss of thousands of jobs if changes aren't made to ...
Students are striking against climate change on September 27. And this time, they're asking everyone to join them:Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure ...
Peter McKenzie has a piece on Newsroom this morning about how local body politics is awash with property developer cash. 70% of all the donations in the 2016 Wellington mayoral election came from property developers. And its pretty obvious what they want in exchange:That’s particularly important in local government, according ...
Source: Unknown, twitter user Recently, I wrote a (relatively) short paper titled as above, to explore what self-determination could like in a practical sense. Maybe I’m a bit of an international trade truther or something, but I absolutely believe trade is at the heart of achieving peace and self-determination. Since ...
In the 1960s, after I had graduated with a first-class Oxford postgraduate law degree, I joined the British Foreign Office as the top entrant of my year. There, I worked for a couple of years on European affairs and was eventually posted to the Embassy in Brussels. After this exposure ...
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...
I heard a 45 minute interview with Monica Lewinsky talking to TED’s Chris Anderson on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend, and have listened to it another two times out walking. I recommend it. Highly. Man, I am so impressed with how this woman has integrated her life experiences and ...
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure, London, Penguin, 2019, 352pp; reviewed by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind is a timely book, whose ...
When the Justice Committee reported back on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill, free speech advocates breathed a sigh of relief. As originally introduced, the Bill reitered the ancient offence of "scandalising the court" - basicly, a special sedition law protecting judges from criticism. The select ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. Since then - crickets. Which raises the obvious question: are they actually going to do this, ...
Back in March, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act. 285 people submitted on it. Now, Stuff has trawled through those submissions, and the case for reform is strong:The Justice Ministry asked Kiwis what they thought was ...
National's prisoner voting ban has gone down as one of the worst laws in New Zealand history. Passed after a farcical debate (including this farcial speech from ACT MP Hilary Calvert), it has subsequently been found to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act by the High Court, Court ...
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...
by Daphna Whitmore US social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt spoke on 1 August in Auckland to a crowd of around one thousand people. He is best known for his bookThe Coddling of the American Mind which examines the new climate of trigger warnings and acute sensitivity of Gen Z. ...
What an extraordinarily depressing experience it is to be compelled to watch, at 12,000 miles distance, the contortions and machinations of the British political class as they set about their determined attempt to overturn the decision taken by the British people that they wish to leave the European Union. The ...
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...
by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
Since scientists started studying climate change, they have warned that it will reduce food production. And now, its happening:The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some ...
The Abortion Legislation Bill just passed its first reading, 94-23. Its a far bigger margin than I expected, even allowing for the Winston factor, and it reflects the overwhelming support there is in this country for reform. but that support isn't a new thing - it has existed for literally ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Referendums Framework Bill. The Bill does what it says on the label - establishes a framework for referenda. Things you may want to address in your submission: Whether the bill should apply only at the 2020 election, or whether it should ...
The Thompson and Clark / MBIE spying scandal continues to result in fallout, this time in the form of a report on the implementation of MBIE's "Operation Exploration", its internal operation to enforce the infamous Anadarko Amendment which criminalised protests against the oil industry. MBIE's enforcement operation was tainted by ...
So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
Last week, the ongoing democracy protests in Hong Kong saw a pro-Hong Kong student assaulted at the University of Auckland. The Chinese consulate in Auckland followed this up with a press release "express[ing] its appreciation to the students for their spontaneous patriotism" - effectively condoning the assault and inciting further ...
Only those who close their eyes and minds to the evidence can still be in any doubt that we are facing a climate change crisis. The evidence is conclusive that the world is not only getting inexorably hotter, but also that the rising temperatures are creating a number of other ...
Rural communities are wailing about forestry conversions "taking land out of production" and putting it into locking up carbon. Its driven purely by economics: there's more money and lower costs in carbon than in sheep or beef, and if carbon prices rise, there'll be more net money than dairy even. ...
This week, the government introduced its (underwhelming) Abortion Legislation Bill. And despite having negotiated the text of the bill through the coalition process, Winston Peters is now suggesting that he will demand a referendum on it:NZ First leader Winston Peters has hinted that his party may only support the Government's ...
Blowing-Up The House: Is Winston Peters planning to put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters? The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she ...
Last night the police dramatically incresed their numbers at Ihumātao, shoving over protestors and threatening them with arrest. Despite police talk about the need to maintain "public order" and prevent a "breach of the peace", there appeared to be absolutely no justification for this: the protest camp is, was, and ...
A Cult, that many actors, politicians, and those with a low IQ are joining is sweeping across civilisation, with one main intention – ending humans reign on Earth. Starting as a well meaning though deeply flawed theory, that the Earth was warming due to mankind emitting greenhouse gasses, it was ...
Today's abortion reform announcement is just the latest in a long line of disappointing decisions or outright failures from the Labour government. The 90-day law. KiwiBuild. A capital gains tax. Climate change. Every time they make one of those decisions, we hope for better next time. No repeal of the ...
The Greens used their party conference over the weekend to push for a rent-to-own scheme, where people would be able to work towards home ownership by renting from the government. Its a sensible policy, and one which could make a real difference to home ownership rates. But its also basicly ...
by Daphna Whitmore Over the past fortnight, thousands of people have come to the Ihumātao land protest in South Auckland. On 23 July police prepared to evict a few dozen people who had maintained the encampment at Ihumātao for the past three years. As hundreds of supporters arrived the ...
The following article is translated from an article in Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of the French revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle). The United States’ blacklisting of the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, which took shape in Google’s ban on Huawei using its systems on its phones, marks a ...
There is a military phrase: “Full spectrum dominance”. It refers to the all-encompassing policy to dominate across all spheres of war. Lately, that has come to include the internet – in other words, cyberwarfare initiatives. That is in addition to land, sea, air and the like. Now, if ...
The IMF issued a Report on the state of the Economy as it is at present. Some of it points out significant issues that certainly warrant attention, but that we know already exist. Some of it is very much tied to the very obvious context of global concerns, that everyone ...
I'm glad to see the Lib Dems won.I had a moment of terror yesterday thinking that the Conservatives might cling on, due to a combination of Johnson's elevation to the premiership, the apparent uselessness of the Lib Dem candidate (who had failed to be elected in other constituencies) and the ...
