Can you point to anyone, anywhere, actually saying the capital gains tax policy was the only reason for Labour’s election result, much less “burning it in effigy”?
i am going on the reactions by/from little – when the capital gains tax option is raised..
..(i’m paraphrasing here) – he says ‘we’ve already tried that twice – the voters don’t like it’..
..that added to little whinnying in terror on the tv talkshow @ the weekend – at any suggestion of piketty-stylings solutions to inequality/poverty that so blights us..
..these lead me to believe their is a firming of that attitude within labour..
..and an apportioning of blame where it is not due – and a subsequent erroneous closing off of policy-options..
..and i don’t actually recall using the word you highlight – ‘only’..
..and going by yr question – are u accepting the contention from little – that the capital gains tax was (shall we say ‘a’) reason..?
..and just arguing there are more reasons..but that is definitely one of them..?
(‘cos i wd disagree with that – i think other factors far more serious did that job..)
..and i fear the scapegoating of that policy will lead to no action in that area..
..and an ignoring of what really counted/mattered..
“they have found their scapegoat..who/what to blame..
..and apparently it was their capital gains tax policy”
Sure looks like the “only” reason you give.
I have heard more than enough Labour campaigners and MPs say that they received massively negative feedback on the capital gains tax policy. I’ll take their word over yours.
But this story is ridiculous.
After all Victoria, like all of Australia, has a Capital Gains Tax. There cannot possibly be an overheated property market if you have a CGT can there?
At least that is what the Labour and Green parties both claimed last year during their election campaigns.
Surely they weren’t wrong. After all they were the claims by those great thinkers Cunliffe and Norman.
Alternatively they were nuts and so were their claims that a CGT would solve New Zealand’s housing problems and stifle an overheated Auckland property market.
And a RWNJ steps in with extreme BS and lies to try and discredit a policy of the Left.
After all they were the claims by those great thinkers Cunliffe and Norman.
No they weren’t. They both said that a CGT was necessary to help rebalance ‘investment’ but that it wasn’t a silver bullet and other policies were also needed.
Don’t be too hard on Alwyn. He wants citations for fairly obvious jokes, like Michele Bachelet advising Chilean schoolgirls to not have lunch with FJK.
Dear dear, diddums.
I forget that you are a residence of Oz, and very easy to upset.
Like all residents of the Western Island I suppose you also love telling sheep jokes do you?
Those poor poor property investors. God forbid if they get slapped with a CGT. They might have to ditch Rarotonga and go to Rotorua for holidays instead…
Yep. From what I can make out the new capitalism that we’ve had forced upon us over the last 30 to 40 years is a means of returning us to outright feudalism by stealth. The majority of people are to become serfs to the rich.
Yep, doesn’t surprise me at all. She should note that the ‘jokes’ that go around in them circles often get at all sorts of people so she is not alone. There is a technique though – refuse to partake, turn the corners of the smile up just a teency tad and avert the eyes waiting for it to pass. Works for me anyway…
Thanks vto. My occasionally successful response is to say honestly in a sincere jovial manner “Stop. Stop. Don’t keep going, I still like you all at this moment”.
The verbal “stop” interrupts the flow, the following sentence draws gentle laughs. But importantly, the conversational flow redirects.
This has worked a few times.
(Maybe later, the discussion continues, but if it does it is without me anywhere around.)
Hmmm, good one. We have a situation where one of a team is rabidly racist and flicks eyes around to see who is laughing with him at his ‘jokes’….
… thing is I detect a very strong pulling back on this bigoted manner the last decade or so or more. Next generation are hopefully much better (they are).
But yep, can be very difficult when people toss their baggage into the supposedly professional arena when you are trying to get some work done.
I once had a colleague who was prone to making some pretty extreme racial generalisations until I outright said (after pointing out every single error in his latest iteration of “the Chinese are…”) that if he kept it up I’d make a formal complaint.
All well and good, but a couple of days later my supervisor made a wee comment in a similar vein, with a “pregnant pause” afterwards. I got the impression tht my colleague had made a little pre-emptive comment/complaint to the super, and the super was feeling me out to see just how sensitive I was.
As it was, I never had to escalate because my colleague got a little too close to the folk we were protecting and got his ass fired. But fair warning of a jerk’s behaviour can simply give them an opportunity to prepare a defence.
Culture is created at the top huh? Maybe a few Key people in public ‘service’ should be informed of that.
I do agree that there is very much the unspoken challenge to disagree with racist and sexist jokes in some work environments (personal experience in warehousing and IT ) and accepting it leads to judgments that affect working relationships for a very long time. These challenges usually go unremarked on by management.
Pity she contradicts her argument. Friend of mine was recently doing her best to avoid promotion, in an effort to remain free of the hellish environment she’d have to work in, and retain the work she loved. There was no bonus to climbing, for her, or anyone else. In the end she got more money, same responsibility, more informal power and no extra hassle. Culture isn’t always controlled by the top. Life is full of oddities.
No she doesn’t. Just because your friend did something else doesn’t mean others have to do the same as your friend.
Culture isn’t always controlled by the top.
I suspect it depends upon the place. In a small workplace then culture could be directed from the top down whereas in a large place culture is more likely to drift up.
I tend to view workplace cred as a bank balance – if you don’t want to save up for a promotion, you can spend it on all sorts of other stuff, like cash or turning up late every so often.
No point in building up a rep if you aren’t going to spend it 🙂
Studies show that 40% of females who have engineering degrees leave the profession or never enter the field, and that seems like a terrible waste of resources for me as an educator, and for you as a taxpayer.
In a recent study, psychologists found that the biggest pushbacks female engineers receive come from the environments they work in with an “old-boys club” still existing in many engineering organizations with many calling the engineering workplace unfriendly and even hostile to women.
She makes good points. Thought provoking and behaviour modifying.
I have a question though and I do not know the answer to this. Do women gossip concerning men’s private lives, make sexist jokes about them or make demeaning comments about men, among themselves? If yes, is that Ok?
Why is it that RNZ only uses the high priests of neo-liberalism ( the banks’ economists) as their commentators in the Business instead of more independent thinkers?
Yeah it does seem like endless free promotion of the banks’ interests.
Rod Oram seems an independent thinker. It’d be nice if they could use him in the business segment of the news as well as in the more in-depth Nine to Noon business bits.
Neoliberalism has spread relentlessly, from free-trade agreements and the World Trade Organization, to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its sibling the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), bearing the promise of fool’s gold – with carefree financial markets and banks in the lead.
Paradoxical as it may seem, financial meltdowns have been part of the process. By one estimate there were 147 banking crises worldwide between 1970 and 2011, ever more frequent and extreme as they headed for the Great Recession1, but always with the same desired result – public bailouts followed by some form of neoliberal ‘structural adjustment’.
Tomorrow’s NZH headlines should read ” John Key tells Aucklander’s to get real the port expansion is going ahead.”
That’s right National is behind destroying the harbour. You can bet behind the scene large amounts of political donations are being channeled through into the National Party coffer’s. The broker is a former Nat MP Ms Young who is both a lobbyist and executive director of the Shipping Federation. If you join the dots here you can see the connection;
Young as lobbyist smears taxpayer owned Railway as a bottomless pit.
National are all about roads and forge ahead with an unessential Northland toll road.
North Port buys 50 million dollar crane so they can increase container loading.
Port of Auckland build out into harbour so they can accommodate larger shipping vessels.
Shipping line ships containers from North Port on small ship to load onto large vessel at Port of Auckland.
If only we had a MSM that investigate dirty deals!
Labour is no worse than National; Bill English is like a gambling addict playing roulette in the casino who keeps stubbornly placing his chips on Number 13 while incantating “the surplus will come, the surplus will come”.
Key’s squirming away on Morning report. “We live in a global world” (the earth is spherical, fancy that!), “we live in a tactile world”, “we live in a world where people have broad family” are about the most coherent statements he’s made. We live in a world where the rest is also eminently gigglesome.
Guyon asked what he’d done about a serious issue of process, and he answered unprompted that he’d done everything possible to cover his ass politically.
I suppose that means it was something that happened to him rather than something he did.
Of course something happened to him.
Key; Well, this young woman kept pushing past me with a pony-tail that bobbed up and down all the time. What was a fun-loving laid back person like me supposed to do? Ignore it? No. I pulled it just like very other “fun loving” man would do.
Can’t wait for him to try it on a man or perhaps even an All Black with a pony tail … especially while humming the theme from Jaws as his own is cracked as he falls slowly to the ground with his lights going out.
I can see him doing it to a male waiter who he decided was heterosexual, who was smaller in stature than him, who had a pony tail and who he knew as much as he knew Bailey. I think there would be an element of joshing, you’re weird as a man for having long hair thing, which in some situations would be part of that Kiwi blokes giving each other a hard time thing but ok. But in a work situation with these kind of power differences it would just be about shaming him. Which has some similarities to what he did to Bailey.
The other thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that the back of the head is a vulnerable area of the body. Someone sneaking up behind you and pulling on your hair is likely to trigger a stress response in many people. Given he was doing this repeatedly and sometimes from behind when she was unaware of him, it’s probable that each time he came into the cafe she went on the alert automatically, which is horrible and stressful enough without then having him touching her as well.
Seems like a major cultural faux pas for the PM of NZ. And definitely something surely that would have been mentioned to him at some time in his 53(?) years.
Yes I have also mentioned this tapu nature of the head but it doesn’t count for key imo because he is a total know-nothing on Māori culture, ethics or belief systems. He has zero personal mana imo, the office of PM has some mana but that has diminished considerably and is only endowed by Māori and Māori are very generous in general.
Key: Well, if she wasn’t then why did she keep pushing past me? What did she expect? That I’d turn the other way with her pony tail flapping in my face?
Bystander: Perhaps she was just doing her job Mr Key. She’s a waitress after all.
Key: Well (or should I say weel) if that was the case she should have gone and done her waitressing elsewhere.
Bystander: I believe she tried but you kept following her around.
Key: I dunno about that. Its just that I’m the sort of guy everyone wants to talk to so I move around so they can talk to me. That’s not my fault.
