In amongst the plethora of lamentations for Tom Petty (who was Tom Petty?) in Daily Review last night, CoroDale slipped in two references to a RNZ broadcast which may have passed unnoticed! The whole is worth listening to, but here’s a couple of extracts:
“When you’ve got a government that comes out and says, we’ve got to tolerate 8 or 9 percent unemployment or that one third of children in New Zealand live in poverty, when you’ve got a prime minister who then says ‘well, we can’t do anything about that now because we’ll run out of money’, that’s an insidious lie.”
and
“The Greens are neo-liberals on bikes and the Labour Party are neoliberal lite. They say ‘I’ll do austerity but I’ll do it fairer’.
“There’s no such thing as fair austerity when you’ve got a third of your children living in poverty.”
Yep… this is the basis for Bill Mitchell’s statement. And he’s right. Unless Labour and Greens are prepared to tear up their fiscal pledge, it looks like more of the same neo-liberal economics… but with a nicer face.
Unfortunately @Carolyn, it all starts with that Natzi type mindset such that employees should be grateful if an employer deigns to employ them.
You issue an immigrant a visa that ties him or her to a specific employer. If the employer is good – count yourself lucky.
You then shift the Labour Inspectorate and Immigration NZ under a business focussed Ministry and completely under-resource them.
If the employer turns out to be an arsehole, tough luck. If you want to change employer, you’re then faced with INZ application fees, and perhaps the cost of an immigration lawyer – something hard to do if you’re living hand to mouth, underpaid/less than minimum wage – sometimes even having your passport retained, and living in some shithole somewhere.
It’s actually a form of bondage of employee to employer.
Then of course the other unintended/(actually probably intended) consequence.
Why would the unscrupulous employer employ an unemployed Kiwi (who does not have to suffer that form of bondage) when you can exploit the immigrant for all they’re worth and make a tidy (often cash-based) profit?
It has now been going on for years. And of course if the exploited do get a bit uppity and challenge either the employer, OR the Inspectorate, OR both – you can always make them in breach of their visa conditions and boot them out of the country and get another one.
It all dovetails in nicely with some of the shoddy private tertiary institutions and labour supply/recruitment/contractor companies – some of whom have cosy little relationships with immigration consultants.
Government consists of “public servants”; – these who are our ‘public servants’ should firstly be serving the needs and ‘interests’ including aspirations of their employees who are ‘the public’
Public service’. 2 :a service rendered in the public interest
So according to the legal requirements of these ‘public servants’ they are legally required to serve the public interests firstly and not their own needs right?
1 :the business of supplying a commodity (such as electricity or gas) or service (such as transportation) to any or all members of a community
2 :a service rendered in the public interest
3 :governmental employment; especially :civil service
“Government consists of “public servants”; – these who are our ‘public servants’ should firstly be serving the needs and ‘interests’ including aspirations of their employees who are ‘the public’
Public service’. 2 :a service rendered in the public interest”
That’s the theory @ Cleengreen, but it hasn’t been the case since neo-liberalism took hold and was allowed to run rampant. It’s been corporatised into a series of little fiefdoms – the chiefs being ‘CEOs’ ffs! and senior management chiefs who get to choose who best serves their agendas. (Usually good honest frontline Public Servant peons doing there best, but who often operate in fear of their masters – their masters who take credit for the ‘win wins going forward’, but who apportion blame down the heirarchy when things go tits up)
The ‘Public’ Service as a bizzniss – equipped with all its purchase agreements and KPI’s that (as it can be shown) are regularly abused without consequence.
At the time of the reforms I think we were promised greater efficiency and effectiveness, accountability, and non-partisan administration – that is improvements to what we once had. Instead – the opposite. You only have to look at the sucking up and arse protecting of Ministers – or even just the record to date in areas such as Health, Education, NZTA, MPI (border incursions for example), MoBIE (shitty steel and suspect buildings, exploitation of workers, etc., etc., etc.). Then of course there’s abuse of OIAs and cronyism. And then there’s the real standouts such as WINZ and CYPS.
But then back to the exploitation that @Carolyn-nth mentions.
It’s a “win win” for the exploiters and those engaged in preserving the (so-called public ‘service’) structure that enables it.
– An unthinking public that has blind faith in others supposedly serving their interests (that romantic notion of an actual Public/Civil Service) can simply see that it’s all these bloody immigrants coming over here taking all our jobs!
– A Minister – supposedly responsible but who can rely on his Munstry to protect his arse – who now screams ‘low quality immigrant’ in Peter Dutton fashion. Even the fairly reasonable Senior Public Servant (I could name names) who occasionally fronts media and who now has a big mortgage to pay, is likely to succumb to the cool aid – and after all – those ‘low quality immigrants’ are probably used to it.
After their supping the cool aid for so long – its now all NORMAL!, and why would they seriously want to challenge it all?
There’s a simple starting point:
– IF the only way you can run a business profitably by exploiting those economic units (that we’ll put on the spreadsheet, OR the MYOB/Xero equivalent as a COST), then your bizzniss IS NOT VIABLE – (going forward of course). I’ve even personally witnessed Labour Inspectorate managers tell me they know of worker exploitation based prices being charged for lunches and coffee ‘deals’ that aren’t sustainable considering their overheads – such as rent, electricity, etc., and that the only other option in order they break even – LET ALONE amass profit -is through worker exploitation. But then …. they go home to the missus and the kuds, and tomorrow is another day.