. . Current Leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges gave the usual rah-rah speech to the Loyal & Faithful in Christchurch today (27 July). With National’s party polling and his own personal popularity sliding steadily in the polls, Mr Bridges has not much left to reverse his fortunes. ...
Those concerned for Langridge’s wellbeing say they hope he’ll change his mind when he sees the ocean coming. The protester who has vowed to stand outside Parliament every day until the Government announces a climate emergency says he accepts that his quest will most likely end in drowning. Ollie Langridge, ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the report of the Small Business Council will help maintain the momentum for innovation and improvements in the sector. Mr Nash has thanked the members of the Small Business Council (SBC) who this week handed over their report, Empowering small businesses to aspire, succeed ...
Extra Police officers are being deployed from Northland to Southland with the graduation of a new wing of recruits from the Royal New Zealand Police College. “The graduation of 78 constables today means that 1524 new constables have been deployed since the government took office,” says Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
An Auckland Homelessness Collective is optimistic extra government support for sustaining tenancies signals a commitment to a multi-pronged approach to tackling homelessness. ...
Wanaka-based trust ONE New Zealand will be hosting six days of talks, workshops and hands-on activities with local and national experts to educate, inspire and enable grassroots action towards a sustainable future. ...
In last week’s episode of Politics in Full Sentences, David, Brooke and Ruwan discussed why Jacinda Ardern has been lecturing our friends overseas, why Andrew Little called ACT's three strikes law “fascism”, whether he will give prisoners the right to ...
“Community safety must be the paramount consideration when releasing an offender, and the only way for that to be achieved is for the offender to acknowledge their crimes.” ...
“District Health Boards are failing to foster a culture of distributed clinical leadership, despite its demonstrated benefits to the sector,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS). ...
Ratepayers around Auckland were spitting out their morning coffees listening to Phil Goff’s incredible claims on breakfast radio today that this election is about ‘honesty’ and that Aucklanders can trust him on his promises. Auckland Ratepayers’ ...
The Hōkai Rangi plan for reducing Māori reoffending announced today fails to fulfil the Waitangi Tribunal’s recommendations, says justice organisation People Against Prisons Aotearoa. Minister Kelvin Davis announced the plan this morning, which aims ...
Waatea News at the invitation of the North Island Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency will exclusively broadcast the next Māori-led Inquiry into Oranga Tamariki starting today at 1pm. ...
Staff at the Ministry of Social Development say they are enthusiastic about the government’s $54 million investment in housing the homeless, with many describing it as a welcome change. ...
Today posters have gone up outside ANZ branches across New Zealand to expose ANZ’s sponsorship of an exclusive oil industry group, ‘The Petroleum Club’. The satirical posters play on ANZ’s recent ad campaigns, replacing the banks’ tagline ‘healthy ...
Imagine a country where children look forward to walking or cycling to school, parents arrive home safely, and the journeys we take for work or pleasure do more than leave us alive or uninjured, they also improve our lives. This is happening now in countries ...
Sunday, 18 August, 2019 - Environmental groups and well known New Zealanders are preparing to deliver a 55,000 strong petition to the steps of Parliament tomorrow, calling on the Government to protect the world’s smallest dolphin. ...
The Government’s proposed rescue plan must be strengthened because it is the last chance to save Māui dolphins from extinction and secure the future for Hector’s dolphins, Forest & Bird says. ...
Simon Shepherd: Roads, schools, hospitals, prisons, the building blocks that keep society functioning. And we don't have enough. It's called the infrastructure deficit and will be the focus of a major conference this coming week. The man charged with ...
New Zealand has been issued a stark challenge from Pacific leaders to dramatically upscale its action to address climate breakdown, Oxfam says, after a clear rallying cry from nations at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum. ...
Support for Recreational Dope Going ‘Up in Smoke’ Family First NZ is welcoming yet another poll showing plummeting support for legalising cannabis in New Zealand. The Horizon Research poll shows support for legalising has plummeted from 60% last ...
The prospect of ending wider cannabis prohibition looks increasingly unlikely. Over the last nine months, the percentage of New Zealanders who would vote for legalising the personal use of cannabis has declined at a near linear rate of around 10% per ...
“It’s disappointing that news out of the United States of hospitalisations linked to illegal street drugs is somehow seen as relevant to the New Zealand vaping scene,” says Ben Pryor, Director of Alt New Zealand – the largest Kiwi-owned vaping company. ...
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) welcomes the successful passing of Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill through parliament, by the New Zealand Government. ...
Today’s news from the Electoral Commission has provided the party with the clarity it was seeking around use of the word “Coalition” being used as the brand name of the party. ...
A recently released Otago University study has provided further evidence that low-quality housing is a significant problem in Aotearoa. This has prompted the Chief Executive of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ) Paul Evans to question “why ...
With the BNZ-Business NZ PMI signaling manufacturing is contracting , the Government needs to seriously consider tax relief, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . ...
The New Zealand Maori Council has called for an overhaul of the Public Services executive ranks as the Corrections debacle shows mis-management and incompetence at the highest level. Matthew Tukaki, Executive Director of the New Zealand Maori Council has said ...
Findings from the 2018 New Zealand Consumer Survey have been released and the results are in; 48 per cent of respondents consider their purchases based on how ethically employees are treated. ...
The responsibility for the fact that Westland Milk Products is now in the hands of an overseas conglomerate 25% owned by the Chinese government can be laid fair and square at our government's doorstep. ...
As Fonterra is projecting multi million dollar losses for the second year in a row, it is clear the writing is on the wall for dairy as more and more Kiwis turn to plant milks. 22nd August is International Plant Milk Day and there is now a different plant ...
The $65,000 granted to Interislander so it can install electric vehicle chargers on its ferries is the most absurd waste of money yet to be delivered by the “Low Emissions” vehicle fund, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...
Wellingtonians will have the chance to hear international child rights experts from Ireland, Scotland and Samoa speak at the Making Child Rights Real in Aotearoa New Zealand seminar to be held in the city on Wednesday 21 August. ...