A compassionate animal lover leaves thousands over years to SPCA .. but look at the perfect nominative determinism of the man who managed her estate at the Public Trust.
“Several SPCA kittens have been named Molly, Alberta, Beebe and Wyatt after their generous benefactor. One tabby was named Owen Whisker after the Public Trust staff member who had managed her estate for a decade, whose real name was Owen Whisker.”
Would have been a lot simpler if you’d just put in the link, a small quote of the article and then you’re own comment. Save having to waste time going to your website first.
Interesting, I was going to post a comment like “Good luck with him beating Hillary..”
But by going on facebook likes alone I’m impressed. Hillary Clinton has 800,000. Bernie Sanders has a not insignificant 365,000. I think he could cause her a bit of a fright, go the truth talking people’s champion!
America is showing the signs of wanting change with the recent huge marches on minimum wage and the shooting of blacks.
And he raised $1.5 million in 24 hours, all from small individual donations, nothing from corporations. He beat some of the Republican Party challengers who receive huge amounts of corporate money. True grassroots support.
The market reflects fundamental human instincts and behaviour. You alter that then you can get your “new” system. Unfortunately for you altering basic human behaviour on a long term basis has proven difficult.
The market reflects fundamental human instincts and behaviour.
No it doesn’t as shown by the existence of successful societies throughout history that didn’t have one (see Debt: The first 5000 years by David Graeber).
Also, if it was “instinctual” then we wouldn’t have to be taught it.
The test of the validity of a human construct is whether or not the human creators of human constructs collectively support it to continue, or they develop the collective will to change it.
As a lost sheep, I’m just bleeting into the wilderness that the Left is doing an unbelievably piss poor job of putting up a compelling argument for change.
Hence the lack of anything remotely like a realistic threat to the free market that you despise.
But apologies if i am distracting you from much more vital issues like the totally obsessive cult of character absorption with the intellectual and political lightweight John Key.
I had family obligations, so didn’t make it to the SDHB food outsourcing Octagon protest on Saturday. It looks like it went fairly well, good to see the Labour electorate MPs turned up:
About 200 people packed the terraces in the Octagon on Saturday to demand the Southern DHB keep meals in house instead of following through with a proposed move to outsource them…
”The main point of the protest is to raise awareness and empower people to sign a petition and also lodge submissions for the DHB board meeting on May 7.”
I had a little brainfart about an allegory for our economy. In Peter Pan, Tinker Bell the fairy becomes weak and listless and all the children in the world who believe in fairies are asked to clap their hands which will make Tinker Bell strong again. I suggest that our economy is in itself a matter of imagination, kept in place by the willingness of believers in the fairy framework that makes the financial fangdango to keep it blooming and floating.
And Nz is a separate flimsy floating entity attached by visible and invisible strings. Sometime it is going to take a huge effort of will and positive affection from believers in NZ, with commitment to our country to stop it going down. And if not forthcoming NZ will end up like a squashed deflated balloon that cannot be mended, but can only provide some small residue to be recycled into something viable for the future. We have to stop drinking the Kool-Aid, it is poison!
Captain Hook, who also tries to poison Peter’s medicine while the boy is asleep. When Peter awakes, he learns from the fairy Tinker Bell that Wendy has been kidnapped – in an effort to please Wendy, he goes to drink his medicine.
Tink does not have time to warn him of the poison, and instead drinks it herself, causing her near death. Tink tells him she could be saved if children believed in fairies…. Peter turns to the audience watching the play and begs those who believe in fairies to clap their hands. At this there is usually an explosion of handclapping from the audience, and Tinker Bell is saved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_and_Wendy
Yep it surely is when it comes to the fairytale part of the economy e.g. ‘house prices’.
But it aint when it comes to the heartland of any economy which is the daily activities of inhabitants i.e. buying the milk, driving the car to work, watching the tele, doing the washing etc etc etc
Trouble is vto, we don’t have our own currency. And the whole exchange system is only as strong and continuing as the international system lets it be. If we had our own exchange system we would probably suffer quite a recession until we persevered and got the mainly localised system established and everyone did some free things for the community to make sure we covered services.
The cost of being part of the international game, is that big boys with bigger marbles can hit ours out of the ring. Or to make the point on a more adult level, we have joined a poker game played by professionals where they will always win except when they are setting us up.
That’s kind of funny (couldn’t happen to a nicer species). Strange headline from the Independent though, it’s not the UK’s power supply that is reaching its limit from internet use.
Anyone who hasn’t already seen it, or knew about it, can have a look on The Daily Blog site for the link to the latest “How not to be an Asshole” podcast.
They’ve done quite few now, and they’ve managed to avoid being blantant assholes so far. I haven’t learned anything from them in that respect.
Today’s podcast is the first time I’ve seen/heard their mask slip, and this podcast is the best I’ve heard, for interviewing prowess rather than content, although content is good too – or at least relevent to the concerns often talked about here. This week was a guest spokesperson from AAAP.
Those two guys doing the interview take good cop/bad cop to a whole new level. Sharp as ghost-knives! It’s nice to know that there are people out there who are better at interviewing than any of the big name stars on TVNZ et al.
It really is a shame that NZ still thinks that “if it isn’t on TV, it isn’t any good”. Probably if these guys became employed to do their thing on nationwide TV it’d be the end of them. But since so many people now have access via the web, what’s the excuse for TV to hold such a cultural stranglehold in the minds of people? None.
Matthew Hooten on John Key’s embarrassing, bumbling, inarticulate, blatantly self-contradictory, legal-weaseling, undignified, weak, quivering interview this morning:
If it was a minister, that minister would’ve been fired.
Aren’t you going to start looking for some hidden subtext in what he was trying to state? Surely he can’t be giving his honest impression of the affair as he is part of the VRWC against the left / sarc
oh okay I’ll just go looking over ther- waaaaiit a minute!!!
Nice try /sarc
The thing is that Little and Peters have over a year before the campaign to scrap it out without looking like their parties are falling apart. If the nats lose 5% due to internal warfare, they’re out of total power, even if winston decides to support neolibs on confidence and supply (rewriting the deal every budget).
The only question is whether the caretaker pm the other parties face is Collins or some other numpty.
What, you mean like Matthew ‘DP crew 4 life’ Hooton could have some political angle he’s playing by announcing that Key has jumped the shark every five minutes?
That he has been fondling girls’ hair in his capacity achually as Minister of Tourism. And in his capacity as Prime Minister, he will be firing John Key the Minister of Tourism.
He must know that there is a determined group with someone else in mind, so he is prepared to drop his fawning support for Key and just leave the hole lightly patched at present, ready for a new plant to push through.
Little said he was going to spend the first year listening talking and learning to find out what nz needs. I’m happy to wait ,although with the imminent collapse of the national party possible , little might need to speed it up.
Hooten reckons he has been to most of the cafes in question and has never seen any “horsing around” in any of them. Only people drinking coffee, reading and chatting. Funny that.
If you want to understand the latest trend in craft cocktails, you could do worse than to listen to Outkast. What’s cooler than being cool is indeed ice cold. Specifically, it’s stored at minus-2 degrees, sculpted with a Japanese band saw, and retails for $1 a cube.
Costs a huge amount, causes environmental damage, is completely useless and melts away in minutes.
Just txted some friends close to the epicentre, seems all ok, but I bet the people at Treble Cone got a fright. Looks like it was up the Matukituki Valley in that mountain range.
Geonet have it as a 6.0/severe, US Geological Services as a 5.6 (but they also think it was near Queenstown).
edit, btw it’s worth bearing in mind that quakes in the mountains are different than the ones that Chch had, so a 6.0 is big enough but not like what Chch experienced.
the richter scale doesn’t reflect people’s experiences very well, I guess because of the different geology (mountains of stone vs plains of alluvial gravel). It will be interesting to see what the intensity scale measurement ends up being, Chch2 was very high from what I remember despite the Richter number not being that high.
Both at a similar depth, although the Chch one was very close to lots of people, whereas the only people likely to be that close to the Wanaka one would be climbers or farmers, and probably no-one, so it will be hard to compare.
It depends on the type of weathered material around. If you had (as they did in Nepal) a lot of loosely compacted material on the mountains, then you’d feel the resulting avalanches of snow and rock more severely than you would with the liquefaction and jiggling of sediments on the flat.
The energy measurement of the earthquake matters a lot less locally than the type of earthquake (extensional, compression, strike slip or combinations of those), the local geological structures and the types of buildings that people have. They also depend on the amount of surrounding faulting and what stage the stresses in those are.
Mountains generally have smaller effect earthquakes than plains simply because they get triggered by other faults earlier. But it is a bit meaningless as an idea if a fault there triggers a series of immediate secondary earthquakes that carry on from the original one.
Yep, looks good. Regarding the majority, while 326 is the target for Labour, anything above 275 will almost certainly see them form a working minority government. They won’t need the SNP for C&S at that point (assuming of course that the SNP abstain and don’t deliberately bring them down). Tories + Lib Dems + DUP can’t muster a majority, so they would be immediately sunk on C&S if they tried to cobble together a minority coalition of their own.
My pick is Labour + SDLP, with an outside chance of the Lib Dems joining them.
Reads as though you’re looking at this through the lens of Parliaments as they were before the Fixed Term Parliaments Act?
Labour don’t need the SNP, or any one else for Confidence and Supply at any point because… The Fixed Term Parliaments Act. There will probably be no coalitions formed by anyone for the same reason…they aren’t needed. And so, the principle party (the one that presents a Queens Speech that receives 50%+ backing) doesn’t have to enter into horse trading over cabinet posts or anything of that sort.
The SNP have openly stated, as have Plaid Cymru, that they will vote against any budget containing austerity measures. That doesnt bring the government down. At that point Labour will simply have to rewrite and re-table to get 50% +…just as the SNP had to do with one of its Holyrood budgets.
All in all, and rather oddly, a far more open and transparent Parliament than anything we can hope for from the Beehive.