Paul Evans, Chief Executive of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ), is advocating a balanced approach to the development of productive land. ...
CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group) says that new research from the University of Otago provides a solid foundation for why the Government must not delay instating a comprehensive Warrant of Fitness for tenanted homes in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that an officer drove carelessly during a pursuit and that this was the primary cause of a collision with a motorcycle that injured the rider. ...
Responding to the Prime Minister’s commitment of $150 million in funding for climate change response in the Pacific, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says: “It is no secret that many Pacific nations lack serious oversight when it ...
AUT research not only shows an increase in political affiliation, but that candidates affiliated to a central political party are more likely to win seats in Auckland local government. ...
On the 23rd of August School Strike NZ will join Ollie Langridge in his 100th day of sitting outside of New Zealand Parliament calling for the government to declare a climate emergency. School Strike 4 Climate NZ also demand that Parliament acknowledge ...
You have stood up for what is fair, and I am sure you will speak for over 7 million people who have been muted and rendered voiceless in Indian occupied Kashmir for more than a 10 days now. I am writing to bring to your notice the plight of Kashmiri ...
In the last 10 months alone, 11 petitions have been delivered to Parliament calling for medicines to be funded by Pharmac. Today, another nine petitions have been launched by Patient Voice Aotearoa (PVA) members asking that life changing, saving and extending ...
When we were first working to get Miscanthus approved for import into New Zealand, the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) waived the fee for their work because they thought that having Miscanthus in New Zealand was so very much in the ...
PHARMAC’s recent decision to fund two additional drugs from December this year has been widely welcomed by patients and the general public alike. The drugs, Kadcyla and Ibrance, are used in the treatment of advanced lung and breast cancers and will ...
Animal rights organisation SAFE is urging the Government to include experts and advocates from outside the agriculture industry on its newly announced winter crop grazing taskforce. ...
The Government’s plans to prohibit housing on ‘productive’ farmland will serve as yet another regulatory tax on housing, and is a shameful breach of Jacinda Ardern’s promise to fix housing supply, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . ...
The latest round of the Ethnic Communities Development Fund opens today, supporting projects that grow the leadership and capability of ethnic groups, improve cultural understanding, and ensure our ethnic communities are a vibrant and celebrated part ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is warning of the dangers of hiking excise tax, in response to calls from a former Prime Minister for stronger action on alcohol harm. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “It seems inevitable ...
LGNZ will be cautiously assessing the wider implications of the newly proposed National Position Statement on Highly Productive Land (NPS-HPL), noting that that it traverses a number of highly complex policy areas including housing affordability and property ...
The new joint from the team behind one of Wellington’s favourite craft beer bars is dedicated to minimal-intervention, organic wine – and more exciting things are coming to the heritage building it’s housed in.Before the Cadbury factory opened in Dunedin in 1930, New Zealanders ate Cadbury chocolate made in England. ...
Alex Casey chats to Bree Tomasel about hosting Celebrity Treasure Island NZ, farting in the ZM studio and going viral on the regular. The most important thing you need to know about Bree Tomasel is not the fact that she peed her pants during Celebrity Treasure Island NZ, but the glee ...
Dr Bryce EdwardsAnalysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – The election race is on. The nominations process for local government positions has now closed, and the political campaign is officially underway. But does the public care? Will many of us even vote for any of the various mayoral or council ...
At Eden Park on Saturday night, the Wallabies were on the receiving end of a ruthless players’ revenge, writes Scotty StevensonThe rain came. It always seems to at Eden Park, just as the Wallabies warm up on the pitch, dreaming of ending a drought. It came from the west, the ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Local government Michael Fallow (Stuff): Your council – what’s its job description? Dileepa Fonseka and ...
Protesters occupying land at Ihumātao will begin a four-hour hikoi to Mt Albert on Thursday to present a petition calling on the Prime Minister to visit the land. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamie Walvisch, Lecturer, Monash University This morning an Extinction Rebellion protester was arrested after hanging from a rope over the William Jolly Bridge in Brisbane, blocking all lanes to peak hour traffic. And earlier this month in Brisbane, more than 70 climate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Jobson, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Monash University Many of us enjoy writing in a diary, reading autobiographies or nostalgically reflecting with others about past times. Why is remembering our past so important? Are there downsides? And what can we do ...
Roll Red Roll is a brutal, painfully illuminating documentary on the Steubenville High School rape case, a shocking crime that made headlines worldwide. Emily Writes reviews. This review discusses rape and sexual violenceAugust 11, 2012: two teenage boys rape an unconscious teenage girl as two of their peers watch and ...
By RNZ Pacific Tuvalu’s Prime Minister has condemned the Australian Prime Minister’s conduct at last week’s Pacific Islands Forum, calling Scott Morrison’s attitude “unfortunate” and “neo-colonial,” and questioning Australia’s future in the 18-member body. In an interview with RNZ on Sunday, Enele Sopoaga also threatened to pull Tuvaluan labour from ...
The second hui of the Māori-led inquiry into Oranga Tamariki takes place in Hamilton today. Newsroom, in partnership with Radio Waatea, are broadcasting it live from 1pm. ...
Prolific, award-winning Palmerston North poet Paula Harris somehow manages to be stroppy and properly vulnerable all at once. Here, she writes about her first slam competition – and why she cried all the way home. I am old enough to have given birth to most of the people here.Sure, there’s a ...
High speed rail links between cities could play a massive role in revitalising regional New Zealand, says a visiting transport infrastructure expert. Professor Andrew McNaughton spoke to Alex Braae. Imagine commuting from Hamilton to Auckland, and it only taking an hour to get there. It’s a vision of how the right ...
On the good days, riding a bike is the best. But in Auckland there aren’t nearly enough of those days, and unless decision makers take urgent action, that’s not going to change.This piece originally appeared on Bike AucklandMy first bike crash in central Auckland happened on Symonds Street. I was ...
It's not since 1989 that a mayoralty campaign in the southern city has been so unpredictable - a record 14 candidates have put their names forward. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Mills, Hon Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney On the morning of the last Monday in April, 2019, federal election officials opened the doors of more than 500 pre-poll voting centres around Australia, and waited for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Veronica Alfano, Research Fellow, Australian Catholic University Memorising poetry was once common in classrooms. But it has, for the most part, gone out of style. There are good reasons for this. Memorisation can clash with creativity and analytical thought. Rote learning can ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darren Paul Fisher, Head of Directing, Department of Film, Screen and Creative Media, Bond University What do J.J. Abrams, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Shonda Rhimes, David Lynch, Aaron Sorkin, Donald Glover, Jenji Kohan, Jordan Peele, Tina Fey, and Joss Whedon have in common? They ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Mayors launch bids to return in Auckland and Wellington, Hamilton’s skyline could change significantly, and support for cannabis legalisation plummets in poll.Two incumbent mayors have launched their re-election campaigns over the weekend, with a bigger fight on their hands than ...
MediaWorks has been lobbying the Government to turn TVNZ 1 into a non-commercial channel to help stem its own financial bleeding. Frustrated, and getting nowhere, it’s decided to change tack. ...
Customs has cracked down on a GST rort, leaving Trade Me to pay back thousands of dollars to customers who had new cameras and smartphones seized at the border. ...
The 37-8 result meant the Black Ferns finished with a handy 5-1 record for the year, suggesting they are tracking well enough towards a successful defence of the 2021 World Cup. ...
New Zealand has long been the world’s imagined lifeboat – and increasingly for something more than just escape, writes Elle Hunt.One Friday morning in January 1847, Charles Dickens wrote to his friend John Forster that he was “disposed to go to New Zealand and start a magazine”. The quote was ...
New Zealand is one of only two developed countries, along with the US, that permits direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines, and it needs to stop, writes Dr David Menkes. It’s been a long time coming: a new Consumer report makes it clear that most New Zealanders want to see a ban ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison has a sharp lecture for bureaucrats about their KPIs, in a comprehensive speech laying down how he expects the Australian Public Service to operate under his government. Morrison stresses the service must be ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has issued a timetable for the government’s dealing with the recommendations from the royal commission into banking, superannuation and financial services, which aims to have all measures needing legislation introduced by the ...
By Ghinan Salman in Surabaya As many as 43 Papuan students were taken to the district police headquarters after Indonesian police fired teargas and forced their way into a student dormitory in the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya at the weekend. The Papuan students were forcibly removed from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Senior Associate, Grattan Institute Each new generation of Australians since Federation has enjoyed a better standard of living than the one that came before it. Until now. Today’s young Australians are in danger of falling behind. A new Grattan Institute ...
Jamie Wall reviews Jonah, the two-part Three telefeature that follows the life of our most famous All Black, and finds it an effective but mixed retelling of the legend.Honestly, it’s a wee bit disappointing that the only notable on-screen dramatisation of the All Blacks in recent years was centred on replacement ...
We love it battered and served with chips, but tarakihi stocks aren’t doing well and another big cut to commercial catch limits is in the works. Ah yes, terrakee, that’s a fish, right?Well, first things first, let’s say it correctly. Pronounce every syllable, remember the Māori vowel sounds (A-E-I-O-U), roll the ...
Good on their own, even better with cheese – these crisp, moreish crackers are destined to become your new go-to savoury snack.These crackers have been on high rotation in our household – they’ve filled lunchboxes, accompanied fine cheeses on evening platters and been eaten by the fistful straight from the jar. ...
Open mike 04/02/2013 
by Philip Ferguson This weekend just past marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the most famous of the great 1960s music festivals. It was held over the weekend (Friday-Monday) of August 15-18, 1969. Woodstock was a highpoint of the US ‘counter-culture’, and also the beginning of its end. When exploring the ...3 hours ago
Last week, Australia sabotaged the Pacific Forum by opposing action on climate change. Their Deputy Prime Minister followed that up by saying that Pacific Peoples could always pick Australian fruit - just as they had done in the era of blackbirding. And now, that arrogant, tone-deaf approach has drawn a ...3 hours ago
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...1 day ago
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...1 day ago
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...3 days ago
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Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...3 days ago
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...5 days ago
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...5 days ago
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...5 days ago
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...5 days ago
Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...5 days ago
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...5 days ago
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ... 5 days ago
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...6 days ago
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So Shearer probably slept well last night, but reckons he hasn’t sounded out his support for today’s vote.
Hope it’s not a foregone 100%.
CV said the other day that the ballot is secret, so theoretically we shouldn’t know the numbers afterwards.
I can imagine Patrick Gower with a microphone in Shearer’s face… what’s the vote count, how can we believe it’s what you say if you don’t give us the vote count? Even though it’s a secret ballot. Then Shearer getting blasted all over the news if he doesn’t give the secret answer…
Yeah Gower is one of the new breed of ‘nasty make it up’ type of reporter. Can’t get a story then just make one up.
So if its a secret vote. How can anyone trust the outcome? As we don’t know what happened.
Which MP’s are going to be true to their beliefs that Shearer is not leadership material?
It will be interesting to see how many, if any? of the Labour caucus back their convictions and cast a no confidence vote in Shearer as leader. Also there should be a number of MP’s taking direction from their LEC to force a wider vote from the party membership surely? I will find it hard to swallow if atleast 6 votes are not confirmed nay sayers.
Each and every Labour MP has a choice today.
Put their hand on heart, look at their colleagues, envision their membership, and
say they have Confidence in the Leadership of the Labour Party or
withhold that in favour of a Party wide 40/40/20 debate and democratic selection process.
+100
And we have every right to expect that of our Labour MPs. +100
Beautiful day today! Winning the Labour/Greens government the country so badly needs takes a big step forward in a few hours. Well done to all those LP activists who helped democratise the party, particularly those like myself who wanted Cunliffe but will work for the good of the party and for the good of NZ even if he won’t be leader.
The next step?
Policy.
“The next step?”
Caucus reshuffle? Can’t do policy without the people in place.
Yep, but I wouldn’t expect major changes. Too early to dump dead wood like Mallard et al. That can wait till closer to the election, when it would be too risky to challenge Shearer’s call.
“Too early to dump dead wood like Mallard et al.”
It can be argued that it’s already too late rather than too early – just saying.
Deadwood does not dump itself. Trevor wants a comfortable retirement sorted.
morning everyone…is this the day Labour dies?