An early parliamentary general election is to take place if the House of Commons passes a motion “that there shall be an early parliamentary general election”. That motion must be passed by a number equal to or greater than two thirds of the number of seats in the House (including vacant seats).
An early parliamentary general election is also to take place if the House of Commons passes a motion ““That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.” andthe period of 14 days after the day on which that motion is passed ends without the House passing a motion “That this House has confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.”
edit. The PM then recommends a date to the Queen…blah, blah
3Dissolution of Parliament
The Parliament then in existence dissolves at the beginning of the 25th working day before the polling day for the next parliamentary general election as determined under section 1 or appointed under section 2(7).
Cheers, Bill, correct as usual. As I understand it, it’s only votes of confidence (or no confidence) that can now bring a Government down. The change was brought in by the Lib Dems as part of their coalition deal in 2010. However, coalitions are still the best way to avoid that happening, where there is no outright majority available. The more votes in favour, the less likely a Government will fall.
I think the process is now that the German woman in Buckingham Palace asks someone to have a crack at forming a Government and if they survive the confidence motion, they’re in power until for 5 years or until they lose a no confidence vote. Presumably Queenie will ask the biggest party first, but I suppose if a clear majority of smaller parties is available, she’d go with the largest of those. Probably Labour this time around.
If memory serves, a Government could be bought down by losing C&S, or a (no) confidence vote or if the Queen’s speech was not adopted by Parliament. A simple majority against was enough. The Lib Dem’s change thinned down the options and lifted the majority needed to scupper the PM.
Got to do more than simply lose a no confidence vote.
If the Tories put up a Queens Speech, it will be voted down by (at least) Labour, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens. That gives Miliband 14 days to put a non-contentious Queens Speech together that the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens will vote for. And a Labour government comes into being.
After that a specifically worded ‘no confidence’ motion has to be backed up further by a 3/4 seat majority for dissolution.
Now, the SNP and others will vote against Labour on some stuff…including budgets. But then all they (the SNP etc) do is not vote that vote of no confidence and Labour have to go back to the drawing board.
Labour wont get in. I just dont see them getting there. Narrow victory to the Tories I am afraid. Ed to become a page in someone else’s history book, as he is ousted from the leadership by autumn, the Blairites, led by Chuka Ummana (sp?) taking back control…
Liberal Democrats wiped out to less then 10 MP’s including Clegg, and UKIP a complete fizzer, getting a number of thirds, but no seats. Greens to get 2 or 3 seats. Scottish National party will do well, but not as much as expected.
The rechargeable lithium-ion battery unit would be built using the same batteries Tesla produces for its electric vehicles, analysts said.
The system is called Powerwall, and Tesla will sell the 7kWh unit for $3,000 (£1,954), while the 10kWh unit will retail for $3,500 (£2,275) to installers.
Energy comparison firm USwitch estimates that one kWh can power two days of work on a laptop, a full washing machine cycle or be used to boil a kettle 10 times.
Mr Musk said the company would partner with SolarCity to install the home batteries, but there would be more companies announced.
Mr Musk is SolarCity’s chairman and largest shareholder.
They’re going to be about half the price of using lead-acid batteries, use significantly less space and hopefully they’ll come with a predetermined recycling process (lithium is both dangerous and scarce).
Last I heard, to get enough storage using lead-acid cost over $10,000 compared to ~US$3500 for the Tesla battery. Even with a high mark up I doubt it’ll come to NZ$5000.
That’s $4,600 already. I think they’ll probably charge between 6 and 7 grand. We’ll see. It’s a real shame no one more socially connected doesn’t have the partnership.
A Harley Ultra Ltd costs $41,495 in Aotearoa, and $26,999 in the US and A, or $NZ35,785.55. This is a ratio of 1.16. That would make the battery $NZ5336, but I expect Vector to be more predatory than H-D because they will factor in that they will be losing other custom every time they sell one.
I think my real worry is that they won’t be cheap enough for a lot of people to change over. Not many people change to a bank of lead acid batteries, although there are other reasons.
That would make the battery $NZ5336, but I expect Vector to be more predatory than H-D because they will factor in that they will be losing other custom every time they sell one.
Vector is a lines company which means to say that they own the lines that delivery power to the house. As long as houses are still connected to the grid, and I suspect most would stay connected for times when solar doesn’t provide enough, they’ll get their monthly fixed charge. On top of that check out their solar plans. They’re obviously looking to get residual income from solar installations.
I think my real worry is that they won’t be cheap enough for a lot of people to change over.
It’s not going to be cheap enough for the majority of households and probably won’t be for some time.
He should be exploiting the PM’s position on the flag (alienating some conservatives in the centre and a lot of older voters who have voted Labour), thus when commenting about head of state matters saying that arrangements under Labour would be based on what the people want.
Offering his personal opinion on having a New Zealander as head of state does nothing to broaden support for Labour in the centre.
TVOne News tonight … Northland becomes a Chinese tourist paradise .. 1700-1900 visitors a week, and all run by CEO Mike Sabin. What could possibly go wrong. Yuk.
My comment here only tangentially relates to your post.
why the hell are you still in the politics game? if I’d been thru the same florid surfeit of bullshit that you seem to have witnessed over the decades, the last thing I’d want to do for a HOBBY (defined as optional shit one gets up to in one’s free time) is driving a politics blog with open comments.
or is the answer simply that you still give a shit…
[lprent: Yes. But this looks diversionary. OpenMike. ]
I have parents, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, great nephews, great nieces and a pile of friends. I also hate arsehole bullies of all types.
No difference to the way that I volunteered for the army, worked for the politician(s) of my choice for decades, and now spend time on a blog.
So I always give a shit because if you don’t hammer the arseholes they’ll gut your friends, family, and anyone else. They will do this to crawl over them to money, power and money. It is part of the sociopathic profile that is the similarity between Cameron Slater or John Key and some pissant warlord on the Somali coast.
If not me, then who else. If you don’t understand that, then I suspect you’re reading the wrong blog.
Speaking just for myself – it is because I am old enough to remember growing up in a New Zealand before Rogernomics .
Nope the ‘good old days’ were not all that good. Plenty of shit went down. Plenty of narrow-minded, petty little bigots and boofheads to be found.
But the difference was that we had a political system that was anchored somewhat to the idea of ‘giving a shit’. Since we let idea go there may well be more bling and shiny toys for some people in evidence – but us ordinary people have been erased from the political map.
If that makes me a pompous old dinosaur wallowing in long-irrelevant nostalgia from his boyhood – then so be it. But then I cannot blame you for not missing what you never knew. I’m genuinely sorry for that.
I mean, you seem to be in an interesting zone between believing that conventional party politics is well and truly broken, and believing that open debate about the same has some kind of merit…
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
Dell laptops are renowned for their reliability, performance, and versatility. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or just someone who needs a reliable computing device, a Dell laptop can meet your needs. However, if you’re new to Dell laptops, you may be wondering how to get started. In this comprehensive ...
Two-thirds of the country think that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”. They also believe that “New Zealand needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”. These are just two of a handful of stunning new survey results released ...
In today’s digital world, screenshots have become an indispensable tool for communication and documentation. Whether you need to capture an important email, preserve a website page, or share an error message, screenshots allow you to quickly and easily preserve digital information. If you’re an Asus laptop user, there are several ...
A factory reset restores your Gateway laptop to its original factory settings, erasing all data, apps, and personalizations. This can be necessary to resolve software issues, remove viruses, or prepare your laptop for sale or transfer. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to factory reset your Gateway laptop: Method 1: ...
“You talking about me?”The neoliberal denigration of the past was nowhere more unrelenting than in its depiction of the public service. The Post Office and the Railways were held up as being both irremediably inefficient and scandalously over-manned. Playwright Roger Hall’s “Glide Time” caricatures were presented as accurate depictions of ...
Roger Partridge writes – When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand’s first-world status was ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...
Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...
Monday left me brokenTuesday, I was through with hopingWednesday, my empty arms were openThursday, waiting for love, waiting for loveThe end of another week that left many of us asking WTF? What on earth has NZ gotten itself into and how on earth could people have voluntarily signed up for ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.State of humanity, 20242024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?Full story Share ...
Determining the hardest sport in the world is a subjective matter, as the difficulty level can vary depending on individual abilities, physical attributes, and experience. However, based on various factors including physical demands, technical skills, mental fortitude, and overall accomplishment, here is an exploration of some of the most challenging ...
The allure of sport transcends age, culture, and geographical boundaries. It captivates hearts, ignites passions, and provides unparalleled entertainment. Behind the spectacle, however, lies a fascinating world of financial investment and expenditure. Among the vast array of competitive pursuits, one question looms large: which sport carries the hefty title of ...
Introduction Pickleball, a rapidly growing paddle sport, has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions around the world. Its blend of tennis, badminton, and table tennis elements has made it a favorite among players of all ages and skill levels. As the sport’s popularity continues to surge, the question on ...
Abstract: Soccer, the global phenomenon captivating millions worldwide, has a rich history that spans centuries. Its origins trace back to ancient civilizations, but the modern version we know and love emerged through a complex interplay of cultural influences and innovations. This article delves into the fascinating journey of soccer’s evolution, ...
Tinting car windows offers numerous benefits, including enhanced privacy, reduced glare, UV protection, and a more stylish look for your vehicle. However, the cost of window tinting can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article provides a comprehensive guide to help you understand how much you can expect to ...
The pungent smell of gasoline in your car can be an alarming and potentially dangerous problem. Not only is the odor unpleasant, but it can also indicate a serious issue with your vehicle’s fuel system. In this article, we will explore the various reasons why your car may smell like ...
Tree sap can be a sticky, unsightly mess on your car’s exterior. It can be difficult to remove, but with the right techniques and products, you can restore your car to its former glory. Understanding Tree Sap Tree sap is a thick, viscous liquid produced by trees to seal wounds ...
The amount of paint needed to paint a car depends on a number of factors, including the size of the car, the number of coats you plan to apply, and the type of paint you are using. In general, you will need between 1 and 2 gallons of paint for ...