Apparently the only way to kill a zombie is to take out the head.
Anyhoo, in lieu of Rogue Trooper:
…Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter,
Eight miles high and falling fast.
It landed foul on the grass.
The players tried for a forward pass,
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast.
Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune.
We all got up to dance,
Oh, but we never got the chance!
`cause the players tried to take the field;
The marching band refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
And good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye,
the day the music died.
note
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology
That is an Excellent and Just saying
Hope someone has an attack on the National government lined up for running alongside the leadership vote. One inch up for labour (provided quality vote etc) and one inch down for national.
Otherwise of course the only political news will be “more leadership conflict for labour”
The Independent (UK) this weekend has an article about an event “today” that commemorates the 2nd wave Women’s Movement in the UK.
Damn! Wish I could be there. That was the context in which I truly became politicised while living in London. I recognise one or two names in the article of women I knew at some point back then. Also the women mentioned and the range of their activities back in the 60s and 70s, show just how strongly the UK Women’s Movement was embedded in the grass roots left: its origins in Ruskin College – a place for educating trade unionists and people from “disadvantaged” backgrounds, with no formal qualifications: initially set up for educating working class men.
Although, I guess commemorations are fine, but there’s still too many crucial political struggles going on.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10863254&ref=rss
When we moved to Vienna we couldn’t work out why drivers were impatient with our pausing before crossing the road at uncontrolled intersections, else they very courteously waited for us to cross. What a difference. Then we found out that cars must stop for pedestrians. It’s the law. The world didn’t end.
Indeed, while many drivers here are sensitive to pedestrians, many others are totally intolerant and/or oblivious. Since my accident the year before last (a result of my own carelessness), I am way more sensitive to how one careless moment can cause devastating impacts on the body. It continues to amaze me the number of drivers who speed across pedestrian crossings unaware that some of us are waiting to cross.
When I took driving lessons in the UK, before going for my UK licence, I was strongly schooled to visually scan around up-coming pedestrian crossings, looking for pedestrians, and preparing to stop in case an unexpected pedestrian stepped out. It is now pretty much second nature to me to do that.
Yes, we found UK drivers, in smaller cities in particular, very observant. I was actually talking about driver behaviour at intersections while walking today, which is probably why I picked up on the article. With a trip back to NZ imminent I’d strangely drifted back into stopping and waiting for cars at T-junctions, as I would do in NZ, without realising it, after about 4 or 5 crossings with drivers waiting for us to cross it gradually dawned on me what I was doing. I’ll have to be careful not reverse the error while back home.
I’ve almost been hit at intersections. It wasn’t because I wasn’t paying attention but because the drivers were running red lights.
Yep, the entire population sems to have forgotten that the streets were created for pedestrians. Cars came much much later and should be secondary in importance. Good luck with that though as today when that fact is mentioned people merely glaze over as it has never occured to them, such is the presumption that the streets were created for cars.
The streets most places are pretty dismal today. Try walking somewhere and you will find hardly any other people walking the streets or even in public places. The streets are ugly places now with whizzing cars and fumes, grey-black tarseal and concrete covering as many square metres as possible, hard, glare, noise, danger.
Bleeeaargh !
Yeah, I’d agree with that. IMO, it’s part of the reason that main-street is closing down. It’s just such a boor to actually go to them.
The other reason is that online shopping is faster, easier and far far cheaper.
Chch is great for cycling now…well, through the city it is. Shame that only happened after the city was flattened.
Don’t underestimate how socially destructive the automobile has been, and continues to be
More short documentaries on pedestrians here
Some moron paid Stephan Fry to talk about how Wellington cyclists should bow down to drivers. Apparently drivers should be thanked when they do not kill those pesky/arrogant/arsehole cyclists. Whoever was involved in that video is a dick.
+1
I’m probably a little oversensitive to this issue because I walk a lot and have had a fair few inconsiderate drivers on controlled and uncontrolled crossings (it also really annoys me that the traffic light phasing doesn’t favour pedestrians, but that’s another story). It’s become sort of a hobby to compare drivers’ general attitudes toward pedestrians in different places.
The car traffic seems to go very fast in Vienna. When the crossing is controlled by lights I think that car drivers (quite rightly) assume that there will be no pedestrians on the road nor any jaywalkers. Therefore traffic clears quickly until the next phase for pedestrians. I noticed that it was very unwise to cross without the green- angry drivers! Maybe we pedestrians should follow the rules, but after a lifetime of drifting across when I feel like it, hard to change.
On the arterial routes, yes they do. I don’t know if there are variable speed limits in town, but it’s likely given the difference between those roads and others. I guess also with pedestrians having the right of way every where else drivers are not too keen when you cross on a red on an arterial route. Same with driving slowly in the fast lane…
Having grown up and lived for many years in Vienna, my hometown, I agree that they do drive faster, especially the “professional traffic” after 8am and pedestrians are directed by a road code in the same way as drivers. Driving slow in the fast lanes will get the professional drivers to pressure you to change lanes. Of cause it all looks denser due to the sheer volume- Vienna has about 2 mil people on 400 m2, compare Auckland with 1.3mil people on 1000 m2 – and with it the amount of vehicles, private and company on that spec of land. The driver license is another point. It is obtained after a very rigorous process (expensive) and tests both written and oral. People need to be at least 18 and have to have a full license before being allowed onto the road – there are no learners licenses. All in all – certainly not a dreamy ride.
However, the number of private cars is actually only 390 approx per 1000 people. This is mostly due to the fact that one really does not need a car in Vienna due to the excellent public transport service. I really mean that, not because I am from there but it is true.
I love your hometown Foreign Waka! Half time here and half in New Zealand would be perfect 😉
Yes, we don’t have a car and use the integrated public transport (trains, buses and trams) or walk to get around. A reduction in car-parking has also reduced the value of car ownership. We were accosted once by a couple of FPO people to sign a petition against the reductions. We spent ages telling them how good the transport system was and how we didn’t need a car before we realised who they were and the answers they were after. Woops. Of course with the central city pedestrianised it also makes it easier to do without a car when living in the inner ring.