Jump-starting a car is a common task that can be performed even in adverse weather conditions like rain. However, safety precautions and proper techniques are crucial to avoid potential hazards. This comprehensive guide will provide detailed instructions on how to safely jump a car in the rain, ensuring both your ...
Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...
Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
COMMENTARY:By Murray Horton New Zealand needs to get tough with Israel. It’s not as if we haven’t done so before. When NZ authorities busted a Mossad operation in Auckland 20 years ago, the government didn’t say: “Oh well, Israel has the right to defend itself.” No, it arrested, prosecuted, ...
NEWSMAKERS:By Vijay Narayan, news director of FijiVillage Blessed to be part of the University of Fiji (UniFiji) faculty to continue to teach and mentor those who want to join our noble profession, and to stand for truth and justice for the people of the country. I was privileged to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Three weeks from now, some of us will be presented with a mountain of budget papers, and just about all of us will get to hear about them on radio, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Lowry, Ice Sheet & Climate Modeller, GNS Science Hugh Chittock/Antarctica New Zealand, CC BY-SA As the climate warms and Antarctica’s glaciers and ice sheets melt, the resulting rise in sea level has the potential to displace hundreds of millions of ...
The government's plan to reintroduce a three strikes regime is being strongly opposed by lawyers, who argue there is no evidence it reduces crime or helps people rehabilitate. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Jerker B. Svantesson, Professor specialising in Internet law, Bond University Do Australian courts have the right to decide what foreign citizens, located overseas, view online on a foreign-owned platform? Anyone inclined to answer “yes” to this question should perhaps also ask ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giovanni E Ferreira, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Institute of Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney Last week in a post on X, owner of the platform Elon Musk recommended people look into disc replacement if they’re experiencing severe neck or back pain. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, RMIT University anek.soowannaphoom/Shutterstock NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey caught the headlines yesterday, courtesy of a blistering speech condemning the latest GST carve-up. New South Wales, he claimed, would be A$11.9 billion worse off over the ...
While police are "broadly in favour", the government's proposed anti-gang laws are facing pushback from lawyers, rights groups and former gang members. ...
While police are "broadly in favour", the government's proposed anti-gang laws are facing pushback from lawyers, rights groups and former gang members. ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has arrived at Kokoda Station, Northern province, at the start of his state visit to Papua New Guinea. Both Albanese and Prime Minister James Marape will meet with the locals and the Northern Provincial government before they begin their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Professor, School of Politics Economics & Society, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra Shutterstock An important principle was invoked by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week in defence of the government’s Future Made in Australia industry ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk Security forces reinforcements were sent from France ahead of two rival marches in the capital Nouméa today, at the same time and only two streets away one from the other. One march, called by Union Calédonienne party (a component of the ...
A poll last August found that just 16% of New Zealanders oppose bringing back the ‘Three Strikes’ law. The nationwide poll of 1,000 New Zealanders was commissioned by Family First NZ and carried out by Curia Market Research. ...
The solo show from Ana Scotney is both sprawling and intimate, and a must-see, writes Mad Chapman. In the opening moments of Scattergun: After the Death of Rūaumoko, writer and performer Ana Scotney lays out the groundwork, literally. Silently moving around the square stage, Scotney is not so much dancing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University Who makes the words? Why are trees called trees and why are shoes called shoes and who makes the names? – Elliot, age 5, Eltham, Victoria Good question Elliot! Let’s start with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne at amRawpixel.com/Shutterstock Roles of health professionals are still unfortunately often stuck in the past. That is, before the ...
COMMENTARY:By Malcolm Evans Last week’s leaked New York Times staff directive, as to what words can and cannot be used to describe the carnage Israel is raining on Palestinians, is proof positive, since those reports are published verbatim here in New Zealand, that our understanding of the conflict is ...
In the case of New Zealand, the results confirm that there is no popular support for the vicious austerity program being imposed by the National Party-led government, which is backed in all fundamental respects by the opposition Labour Party. ...
The ‘Vampire’ singer has never visited our part of the world, but that might all be about to change. We assess the evidence.Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour is pulling in massive crowds as it whips around the US and Europe, even helping to catapult regular supporting act Chappell Roan ...
Testing of drinking water in rural Canterbury over the weekend by Greenpeace revealed that several public town supplies were reaching levels of nitrate above 5 mg/L - the threshold which a growing body of scientific evidence has linked to increased ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rohan Fisher, Information Technology for Development Researcher, Charles Darwin University It may come as a surprise to hear 2023 was Australia’s biggest bushfire season in more than a decade. Fires burned across an area eight times as big as the 2019–20 Black ...
Responding to the Government’s announcement of changes to resource management laws, Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, said: “These changes are a step in the right direction in terms of removing ideological and unworkable ...
More than two years after the Human Rights Council called for the establishment of a national human rights commission, such a body has yet to be formed. ...
Comment:An emergency management system with wide variations in performance, significant capability gaps, funding shortfalls and above all a setup that is not meeting the needs of New Zealanders at times of crisis. The Government’s inquiry into the response to Cyclone Gabrielle and other severe weather events in the North ...
Welcome to the whirring wonders of one brain trying to align its actions with its beliefs within a system it thinks is evil. My brain has been spiralling in a woke conundrum ever since I found out a bookshop I’ve never been to was shutting down. Good Books, a bookshop ...
We repeat our call for criminal justice policy to be based on evidence, something the three strikes regime neglects to recognise – with no evidence that it either reduces crime or assists with rehabilitation. ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Honiara With only four more seats in the 50-member Parliament yet to be officially declared, there is no outright winner in the Solomon Islands elections. As of Monday, the two largest blocs in the winner’s circle, independents and the incumbent Prime Minister Manasseh ...
Two/fiftyseven is a multi-purpose space hidden in the heart of Wellington that is paving a way for sustainable building and responsible landlording in Aotearoa and beyond.By 2060 the world is predicted to double its entire building stock, which equates to building an entire New York City every 34 days, ...
Popstars wasn’t just a reality television revolution, it was also a huge moment for Y2K fashion.It’s 25 years since girl group TrueBliss was formed on New Zealand national television, breaking new ground for both the reality television industry and the shiny clothing industry. With the first episode on NZ ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Pepping, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology, Griffith University Marvin / Shutterstock Are all single people insecure? When we think about people who have been single for a long time, we may assume it’s because single people have insecurities that make ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Geary, Lecturer in Quantitative Ecology & Biodiversity Conservation, The University of Melbourne Trismegist san, Shutterstock Landscapes that have escaped fire for decades or centuries tend to harbour vital structures for wildlife, such as tree hollows and large logs. But these ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Gladstone-Gallagher, Lecturer in Marine Science, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Shutterstock/S Curtis Why are we crossing ecological boundaries that affect Earth’s fundamental life-supporting capacity? Is it because we don’t have enough information about how ecosystems respond to change? Or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Crocker, PhD Student in Economics, Deakin University Here’s something for the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia to ponder as it meets next month to set interest rates. It has pushed up rates on 13 occasions since it began its ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a charity director outlines how she’s saving for retirement and buying secondhand. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Female Age: 45 Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: Charity director, mum of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sophie Yates, Research Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Many Australians with disability feel on the edge of a precipice right now. Recommendations from the disability royal commission and the NDIS review were released late last year. Now a ...
It’s been called a failed experiment and a judicial straightjacket but the government says the revised three strikes law will be a more workable regime, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Three ...
New Zealand’s Palestinian community and Palestinian Youth Aotearoa are voicing alarm and disappointment with the lack of factual rigour present during the Israeli Ambassador’s appearance as a guest on TVNZ’s Q+A With Jack Tame Sunday (21/04). ...
Both ACT leader David Seymour, who played a key role in drawing up the assisted dying law, and hospice leaders say it's time the legislation was changed. ...
Public submissions on proposed gang control laws are being heard today. Rising gang membership has been cited as rationale for a crackdown – but what do we actually know about how many people belong to gangs in New Zealand?What’s all this then?A rise in the number of gang ...
Climate activists are setting their sights on an unpopular target, and hoping to bring lots of the public with them. It’s hard to miss the Majestic Princess: the enormous cruise ship, docked at Auckland’s Prince’s Wharf, looms over the nearby buildings. The ship, which can fit nearly 6,000 people, ...
Black Ferns trailblazer Kendra Cocksedge was on the verge of tears when her young protégé, Hannah King, unassumingly broke the news. Three-time Rugby World Cup winner Cocksedge and Lincoln agriculture student King meet every few weeks over a hot chocolate, in an enduring mentorship that’s spanned years. “Before we even ...
Opinion: We’ve kicked the tyres on the perception NZ’s economy is in a parlous state compared to Australia. We take a quick tour of relative trends in GDP, housing markets, labour markets, trade, the fiscal situation, and the outlooks for inflation and interest rates. We find the cyclical positions of ...
Opinion: Making sure developers, local and central government, and landowners are all on the same page makes sense The post A new kind of city deal appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 23 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The following korero between Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku, author of the newly published memoir Hine Toa, one of the year’s most important books, and Dale Husband from e-tangata, was first published in October. It traverses her involvement with the activist group Ngā Tamatoa at Auckland University in the early 1970s, her ...
In the 16 years since it was bought by the government for $690 million, KiwiRail has had several overhauls and turnaround plans worth billions of dollars. Its ambitions as a successful, profitable operator of tourism, freight and ferries have often been derailed by disasters from earthquakes to cyclones, mine explosions ...
By Russell Palmer, RNZ News digital political journalist New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters is putting off recognition of Palestine as a state, despite opposition Labour’s formal request that he make the move. Peters said diplomatic recognition of Palestine was a matter of “when not if”, but doing so now ...
The opposition has laid into the government's plan to reintroduce a "three strikes" regime, saying it's inequitable and there's very little evidence it works. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Nicholls, Senior research associate, University of Sydney Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has ordered social media platform “X” (formerly known as Twitter) to remove graphic videos of the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney last week from the site. The incident ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney John Turnbull, CC BY-NC-ND In past bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef, the southern region has sometimes been spared worst of the bleaching. Not this time. This year’s intense underwater heat has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Austin, Lecturer in Theatre, The University of Melbourne Darren Gill/Mackey, Darling & Collaborators The relationship between witchcraft and teenage girls has been the subject of many books, films and television shows. Over time, the traditional image of witch as crone ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Becky Freeman, Associate Professor, School of Public Health, University of Sydney Andres Siimon/Unsplash There are no silver bullets, magic tricks or secret hacks to solving complex public health problems. Taking on the global tobacco industry and reducing the devastating consequences of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam B. Watts, Research Associate in galaxy evolution, The University of Western Australia ESO/A. Watts et al., CC BY We breathe oxygen and nitrogen gas in our atmosphere every day, but did you know that these gases also float through space, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Nielsen, Professor and Deputy Director, Monash Addiction Research Centre, Monash University Maxime Bhm/Unsplash A new group of drugs called nitazenes has been detected in Australia. They have been sold as heroin as well as other drugs like ketamine. Concerns ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Twomey, Professor emerita, University of Sydney Image from Bradlow + Bock campaign Can the job of being a federal member of parliament be shared by two or more persons? Two prospective candidates for the inner-Melbourne federal seat of Higgins, Lucy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zoe Rathus, Senior Lecturer in Law, Griffith University Shutterstock In October 2023, the federal parliament passed major changes to how children’s cases are decided under the Family Law Act, which kick in next month. Among other things, they repeal a ...
i find it both fascinating and weird –
– how labour seem to have decided that they have found the reason for their ’14 defeat..
..they have found their scapegoat..who/what to blame..
..and apparently it was their capital gains tax policy..(!)
..and before they start burning effigies of this policy..at their conferences..
..can i suggest the reasons for that defeat were a tad more complicated than that..
..and that this manic waving of crucifixes by anyone in labour – when that policy-idea is raised..
..is both overwrought – and unjustified..
..and a tax on speculators/investors/trust-funds..(what most mp’s are/have – funny story..!..self-interest rules..eh..?..)
..such a tax must be part of any labour policy prescription..
..end of story..
Can you point to anyone, anywhere, actually saying the capital gains tax policy was the only reason for Labour’s election result, much less “burning it in effigy”?
It may not be the only reason but Andrew Little indicates that it was a major reason.
i am going on the reactions by/from little – when the capital gains tax option is raised..
..(i’m paraphrasing here) – he says ‘we’ve already tried that twice – the voters don’t like it’..
..that added to little whinnying in terror on the tv talkshow @ the weekend – at any suggestion of piketty-stylings solutions to inequality/poverty that so blights us..
..these lead me to believe their is a firming of that attitude within labour..
..and an apportioning of blame where it is not due – and a subsequent erroneous closing off of policy-options..
..and i don’t actually recall using the word you highlight – ‘only’..
..and going by yr question – are u accepting the contention from little – that the capital gains tax was (shall we say ‘a’) reason..?
..and just arguing there are more reasons..but that is definitely one of them..?
(‘cos i wd disagree with that – i think other factors far more serious did that job..)
..and i fear the scapegoating of that policy will lead to no action in that area..
..and an ignoring of what really counted/mattered..
..just trying to head that off at the pass..
“they have found their scapegoat..who/what to blame..
..and apparently it was their capital gains tax policy”
Sure looks like the “only” reason you give.
I have heard more than enough Labour campaigners and MPs say that they received massively negative feedback on the capital gains tax policy. I’ll take their word over yours.
but i didn’t say it was the ‘only’ one..did i..?
..there is a difference..
..it was a comment – not a thesis..
so..from yr words.. i am correct – ?..you also oppose the cgt..?
..and that ‘negative feedback ‘ wd be more due to the crap way it was ‘sold’ to the electorate..
..labour let national drive the conversation on that one..
..their whole election campaign message was half-arsed/woeful..
..but of course they do have that underlying issue..
..in that if you look at an ideological-spectrum of the worlds’ govts/main political parties..
..there are two obvious surprises..
..one is that the national party is more ‘left’ that the american democrat party..
..the other is how you cd barely sllde a cigarette paper between national and labour..on that left/right spectrum..
..the tweedle-dum/tweedle-dee syndrome..
..labour are just so fucken lost…
..banging around up the end of some dead-end neoliberal cul-de-sac…
..and not knowing which way to turn..
Tautoko, Mr Ure.
‘Foreigners buying houses in Victoria will be subject to two new taxes as the Australian state tries to cool the property market.’
Maybe we could follow their line, so this does not keep happening.
‘The Salvation Army says housing problems like overcrowding, previously seen mainly in the country’s big cities, are spreading to the provinces.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/272709/oz-housing-tax-move-eyed-up-in-nz
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/272678/housing-pain-spreading-sallies
But this story is ridiculous.
After all Victoria, like all of Australia, has a Capital Gains Tax. There cannot possibly be an overheated property market if you have a CGT can there?
At least that is what the Labour and Green parties both claimed last year during their election campaigns.
Surely they weren’t wrong. After all they were the claims by those great thinkers Cunliffe and Norman.
Alternatively they were nuts and so were their claims that a CGT would solve New Zealand’s housing problems and stifle an overheated Auckland property market.
And a RWNJ steps in with extreme BS and lies to try and discredit a policy of the Left.
No they weren’t. They both said that a CGT was necessary to help rebalance ‘investment’ but that it wasn’t a silver bullet and other policies were also needed.
Don’t be too hard on Alwyn. He wants citations for fairly obvious jokes, like Michele Bachelet advising Chilean schoolgirls to not have lunch with FJK.
Dear dear, diddums.
I forget that you are a residence of Oz, and very easy to upset.
Like all residents of the Western Island I suppose you also love telling sheep jokes do you?
Haha. You lot are losing it, and making it so obvious.
Those poor poor property investors. God forbid if they get slapped with a CGT. They might have to ditch Rarotonga and go to Rotorua for holidays instead…
Really do you know anything about what they have done.
Its a limited CGT. ie only those with more than one home pay it, and only then id they dont have children as they buy houses in their name.
Taxes will never work completely, they are just one of a set of tools.
The only, and appropriate, solution is to only allow those who live in certain lands to own those certain lands.
This leads to stronger communities
This avoids more transient and less-at-stake tenant communities
This should apply in all lands on the planet.
Spot on vto. It really is that simple.
We should know that it has been planned this way intentionally.
Yep. From what I can make out the new capitalism that we’ve had forced upon us over the last 30 to 40 years is a means of returning us to outright feudalism by stealth. The majority of people are to become serfs to the rich.
Te Ahi Ka
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=te+ahi+kaa&oq=te+ahi+kaa&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3&client=chrome-mobile&sourceid=chrome-mobile&espvd=1&ie=UTF-8#q=te+ahi+ka+keep+the+home+fires+burning
Saw this earlier (non-twits: start at the bottom and read upwards 😀 )
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEGRdCYWIAAP_BJ.jpg
Yep, doesn’t surprise me at all. She should note that the ‘jokes’ that go around in them circles often get at all sorts of people so she is not alone. There is a technique though – refuse to partake, turn the corners of the smile up just a teency tad and avert the eyes waiting for it to pass. Works for me anyway…
Thanks vto. My occasionally successful response is to say honestly in a sincere jovial manner “Stop. Stop. Don’t keep going, I still like you all at this moment”.
The verbal “stop” interrupts the flow, the following sentence draws gentle laughs. But importantly, the conversational flow redirects.
This has worked a few times.
(Maybe later, the discussion continues, but if it does it is without me anywhere around.)
Hmmm, good one. We have a situation where one of a team is rabidly racist and flicks eyes around to see who is laughing with him at his ‘jokes’….
… thing is I detect a very strong pulling back on this bigoted manner the last decade or so or more. Next generation are hopefully much better (they are).
But yep, can be very difficult when people toss their baggage into the supposedly professional arena when you are trying to get some work done.
good one.
I once had a colleague who was prone to making some pretty extreme racial generalisations until I outright said (after pointing out every single error in his latest iteration of “the Chinese are…”) that if he kept it up I’d make a formal complaint.
All well and good, but a couple of days later my supervisor made a wee comment in a similar vein, with a “pregnant pause” afterwards. I got the impression tht my colleague had made a little pre-emptive comment/complaint to the super, and the super was feeling me out to see just how sensitive I was.
As it was, I never had to escalate because my colleague got a little too close to the folk we were protecting and got his ass fired. But fair warning of a jerk’s behaviour can simply give them an opportunity to prepare a defence.
Culture is created at the top huh? Maybe a few Key people in public ‘service’ should be informed of that.
I do agree that there is very much the unspoken challenge to disagree with racist and sexist jokes in some work environments (personal experience in warehousing and IT ) and accepting it leads to judgments that affect working relationships for a very long time. These challenges usually go unremarked on by management.
Pity she contradicts her argument. Friend of mine was recently doing her best to avoid promotion, in an effort to remain free of the hellish environment she’d have to work in, and retain the work she loved. There was no bonus to climbing, for her, or anyone else. In the end she got more money, same responsibility, more informal power and no extra hassle. Culture isn’t always controlled by the top. Life is full of oddities.
No she doesn’t. Just because your friend did something else doesn’t mean others have to do the same as your friend.
I suspect it depends upon the place. In a small workplace then culture could be directed from the top down whereas in a large place culture is more likely to drift up.
I tend to view workplace cred as a bank balance – if you don’t want to save up for a promotion, you can spend it on all sorts of other stuff, like cash or turning up late every so often.
No point in building up a rep if you aren’t going to spend it 🙂
Sexism in Engineering and Science – you only know what you know
She makes good points. Thought provoking and behaviour modifying.
I have a question though and I do not know the answer to this. Do women gossip concerning men’s private lives, make sexist jokes about them or make demeaning comments about men, among themselves? If yes, is that Ok?
I usually play dumb (not hard) and ask for the “joke” to be explained. It seems to work.
Why is it that RNZ only uses the high priests of neo-liberalism ( the banks’ economists) as their commentators in the Business instead of more independent thinkers?
Yeah it does seem like endless free promotion of the banks’ interests.