The driver’s training does show. Drivers are observant around town and know what they’re doing.
Morning Draco!
Hey look, I am sorry to be a bastard (ironic huh?) but as one of your favourite (and continual) assertions is that Labour is a right-wing party I really have to call you out on something.
I look forward to your response
Don’t humour the poor simple-minded soul, Draco. One of those post-menopausal late-developers who clog up lecture rooms and demand extra explanations all the time.
lol
Or the private school debater who oozes confidence and stupidity, only to be shell-shocked at university when their textbook (read “pro forma”) presentation is identified as failing to address the single fundamental factor that collapses their entire position.
On RadioNZ National program the Slippery lead National Government’s focus for 2013 is to be discussed in terms of what the ‘life-time’ cost of beneficiaries is,
In other words the present National Government having absolutely no idea how to stem the flow of red ink in the Governments accounts will now discuss in quiet polite voices how they plan to take away from those legal entitlements to welfare so as to be able to trumpet some bullshit balancing of the books as an election strategy for November 2014,
Should be a good listen if only to see which group of those currently receiving benefits are about to get it in the neck the hardest during the next 12 months…
If that is the case then I hope opposition parties do similar on, for example, lifetime costs borne by wage and salary earners to support the little tax paid by businesses such as farmers who take their gains through tax-free capital gain.
There are countless others.
It is overdue for fire to be fought with fire. This government gets away with all sorts of bullshit and the oppositions just whimper around the edges like sooky cowards with no chutzpa. Wussies.
Not all the opposition. The Greens are seriously getting some good hits in but Labour are out to lunch.
+1
And Shearer has been confirmed as leader.
Thanks god thats over.
Now discussions can turn to something interesting and useful
And now all those that were hoping for Labour to become more democratic can start looking for a better party without feeling any guilt.
Long may the Stalinist purge continue with too many MPs scared to vote to give us a say. Now the King/Mallard cabal will come after you one by one.
Andrew Little just forget Rongotai but be very worried about your list ranking too. The Stalinist cabal are going to centralise their power on list selection….you heard it here first! And all the others on the list, or with a seat they want to retire you from, just watch it…Prasad, Chauvel, Dyson, Robertson, Street….you’re going down.
But I’m off, no more pamphlet deliveries, no more donations, wine auctions, fundraisers….not off to join another party but I won’t be voting for Labour again.
Totally agree, for my partner and I as well.
pathetic that they can think of nothing but those little jobs rather than find any courage.
Shearer will deliver the polls in 2014 as they are, within a tolerance of 29-32%.
The rest is now counterfactual history.
just utter sadness.
Yep – Ad, Benghazi, Draco – both of us are also sad, and resigned. At least it will free up any spare time over the next couple of years NOT feeling obliged to attend meetings, organise, deliver pamphlets, raise funds, etc.
Labour should be able to form a government, with Winston’s help, even if it gets as low as 31% or 32%. But, the historic mission and purpose of the Labour Party seems to have been forgotten, at the very time that it is needed more than ever.
That is actually the point, especially younger ones have lost faith in a voting system where 32% with a bit of wiggle is perceived to be able to govern. Why? That is so far away from any majority that one can only wonder. Is that what Mr Shearer builds his confidence on? If it is even contemplated that 32% can go anywhere than FPP has never been changed.
32% Labour 14% Greens 5% NZ First (and Hone out in the cold as being too left) is still over the line…but also a monstrosity in of itself.
Stalin comparison right at the front.
Yay.
That cuts donw my “give a fuck” time allocation significantly.
OK, that was all as enlightening as MUD, the only point of real interest was Paula, the Minister of removing people form their entitlements, giving as a reason for the disparity in the figures of actual unemployed and the number of those currently collecting the dole is that both Sickness beneficiaries and those who receive the DPB who also have children over the age of 5 are now being included in the figures of the unemployed,
What tho of the heart of the discussion,
This ‘discussion’ centers on the figures that if those currently receiving a welfare benefit were to receive that benefit for a ‘lifetime’ the cost to the Government would be 78 billion dollars, (shock horror spit),
Lets put aside the little ‘fact’ for the moment that such a proposition FAILS at the first hurdle in that very few of those people as a % will receive those benefits ‘for a lifetime’, instead lets play the game as the Paula’s (Bennett and Rebstock) do, as monetarists,
Remembering all the while that the GROSS COST of all those benefits over a ‘lifetime’ is 78 billion dollars,(gasp shock horror) we can judge this against Government revenue from the figure that this is currently 60.6 billion dollars a year, (leaving aside for the moment that we are in the middle of a recession),
So, in ten years that Government revenue would have been 600 billion dollars set against a ‘lifetime’ welfare bill of 78 billion dollars,
In fifty years of Government revenue the total Government revenue collected will be, excuses here as my riffmatic aint so hot, a ball park figure of 3000 billion dollars against a ‘lifetime’ welfare bill of 78 billion dollars, and, say that slowly to yourself to see just how ridiculous the Paula’s are being in using such a figure as a crude club to attempt to turn people against beneficiaries,
Now being good little monetarists, (well just for this morning anyway), we in all honesty have to look at this equation from around all aspects of this 78 billion dollars GROSS that the Government in all it’s largesse will pay out over that ‘lifetime’ of payment,
Taxation!!! yes TAXATION, the Paula’s (Bennett and Rebstock) are using GROSS figures to arrive at the figure of 78 billion dollars, SO, using back of an envelope figures we can ‘see’ that direct taxation of that 78 billion dollars will result in 15% of that 78 billion NOT being paid to those beneficiaries at all,
Indirect taxation, you know the stuff, petrol tax, tobacco tax, tax tax tax etc, will result in the Government within 2 days of having paid out any of this 78 billion dollars recouping another 10% of the 78 billion dollars,
And, last but not least GS fucking T, at 15% will mean that within 2 days of having paid out any of the 78 billion dollars the Government will have raked back in another 15% of that 78 billion dollars,
But wait there’s more, yes sadly more, Beneficiaries spend what little monies they receive as part of that 78 billion dollars within 2 days into the local economy, what’s left after taxation is extracted that is, the goods and services bought by those beneficiaries from local providers are again taxed as profit from the pockets of those the beneficiaries buy the goods and services off of,
So here’s the Paula’s(Bennett and Rebstock), equation again from a ballpark income of 3000 billion dollars over a ‘lifetime’, 78 billion dollars will be paid out in welfare benefits 40% of which the Government will have within 2 days of paying this money out recouped as TAXATION,
What then to make of the 2 Paula’s(Bennett and Rebstock) shock horror 78 billion dollar ‘lifetime’ cost of welfare benefits, bullshit, simply blatant fucking bullshit is the best i can at this point muster from my limited vocabulary…
Yep
.
Yep. Bullshit alright.
Would such short statement not be the job of labor in the house when these figures are being thrown around and hence have to be reported in the same way as Mrs Bennets statement?
Lolz, i dont’t think Bullshit is a word allowed,(under standing orders), to be uttered in the House, i wonder tho if ‘equine defecation’ might slip through…
“This ‘discussion’ centers on the figures that if those currently receiving a welfare benefit were to receive that benefit for a ‘lifetime’ the cost to the Government would be 78 billion dollars, (shock horror spit),”
and any journo worth the title would respond with “yeah but thats a sack or horseshit and you know it”
not holding my breath though
Paula, the Minister of parting people from what was once their legal entitlements, unintentionally painted Her and the other Paula’s (Rebstocks), monetary assertion of the ‘lifetime’ cost of beneficiaries as bullshit in the RadioNZ National interview this morning pointing out that the unemployment figures show that that benefit isn’t the ‘problem’ as the majority of those who access the unemployment benefit do so for short periods,
So, we now know that Paula has no pressing inducement to further attack unemployment benefit recipients besides having them prove that they have been looking for work,
She said as much also about the recipients of DPB, which just leads me to the conclusion that the most vulnerable cohort of mostly single people in our society are in the next 18 months to be subjected to Paula’s ‘help’ to move them off of that particular benefit,
Paula a number of times during the interview pointed out that Invalids Beneficiaries are paid a higher rate of benefit than those who receive the unemployment benefit, this is of course because the invalids benefit is expected by those who receive it and the Medical Professionals who test these individuals for work capability befor signing the relevant paper-work do not expect such people to be in any condition to work for a number of years if ever,
Paula tho knows best and we can assume that the National Government ‘plan’ to move 40,000 individuals ‘off benefit’ will be directed at these individuals, the economics of which National have given as much thought to as the 78 billion dollar ‘lifetime cost’ of benefits i will get down to discussing later…
hope someones recorded that
Easily accessed i assume via the RadioNZ web-site /nine to noon…
😉
now, anyhoo, this is just for the locals, and then i will sit back out of your hair.
an argillaceous liason around the ear as a scruffily draped phaethon parked a Malt magnesia exertion beneath the quasia dilantern.purslonely, it’s a bitter sweet sola number. Mind the salt Sister shiney washer, Let Robin save the day from the pun under your bed. To the emperor we dispose (please don’t let my tyre down; I enjoyed the walk) A pound a round The Globe. Beep Beep bop a loo bop
a little melting. Talk about pissisting down a man’s deep furrows.tick The Other Kind a pair of brown eyes walk alone (to be Farr, I’ve always followed the news to see what’s blown up today)
spinning wheel goes round and round the Gestalt chair, yet no bodies there.took the money and run.
Interesting to read this in the Herald today:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10863308
Where are the crowds of idiots screeching “OMG! David Cunliffe didn’t endorse the leader! He’s mounting a coup!”
Why is his answer good enough today, but it wasn’t good enough at Conference?
Is he going to be demoted again for refusing to endorse Shearer?
Chess, that is the name of the game. People who work like the last roman emperors lot have not got my vote.
Slight difference between a frontbencher refusing to endorse the leader at conference while voting to change the election format into a form that might be advantageous for him (while the leader abstained from that vote), and a backbencher who has previously endorsed the leader walking into the caucus room on the day of what looks like a routine confidence endorsement.
Tax cuts for their own and a bedroom tax for others. Tory arses.
Slash and Burn Tyres
http://www.rtcc.org/climate-ambition-could-slash-value-of-big-oil-firms/
Zone O2out
http://www.rtcc.org/ozone-hole-affecting-antarctics-ability-to-absorb-carbon-dioxide/
Lawyers Bunsen Burners and Dunny
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Money-Politics-and-the-Sc-by-Adnan-Al-Daini-130203-17.html
Oh well.
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The link to the Independent’s story makes for frustrating reading.
In my internet travelling, I often come across the denialist position that climate change is a conspiracy. Ironic situation is ironic.
yes BLiP, saw that article Independently a little while back.
Well, after THAT news today it may be safe to assume that the only champagne corks popping tonight will be in the abodes of Team Shearer and those of the right wingers.
Instead lets raise a glass of red to The Greens and give a nod to Mana. All power to you. All power to us as voters too. We need to rally togther and to unify. Its up to us as well. Collectively and individually we have to get those non voters educated and motivated. Its a big task ahead.
@ Rosie
+1 😀
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So, what happens in Australia when a couple of journalists reveal high-level corruption and cover up . . . that goes on and on and on? Well, government and its authorities ignore it then goes after the journalists and their sources.
.
what a surprise
Fuck, another wee whopper just whacked Chch. Guess 4.4, 8km deep, centred 5km east.
Just for something different eh vto? You Cantabrians must be built of strong stuff. I’d have been a mess along time ago if I was in your shoes. The heaving earth beneath your feet is one thing but it must be something else to have the strength to take on insurers and cope with being treated like irksome peasants by a contemptuous govt. Kia Kaha.
Ha, yeah cheers, but we are mere mortals and I think most populations would just deal with it all the same way. As for being a mess – yep, there is plenty mess in the population. Strung out and worn out. Especially when the Great Earth Monster lets loose right under your arse…
Great Earth Monster? Has Gerry the Hutt been given a new nickname I am not aware of?
“The Panel” continues its ghastly decline
Radio NZ National, Monday 4 March, 2013
Jim Mora, Jonathan Krebs, Tino Pereira
We are already into the fourth week of this year’s version of Jim Mora’s program “The Panel”. Sadly, the producers have made no innovations or improvements to the format at all; Jim’s volubility is as insufferable as ever, his blithe condescension is if anything even worse, and the “talent” is drawn from the same stagnant pool of lacklustre sycophants as it was last year, and the year before.