Rod Oram seems an independent thinker. It’d be nice if they could use him in the business segment of the news as well as in the more in-depth Nine to Noon business bits.
Because they are on speed dial and always available. Left needs some similar people.
Bernard Hickey is easily available.
Because they don’t contact academics from our universities. RNZ is not balanced any more, and here is another example.
Talking about the high priests of neo-liberalism:
It’s long but well worth reading.
Pity Kim Hill is still not on Morning Report to ask Key some searching questions about his harassment of the waitress.
When the donkey is in a hole, give him a spade to dig deeper .. or, ahem, more ponytails to pull, like a man’s: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/68235578/john-key-ponytail-pull-not-sexist
herald editorial writer has let rip @ the port company..
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/herald-editorial-rails-against-the-port-company-that-is-stealing-our-harbour/
Tomorrow’s NZH headlines should read ” John Key tells Aucklander’s to get real the port expansion is going ahead.”
That’s right National is behind destroying the harbour. You can bet behind the scene large amounts of political donations are being channeled through into the National Party coffer’s. The broker is a former Nat MP Ms Young who is both a lobbyist and executive director of the Shipping Federation. If you join the dots here you can see the connection;
Young as lobbyist smears taxpayer owned Railway as a bottomless pit.
National are all about roads and forge ahead with an unessential Northland toll road.
North Port buys 50 million dollar crane so they can increase container loading.
Port of Auckland build out into harbour so they can accommodate larger shipping vessels.
Shipping line ships containers from North Port on small ship to load onto large vessel at Port of Auckland.
If only we had a MSM that investigate dirty deals!
are labour caucuses like prayer-circles..?
..where they all sit/holding hands – and pray to a (non-gender-specific) god that key will screw up some more..?
..is this their grand-plan for ’17..?
..is this all they’ve got..?
Labour is no worse than National; Bill English is like a gambling addict playing roulette in the casino who keeps stubbornly placing his chips on Number 13 while incantating “the surplus will come, the surplus will come”.
“..Labour is no worse than National…”
i agree – but is that really ‘enough’..?
“…is that really ‘enough’..?”
+100
in absence of better it might have to be.
and no I do not see the Greens as an alternative that would be better than Labour.
Enough for what exactly?
A lift in the polls?
Winning a by-election?
Winning the General Election in 2017?
It is not clear to me what Labour should be gunning for in your opinion …
all of the above + more..
IMHO this is way too vague to (in)form a winning strategy. Just saying.
Key’s squirming away on Morning report. “We live in a global world” (the earth is spherical, fancy that!), “we live in a tactile world”, “we live in a world where people have broad family” are about the most coherent statements he’s made. We live in a world where the rest is also eminently gigglesome.
Key is in real trouble based on that interview….
Key lives on Planet Key.
If David Shearer has been classified as Dr. Mumblef**k what on earth was Key on about this morning ? The man was almost intelligible.
It was a fucking word salad.
The legal advice that he tried to lie about is obviously cramping his style.
A word salad that’s been left out on the bench for a couple of days.
accurate and evocative
the rot’s starting to show.
salad goes very slimey – key is off
LOL.
Oh gawd.
Espiner: “Would you have done it to a man?”
Key: “I could have, yup.”
Key just went from David Brent to Gareth Keenan.
Exactly my thought, felix! Foxholes ahoy!
‘We take conflicts of interest seriously because we know Labour will criticise us.’
Yeah, conflicts of interest are screaming Lefty conspiracy theories.
Yeah that was very revealing.
Guyon asked what he’d done about a serious issue of process, and he answered unprompted that he’d done everything possible to cover his ass politically.
any link pse ? thx
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201752858/prime-minister-regrets-misreading-ponytail-saga
thx kind Weka ! I’d leave you a grin if the smileys worked 😀
He can’t remember what hat he was wearing when he got legal advice 🙄
He regrets that the incident occured. I suppose that means it was something that happened to him rather than something he did.
Yep.
He has gone to great lengths to explain that we’re not allowed to criticize him in one role for something he did in another role.
If he expects that to fly, he really has to be be able – at all times – to answer the question “what role are you in?”
One of his problems will be if he used that cafe to entertain in his role as PM. Lots of grey areas there though.
I suppose that means it was something that happened to him rather than something he did.
Of course something happened to him.
Key; Well, this young woman kept pushing past me with a pony-tail that bobbed up and down all the time. What was a fun-loving laid back person like me supposed to do? Ignore it? No. I pulled it just like very other “fun loving” man would do.
She was asking for it, right?
Can’t wait for him to try it on a man or perhaps even an All Black with a pony tail … especially while humming the theme from Jaws as his own is cracked as he falls slowly to the ground with his lights going out.
I can see him doing it to a male waiter who he decided was heterosexual, who was smaller in stature than him, who had a pony tail and who he knew as much as he knew Bailey. I think there would be an element of joshing, you’re weird as a man for having long hair thing, which in some situations would be part of that Kiwi blokes giving each other a hard time thing but ok. But in a work situation with these kind of power differences it would just be about shaming him. Which has some similarities to what he did to Bailey.
The other thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that the back of the head is a vulnerable area of the body. Someone sneaking up behind you and pulling on your hair is likely to trigger a stress response in many people. Given he was doing this repeatedly and sometimes from behind when she was unaware of him, it’s probable that each time he came into the cafe she went on the alert automatically, which is horrible and stressful enough without then having him touching her as well.
And in Maori culture the head is tapu.
CnrJoe, I posted on that thought a few days ago.
Seems like a major cultural faux pas for the PM of NZ. And definitely something surely that would have been mentioned to him at some time in his 53(?) years.
Yes I have also mentioned this tapu nature of the head but it doesn’t count for key imo because he is a total know-nothing on Māori culture, ethics or belief systems. He has zero personal mana imo, the office of PM has some mana but that has diminished considerably and is only endowed by Māori and Māori are very generous in general.
She was just asking for it, right?
Key: Well, if she wasn’t then why did she keep pushing past me? What did she expect? That I’d turn the other way with her pony tail flapping in my face?
Bystander: Perhaps she was just doing her job Mr Key. She’s a waitress after all.
Key: Well (or should I say weel) if that was the case she should have gone and done her waitressing elsewhere.
Bystander: I believe she tried but you kept following her around.
Key: I dunno about that. Its just that I’m the sort of guy everyone wants to talk to so I move around so they can talk to me. That’s not my fault.
and ad infinitum…
A compassionate animal lover leaves thousands over years to SPCA .. but look at the perfect nominative determinism of the man who managed her estate at the Public Trust.
“Several SPCA kittens have been named Molly, Alberta, Beebe and Wyatt after their generous benefactor. One tabby was named Owen Whisker after the Public Trust staff member who had managed her estate for a decade, whose real name was Owen Whisker.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/68227041/wellington-cat-lover-leaves-400k-to-the-spca
a look back at when conservatives were not planet-frying/society-shredding far-right nutjobs..
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/conservatism-has-gone-rogue-and-lost-touch-with-the-rest-of-us-comment-they-havent-always-been-this-badbonkers-examples/
Would have been a lot simpler if you’d just put in the link, a small quote of the article and then you’re own comment. Save having to waste time going to your website first.
Sen. Bernie Sanders Says America Needs ‘Political Revolution’ in 2016
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sen-bernie-sanders-america-political-revolution-2016/story?id=30771426
Interesting, I was going to post a comment like “Good luck with him beating Hillary..”
But by going on facebook likes alone I’m impressed. Hillary Clinton has 800,000. Bernie Sanders has a not insignificant 365,000. I think he could cause her a bit of a fright, go the truth talking people’s champion!
America is showing the signs of wanting change with the recent huge marches on minimum wage and the shooting of blacks.
And he raised $1.5 million in 24 hours, all from small individual donations, nothing from corporations. He beat some of the Republican Party challengers who receive huge amounts of corporate money. True grassroots support.
Interesting article on the trashy UK MSM. Seems our bunch have something to aspire to:
http://rt.com/op-edge/255273-uk-election-media-politics/
Coming to New Zealand, thanks to TPP?
OceanaGold sues government with the aim to push ahead and dig for gold and silver near El Salvador’s last clean water source:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/254710/nz-warned-over-goldmine-legal-action
Protests being planned for Washington, Sydney, Ottawa and Vancouver.
OceanaGold owns the Reefton, Macraes and Frasers gold mines in the South Island and is listed on NZ’s sharemarket.
Where are OceanaGold’s offices in NZ?
can’t find one … all in Melbourne .. but there is a Kiwi email if you want to apply for a job …
http://www.oceanagold.com/contact-us/
Thanks, r-y.
A friend pointed me to this:
Registered Office
22 Maclaggan Street, Dunedin , New Zealand
http://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/1896892?backurl=%2Fcompanies%2Fapp%2Fui%2Fpages%2Fcompanies%2Fsearch%3Fmode%3Dstandard%26type%3Dentities%26q%3DOceanaGold
News about the El Salvador case was previously pointed out here on TS by good folks such as Murray Rawshark and Tautoko Viper.
Does anyone know if a NZ protest is being planned?
you could try here..this is the only nz contact i cd find on their website.
Level 2, 159 Hurstmere Road
Takapuna
Auckland 1309
New Zealand
T: +64 9 488 8700
they should be able to tell you where the nz head office is..
Thanks, phillip ure. Good to see you back here.
chrs..
Looks like Greece is entering the end game in terms of trying to have their cake (stay in the Euro) and eat it (ditch Austerity policies) too.
When will leftists realise that you can’t beat the market?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11576465/Greeces-endgame-heres-why-it-could-be-forced-to-capitulate.html
When you get a time machine and make everything Alan Greenspan told Congress in 2008 disappear.
When are the RWNJs going to realise that ‘the market’ is a human construct?
The market reflects fundamental human instincts and behaviour. You alter that then you can get your “new” system. Unfortunately for you altering basic human behaviour on a long term basis has proven difficult.
No it doesn’t as shown by the existence of successful societies throughout history that didn’t have one (see Debt: The first 5000 years by David Graeber).