Today’s edition was typical….
MORA: All right, the next subject is ACC payouts. Some of these claims to ACC are hilarious! There were fifty claims for sunburn! Hur hur hur hur hur!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha!
MORA: Hur hur hur hur hur! Fourteen thousand claims for insect bites…
TINO PEREIRA: Ha ha ha ha ha!
MORA: There were one hundred and ninety-five claims for windsurfing and—hur, hur, hur, hur!—two hundred and eleven for bodyboard injuries!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha ha!
JIM MORA: Hur hur hur! And 938 barbecue injuries! Hur hur hur hur hur!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha ha!
TINO PEREIRA: Ha ha ha ha ha!
MORA: Professor Grant Duncan from Massey University joins us. Hur hur
hur hur!
PROFESSOR DUNCAN: I am concerned about this apparent trivialization of injuries.
MORA: Uhhhh….
PROFESSOR GRANT DUNCAN: I don’t think these injuries are trivial. If you get stung by a swarm of wasps you need to get yourself to hospital. I think it’s dangerous if we start to trivialize injuries like this.
MORA: Hmmmm. Inevitable with media reportage though….
SOAPBOX….
MORA: Now’s the time we find out what our Panelists have been thinking about. Jonathan, you want to talk about university fees?
KREBS: Yeah, I don’t have anything that’s really NEEDLING me at the moment, Jim, but my daughter Harriet is off to university and I have had to pay $6,000 for her accommodation and $7,000 for course fees, which made me pucker up a bit!
….and so on, and so on, and so on….
Just started watching seven sharp… It’s fluffier than my bellybutton lint, what a joke of a current affairs show.
Thankfully rain fade brought me to my senses but it’s a doozy ain’t it? Poor buggers! Still, I guess it pays the mortgage aye and its cleaner than the usual form of prostitution. They can probably wait till they get home before they have to have a shower!
Slippery the Prime Minister will be having lots of fun at the Waitangi Marae tomorrow…
What if David Cunliffe started his own party, i’m sure he would get a truckload of
support, who needs the s–t that has been dished out to him, just a thought.
UNWATCHABLE! SEVEN SHARP IS A DISASTER
One’s dreadful new current affairs show will not survive
SEVEN SHARP, Inaugural broadcast, Television One, Monday 4 March 2013
Alison Mau, Greg Boyed, Jesse Mulligan and assorted others
Alison Mau’s credibility, already pretty unimpressive, has plunged to an all-time low over the weekend, following her ludicrous few days of dishonestly lionizing “Sir” Paul Holmes as the greatest broadcaster who ever lived. It was ominous that she debased her currency so grievously just before this show’s opening.
Anybody who has looked at his Twitter account or seen him try to ad-lib while reading the News knows that Greg Boyed is about as funny as a parking ticket. On the evidence of tonight’s show, his idea of humour is to make sarcastic remarks. Not funny sarcastic remarks, though; Boyed is no Charlie Brooker. His first contribution to the dreadful three-person opening remarks sequence, was to make a sarcastic swipe at Titewhai Harawira, smirking with derision as he called her “that paragon of reason.” It was the sort of remark that the late Paul Holmes would have made, but Boyed has none of Holmes’s leavening wit.
Jesse Mulligan, who is billed as a comedian, decided to go for the big laughs: “Now we were going to have the Prime Minister cut a ribbon for the start of the show, but he wasn’t available.” Then he laughed: “Naaah, actually he WAS available, he just didn’t want to come on. Ha ha ha ha ha!” Tellingly, neither Alison Mau nor Greg Boyed could squeeze out a laugh to support the poor fellow. They were clearly wishing the ground would swallow them up. And so, no doubt, were most viewers.
Barry Soper’s South African squeeze Heather Du Plessis-Allan announced that she was going to do a “puff-piece” on John Key. “What else would you expect?” she laughed. And that’s just what she did.
I bailed after five minutes. It was simply unwatchable.
observing the political machinations (under the hood and on the deck) in this country, it is no surprise we have wrong-headed where we are going. Kubrick may be correct, no amount of writing on The Wall this season and as for roman Ghosts! In ADDition, any suggestions other than auto-pilot or Siberia? What is reaped is what is grown to make of no effect when one leg is shorter than the other or missing benignly. It’s a minefield on a moon lit night through vanity and vineyards across the red cod reef Clive; If not, a co-ordinated portamanto is being drawn as we pick up after others (my notes have been binned in the recycling, blown away like the sand of a mandala) I really don’t mind if we sit this one Out (we may make you feel but we can’t help but think…back to the scrap heap) 🙁
Last Post for our loyal side-kick soldier.
Get LAo Daily (this cat’s not comin’ back) arrivederci, auf wiedersehen pets. bye 🙁 🙂
observing the political machinations in this country, it is no surprise we have wrong-headed where we are going. Kubrick may be correct; no amount of writing will break down The Wall this season and as for roman Ghosts? In Addition, any suggestions other than auto-pilot or Siberia? What is reaped is what is grown to make of no effect when one leg is shorter than the other or missing altogether.It’s a mine-field on a moonlit night through vanity and vineyards across a red cod sand-Bar.If not a co-ordinated portamanto is being drawn.Picking up after others as I deposited my own notes in a recycling bin, blown away like a sand mandala. Really don’t mind if I sit this one Out
(we may make you feel but we can’t help but think…off to the scrap heap again).
Last Post for our trusty side-kick soldier.Get LAotea Daily. (this cat’s not coming back).
arrivederci auf wiedersehen pets. bye. 🙁 🙂
Something for the late nite insomniac and other’s warning it could make you sick
http://tvnz.co.nz/news
2/3rd of the page down on the left side entitles Inside John Keys Office a nice little 4.5 min vomit fest of Key love in talk about 1 sided reporting. But they have to do somethinf after that crap 7 Sharp Maybe they could get Hooton on it a crap writer on a crap show.
lolz @ “I never drink in the daytime.”