Also, if it was “instinctual” then we wouldn’t have to be taught it.
Upgrading from a warped mirror isn’t changing the object that is being reflected. Just reflects it more accurately.
When will Left Wing Idealists realise that all human constructs are human constructs?
We do. That’s why we realise humanity has the ability to change them, rather than having blind faith in their immutable perfection.
Absolutely McFlock.
The test of the validity of a human construct is whether or not the human creators of human constructs collectively support it to continue, or they develop the collective will to change it.
As a lost sheep, I’m just bleeting into the wilderness that the Left is doing an unbelievably piss poor job of putting up a compelling argument for change.
Hence the lack of anything remotely like a realistic threat to the free market that you despise.
But apologies if i am distracting you from much more vital issues like the totally obsessive cult of character absorption with the intellectual and political lightweight John Key.
Well, at about the time you posted I was watching GoT.
But thankyou for descending from the heavens to waft your enlightenment upon us, oh great one.
the market? as in the free market? in the monetary system?
planet key
Gosman I know you belive in medieval economic voodoo – You just don’t understand that t.i.n.a is the mantra of ideological bankruptcy.
And by keeping pushing t.i.n.a you look more and more like a vulgar marxist.
Rather than someone who is looking for economics as a tool to work for the society.
That said, you’re welcome to embrace a bunch of tired mantras – just stop thinking that they are the truth.
I had family obligations, so didn’t make it to the SDHB food outsourcing Octagon protest on Saturday. It looks like it went fairly well, good to see the Labour electorate MPs turned up:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/340987/many-turn-out-protest-meals-move
Does anyone who went have submission info for the SDHB meeting? The only upcoming meeting I can see on their site (http://www.southerndhb.govt.nz/pages/boardmeetings/) is on July 7th.
Also, unless there is a different one, this seems to be the online version of the petition:
https://www.change.org/p/southern-district-health-board-we-are-calling-on-the-southern-district-health-board-to-retain-our-food-services-in-house?recruiter=275172661&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_facebook_responsive&utm_term=mob-xs-no_src-no_msg&hc_location=ufi
I believe the paper petition is being presented to SDHB at a meeting at Wakari Hosp on Thursday morning. (9am I think)
I had a little brainfart about an allegory for our economy. In Peter Pan, Tinker Bell the fairy becomes weak and listless and all the children in the world who believe in fairies are asked to clap their hands which will make Tinker Bell strong again. I suggest that our economy is in itself a matter of imagination, kept in place by the willingness of believers in the fairy framework that makes the financial fangdango to keep it blooming and floating.
And Nz is a separate flimsy floating entity attached by visible and invisible strings. Sometime it is going to take a huge effort of will and positive affection from believers in NZ, with commitment to our country to stop it going down. And if not forthcoming NZ will end up like a squashed deflated balloon that cannot be mended, but can only provide some small residue to be recycled into something viable for the future. We have to stop drinking the Kool-Aid, it is poison!
Captain Hook, who also tries to poison Peter’s medicine while the boy is asleep. When Peter awakes, he learns from the fairy Tinker Bell that Wendy has been kidnapped – in an effort to please Wendy, he goes to drink his medicine.
Tink does not have time to warn him of the poison, and instead drinks it herself, causing her near death. Tink tells him she could be saved if children believed in fairies…. Peter turns to the audience watching the play and begs those who believe in fairies to clap their hands. At this there is usually an explosion of handclapping from the audience, and Tinker Bell is saved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_and_Wendy
Yep it surely is when it comes to the fairytale part of the economy e.g. ‘house prices’.
But it aint when it comes to the heartland of any economy which is the daily activities of inhabitants i.e. buying the milk, driving the car to work, watching the tele, doing the washing etc etc etc
One of those parts is fluff. The other is real.
Trouble is vto, we don’t have our own currency. And the whole exchange system is only as strong and continuing as the international system lets it be. If we had our own exchange system we would probably suffer quite a recession until we persevered and got the mainly localised system established and everyone did some free things for the community to make sure we covered services.
The cost of being part of the international game, is that big boys with bigger marbles can hit ours out of the ring. Or to make the point on a more adult level, we have joined a poker game played by professionals where they will always win except when they are setting us up.
Peak internet and energy constraints.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/britain-may-be-forced-to-ration-the-internet-expert-warns-as-web-use-could-consume-100-of-nations-power-supply-by-2035-10222638.html
https://royalsociety.org/events/2015/05/communication-networks/
That’s kind of funny (couldn’t happen to a nicer species). Strange headline from the Independent though, it’s not the UK’s power supply that is reaching its limit from internet use.
Here is another analysis of how the Syriza government has screwed up badly since coming in to power.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/03/100-days-of-solitude-syriza-struggles-as-greeks-once-again-stare-into-the-abyss
It is much easier to get elected on a policy of ‘Screw the powers that be” than actually try and govern in a sensible manner.
‘Screw[ing] the powers that be’ is governing in a sensible manner. Nobody should have to live in a dictatorship ruled by the rich for the rich.
Anyone who hasn’t already seen it, or knew about it, can have a look on The Daily Blog site for the link to the latest “How not to be an Asshole” podcast.
They’ve done quite few now, and they’ve managed to avoid being blantant assholes so far. I haven’t learned anything from them in that respect.
Today’s podcast is the first time I’ve seen/heard their mask slip, and this podcast is the best I’ve heard, for interviewing prowess rather than content, although content is good too – or at least relevent to the concerns often talked about here. This week was a guest spokesperson from AAAP.
Those two guys doing the interview take good cop/bad cop to a whole new level. Sharp as ghost-knives! It’s nice to know that there are people out there who are better at interviewing than any of the big name stars on TVNZ et al.
It really is a shame that NZ still thinks that “if it isn’t on TV, it isn’t any good”. Probably if these guys became employed to do their thing on nationwide TV it’d be the end of them. But since so many people now have access via the web, what’s the excuse for TV to hold such a cultural stranglehold in the minds of people? None.
Podcast total time takes about an hour.
Matthew Hooten on John Key’s embarrassing, bumbling, inarticulate, blatantly self-contradictory, legal-weaseling, undignified, weak, quivering interview this morning:
Ouch.
Aren’t you going to start looking for some hidden subtext in what he was trying to state? Surely he can’t be giving his honest impression of the affair as he is part of the VRWC against the left / sarc
What, the vast right wing conspiracy that was thoroughly documented using their own fucking emails? Nah, not a bit of it /sarc
Tories eat their weak. And Key is weak.
Considering Little is looking like being over taken by Winston as preferred leader I wouldn’t get too excited
oh okay I’ll just go looking over ther- waaaaiit a minute!!!
Nice try /sarc
The thing is that Little and Peters have over a year before the campaign to scrap it out without looking like their parties are falling apart. If the nats lose 5% due to internal warfare, they’re out of total power, even if winston decides to support neolibs on confidence and supply (rewriting the deal every budget).
The only question is whether the caretaker pm the other parties face is Collins or some other numpty.
Are you referring to Key or Hooton?
The quote is from Hooton
yeah, I was wondering who Gosman was having a go about.
What, you mean like Matthew ‘DP crew 4 life’ Hooton could have some political angle he’s playing by announcing that Key has jumped the shark every five minutes?
Sounds a bit far fetched /sarc
Matthew ‘DP crew 4 life until a better offer comes along’ Hooton
fify 😉
It’s a dynamic environment for sure.
How about John Key try pushing this line?
That he has been fondling girls’ hair in his capacity achually as Minister of Tourism. And in his capacity as Prime Minister, he will be firing John Key the Minister of Tourism.
Done and dusted.
/sarc
on twitter or where felix ? thx
and Hooton has to be on Collins payroll, doesn’t he ??
On Nine to Noon.
ps ‘I agree with Matthew’ 😀
He must know that there is a determined group with someone else in mind, so he is prepared to drop his fawning support for Key and just leave the hole lightly patched at present, ready for a new plant to push through.
Anyone mentioned Little looking like a deer caught in the headlights every time he got asked a question on where Labour are heading, on Q&A
Little said he was going to spend the first year listening talking and learning to find out what nz needs. I’m happy to wait ,although with the imminent collapse of the national party possible , little might need to speed it up.
That is cool, but he is in danger of becoming irrelevant
Three figuratively and literally piss-taking news links :
Key taking the piss:
Politician taking a piss:
An annoyed bite stopping a piss:
Hooten reckons he has been to most of the cafes in question and has never seen any “horsing around” in any of them. Only people drinking coffee, reading and chatting. Funny that.
May be Hooton should try pulling Bronagh’s hair in fun when they are there just to horse around a bit.
serco australia technically insolvent,who will run the debtors prisons?
http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/red-ink-flows-from-sercos-detention-centres-20150503-1myt9v.html
I think this may be the perfect symbol of consumerism:
Costs a huge amount, causes environmental damage, is completely useless and melts away in minutes.
and all so that you can’t see or taste it.
Besides, ice waters it down anyway.
Oooh. Quake. (tremor) Dunedin.
Anyone in Wanaka? About 6 there?
Just txted some friends close to the epicentre, seems all ok, but I bet the people at Treble Cone got a fright. Looks like it was up the Matukituki Valley in that mountain range.
Geonet have it as a 6.0/severe, US Geological Services as a 5.6 (but they also think it was near Queenstown).
edit, btw it’s worth bearing in mind that quakes in the mountains are different than the ones that Chch had, so a 6.0 is big enough but not like what Chch experienced.
cheers.
did you mean that at the same measurement, a quake in the mountains would be felt less severely than on the flat?
the richter scale doesn’t reflect people’s experiences very well, I guess because of the different geology (mountains of stone vs plains of alluvial gravel). It will be interesting to see what the intensity scale measurement ends up being, Chch2 was very high from what I remember despite the Richter number not being that high.
Here we are,
Wanaka http://geonet.org.nz/quakes/region/newzealand/2015p332712
Chch2 http://info.geonet.org.nz/display/quake/M+6.3%2C+Christchurch%2C+22+February+2011
Both at a similar depth, although the Chch one was very close to lots of people, whereas the only people likely to be that close to the Wanaka one would be climbers or farmers, and probably no-one, so it will be hard to compare.
It depends on the type of weathered material around. If you had (as they did in Nepal) a lot of loosely compacted material on the mountains, then you’d feel the resulting avalanches of snow and rock more severely than you would with the liquefaction and jiggling of sediments on the flat.
The energy measurement of the earthquake matters a lot less locally than the type of earthquake (extensional, compression, strike slip or combinations of those), the local geological structures and the types of buildings that people have. They also depend on the amount of surrounding faulting and what stage the stresses in those are.
Mountains generally have smaller effect earthquakes than plains simply because they get triggered by other faults earlier. But it is a bit meaningless as an idea if a fault there triggers a series of immediate secondary earthquakes that carry on from the original one.
Nate Silver’s UK election prediction: May 3
http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/uk-general-election-predictions/
if it follows that – the likes of sinn fein will be in a box seat..
..to reach that needed 326 for a majority..
..and it looks like miliband + snp + incidentals..
..once again..going on that poll..i cant see the tories being able to pull together that magic number..
..the lib-dems have lost a lot of support..
..it’s good news..
..bye bye tories..bye-bye…
Yep, looks good. Regarding the majority, while 326 is the target for Labour, anything above 275 will almost certainly see them form a working minority government. They won’t need the SNP for C&S at that point (assuming of course that the SNP abstain and don’t deliberately bring them down). Tories + Lib Dems + DUP can’t muster a majority, so they would be immediately sunk on C&S if they tried to cobble together a minority coalition of their own.
My pick is Labour + SDLP, with an outside chance of the Lib Dems joining them.
Reads as though you’re looking at this through the lens of Parliaments as they were before the Fixed Term Parliaments Act?
Labour don’t need the SNP, or any one else for Confidence and Supply at any point because… The Fixed Term Parliaments Act. There will probably be no coalitions formed by anyone for the same reason…they aren’t needed. And so, the principle party (the one that presents a Queens Speech that receives 50%+ backing) doesn’t have to enter into horse trading over cabinet posts or anything of that sort.
The SNP have openly stated, as have Plaid Cymru, that they will vote against any budget containing austerity measures. That doesnt bring the government down. At that point Labour will simply have to rewrite and re-table to get 50% +…just as the SNP had to do with one of its Holyrood budgets.
All in all, and rather oddly, a far more open and transparent Parliament than anything we can hope for from the Beehive.
How does the Fixed Term Parliaments Act work and why does it mean no coalitions?
Essentially, once a government is sitting, it’s kind of ‘locked in’ bar a 3/4 majority voting to dissolve Parliament after a no confidence vote.
I’ve cut and pasted from the Act, then altered it a bit to read a bit closer to plain English and highlighted a couple of obvious bits.
The link to the Act (it’s very short) is here http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/14/section/1
Early parliamentary general elections
An early parliamentary general election is to take place if the House of Commons passes a motion “that there shall be an early parliamentary general election”. That motion must be passed by a number equal to or greater than two thirds of the number of seats in the House (including vacant seats).
An early parliamentary general election is also to take place if the House of Commons passes a motion ““That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.” andthe period of 14 days after the day on which that motion is passed ends without the House passing a motion “That this House has confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.”
edit. The PM then recommends a date to the Queen…blah, blah
3Dissolution of Parliament
The Parliament then in existence dissolves at the beginning of the 25th working day before the polling day for the next parliamentary general election as determined under section 1 or appointed under section 2(7).
(2)Parliament cannot otherwise be dissolved.
edit: sorry I’ve asked the same question below. Deleting this one.
Cheers, Bill, correct as usual. As I understand it, it’s only votes of confidence (or no confidence) that can now bring a Government down. The change was brought in by the Lib Dems as part of their coalition deal in 2010. However, coalitions are still the best way to avoid that happening, where there is no outright majority available. The more votes in favour, the less likely a Government will fall.
I think the process is now that the German woman in Buckingham Palace asks someone to have a crack at forming a Government and if they survive the confidence motion, they’re in power until for 5 years or until they lose a no confidence vote. Presumably Queenie will ask the biggest party first, but I suppose if a clear majority of smaller parties is available, she’d go with the largest of those. Probably Labour this time around.
Cheers. How did it work before 2010?
If memory serves, a Government could be bought down by losing C&S, or a (no) confidence vote or if the Queen’s speech was not adopted by Parliament. A simple majority against was enough. The Lib Dem’s change thinned down the options and lifted the majority needed to scupper the PM.
Got to do more than simply lose a no confidence vote.
If the Tories put up a Queens Speech, it will be voted down by (at least) Labour, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens. That gives Miliband 14 days to put a non-contentious Queens Speech together that the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens will vote for. And a Labour government comes into being.
After that a specifically worded ‘no confidence’ motion has to be backed up further by a 3/4 seat majority for dissolution.
Now, the SNP and others will vote against Labour on some stuff…including budgets. But then all they (the SNP etc) do is not vote that vote of no confidence and Labour have to go back to the drawing board.
Labour wont get in. I just dont see them getting there. Narrow victory to the Tories I am afraid. Ed to become a page in someone else’s history book, as he is ousted from the leadership by autumn, the Blairites, led by Chuka Ummana (sp?) taking back control…
Liberal Democrats wiped out to less then 10 MP’s including Clegg, and UKIP a complete fizzer, getting a number of thirds, but no seats. Greens to get 2 or 3 seats. Scottish National party will do well, but not as much as expected.
Who is the “prominent New Zealander?
Who is the Minister?
Do they both involve children?
If not, why are we not allowed to know?
Some positive news for a change
Tesla unveils batteries to power homes
http://m.bbc.com/news/technology-32545081
The rechargeable lithium-ion battery unit would be built using the same batteries Tesla produces for its electric vehicles, analysts said.
The system is called Powerwall, and Tesla will sell the 7kWh unit for $3,000 (£1,954), while the 10kWh unit will retail for $3,500 (£2,275) to installers.
Energy comparison firm USwitch estimates that one kWh can power two days of work on a laptop, a full washing machine cycle or be used to boil a kettle 10 times.
Mr Musk said the company would partner with SolarCity to install the home batteries, but there would be more companies announced.
Mr Musk is SolarCity’s chairman and largest shareholder.
They now have a partnership with Vector. The batteries will be expensive in Aotearoa.
They’re going to be about half the price of using lead-acid batteries, use significantly less space and hopefully they’ll come with a predetermined recycling process (lithium is both dangerous and scarce).
Are you including the Vector markup?
Yes.
Last I heard, to get enough storage using lead-acid cost over $10,000 compared to ~US$3500 for the Tesla battery. Even with a high mark up I doubt it’ll come to NZ$5000.
That’s $4,600 already. I think they’ll probably charge between 6 and 7 grand. We’ll see. It’s a real shame no one more socially connected doesn’t have the partnership.
A Harley Ultra Ltd costs $41,495 in Aotearoa, and $26,999 in the US and A, or $NZ35,785.55. This is a ratio of 1.16. That would make the battery $NZ5336, but I expect Vector to be more predatory than H-D because they will factor in that they will be losing other custom every time they sell one.
I think my real worry is that they won’t be cheap enough for a lot of people to change over. Not many people change to a bank of lead acid batteries, although there are other reasons.
Vector is a lines company which means to say that they own the lines that delivery power to the house. As long as houses are still connected to the grid, and I suspect most would stay connected for times when solar doesn’t provide enough, they’ll get their monthly fixed charge. On top of that check out their solar plans. They’re obviously looking to get residual income from solar installations.
It’s not going to be cheap enough for the majority of households and probably won’t be for some time.
Andrew Little is showing poor political judgment.
He should be exploiting the PM’s position on the flag (alienating some conservatives in the centre and a lot of older voters who have voted Labour), thus when commenting about head of state matters saying that arrangements under Labour would be based on what the people want.
Offering his personal opinion on having a New Zealander as head of state does nothing to broaden support for Labour in the centre.
What are you referring to?
The interview at the weekend in which he said he wanted a New Zealander as head of state – that is no way to get older voters to return to Labour.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/concern-over-chinese-developers-million-dollar-northland-resort-6306920
TVOne News tonight … Northland becomes a Chinese tourist paradise .. 1700-1900 visitors a week, and all run by CEO Mike Sabin. What could possibly go wrong. Yuk.
My comment here only tangentially relates to your post.
why the hell are you still in the politics game? if I’d been thru the same florid surfeit of bullshit that you seem to have witnessed over the decades, the last thing I’d want to do for a HOBBY (defined as optional shit one gets up to in one’s free time) is driving a politics blog with open comments.
or is the answer simply that you still give a shit…
[lprent: Yes. But this looks diversionary. OpenMike. ]
I have parents, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, great nephews, great nieces and a pile of friends. I also hate arsehole bullies of all types.
No difference to the way that I volunteered for the army, worked for the politician(s) of my choice for decades, and now spend time on a blog.
So I always give a shit because if you don’t hammer the arseholes they’ll gut your friends, family, and anyone else. They will do this to crawl over them to money, power and money. It is part of the sociopathic profile that is the similarity between Cameron Slater or John Key and some pissant warlord on the Somali coast.
If not me, then who else. If you don’t understand that, then I suspect you’re reading the wrong blog.
Speaking just for myself – it is because I am old enough to remember growing up in a New Zealand before Rogernomics .
Nope the ‘good old days’ were not all that good. Plenty of shit went down. Plenty of narrow-minded, petty little bigots and boofheads to be found.
But the difference was that we had a political system that was anchored somewhat to the idea of ‘giving a shit’. Since we let idea go there may well be more bling and shiny toys for some people in evidence – but us ordinary people have been erased from the political map.
If that makes me a pompous old dinosaur wallowing in long-irrelevant nostalgia from his boyhood – then so be it. But then I cannot blame you for not missing what you never knew. I’m genuinely sorry for that.
I mean, you seem to be in an interesting zone between believing that conventional party politics is well and truly broken, and believing that open debate about the same has some kind of merit…