– ELSE if those managers can’t actually challenge the shit they know is happening or the heat in the kitchen, then get the fuck out!
Then there’s some obvious solutions – AT LEAST as a starting point – unless of course 3rd World humanity is OK in ‘lil ‘ole Nu Zull and now something we’re all supposed to aspire to in this neo-liberal nirvana of the market the market! (Perhaps THIS since we’ve set up the structure to encourage and enable: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/as-chinas-economy-slows-business-cults-prey-on-young-job-seekers/articleshow/60881676.cms),
OR any other SS Joyce/ACTian view of the future). I hope they’re really confident in the security of their local gated community – well it’s probably not really a community, rather a number of individualists living in close proximity to one another. But then “yeow” as Mister Farrar and Chem Slator would say – the Murrays might get restless.
STOP bonding employees to employers
PURGE those employers from the country RATHER than their victims (when they only have residency status)
STOP the conflicts of interest – those that exist between contractors/PTEs/etc. and immigration officials. (we could go deeper and talk about things like Swamp Kauri PS enablers)
START resourcing INZ, LI, NZQA properly and take them the fuck away from a Munstry that was founded on promoting/enabling the bizznizz interest over and above the citizen and person as a social being.
A close reading of the Herald article ( ignore the headline) gives 4 reasons for the slowing of the housing crisis.
winter
bank lending limits
the election
China’s crackdown on capital flows
The most interesting section is this……
‘ James Steele, QV Auckland senior consultant, said sales volumes were down to very low levels because demand was halted “by the ability for purchasers to finance property deals.
Steele said Auckland had continued to flatten to reach what Steele called a stalemate situation. A change would only occur if a significant economic shock destabilised prices by further reducing demand or there was an easing of lending restrictions, he said.’
Is the banks’ reluctance to lend caused by a realisation of a future ‘significant economic shock’? They do not want to get burnt. That added to ‘China’s crackdown on capital flows’ could see a crash on its way.
Time for a return to a ‘self sufficient society’ again thank god as NZ is in a prime position to become this better than any other country I know today.
I have some history of what a country can become when it turned into a self sufficient society while in Rhodesia during the 1970 era PM Ian Smith actually turned that country around by restoring almost everything from cars trucks homes and industry as well as food and electricity sources and water.
The origional african people got homes built and jobs so it worked, until UK Government forced a deal to turn the government over to a “tyrant’ who still runs a murdering government today under a invested interested ‘corporate’ controlled system.
All previous successful self sufficient regions/countries have been toppled by corporate interests and their media persuasion.
Now it is Spain last year it was Venezuela remember this, as what is next?
Pretty simple question BM I am surprised you dont know the answer.
self-sufficient
This refers to single persons as well as countries, so my interest is for our Government consisting of “public servants” to carry out their role to provide our needs and interests as required under legal references to “public servants” to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance:
Of course the excess product can then be used to sell to any exrternal buyer for further financial income.
Here are the dictonary expanation of self sufficient.
‘The nation grows enough grain to be self-sufficient.’
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
adjective
1.
able to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance:
The nation grows enough grain to be self-sufficient.
2.
having extreme confidence in one’s own resources, powers, etc.:
It’s what we used to do back when we had a more egalitarian society with less poverty.
The idea that we just keep trading more commodities is making us poorer. Of course, that does seem to be what it was designed to do:
The income gap between rich countries and poor countries is not diminishing. It has been increasing dramatically, and not only during colonialism. Since the 1960s, the income gap between north and south has tripled.
“There’s something fundamentally wrong and it won’t be changed with a bit of aid here and there,” Hickel says. “We need to fundamentally restructure the global economy and make it fair.”
Hickel’s central thesis is that there is nothing natural about poverty. His book examines structurally determined behaviour, designed in-fact, to deliver the poverty outcomes we witness around the world.
That article is about aid but it applies to this thread because the entire financial system is designed to benefit a few at everyone else’s expense and we’re getting poorer because of it.
And then there’s the point that if we had kept making TVs in NZ they wouldn’t be anywhere near as labour intensive as then. In fact, with the correct development, producing them wouldn’t use any labour at all.
No, I’m not, I’m actually interested to see how a trading nation such as NZ is supposed to survive if it shuts the door and turns its back on the world.
BM we can be part of the British Commonweath again without the decietful rules imposed upon us now under some other trade pratices like TPPA and NAFTA. while remain ‘independent’ as we were under the British commonwealth trade system , as we see now clearly those later ones dont work for us thanks.
And before you rubbish the idea of ‘self sufficient’ remeber I qualified the use of overproduction of our own surplus products to sell to other countries who wanted it without any trade rules.
That way we get our finances to expand our lives and communities without borrowing offshore again.
Yes it is. The question is more if Labour can understand the lessons that are coming and get rid of the delusional financial system that they implemented all those years ago. To ban foreign ownership and investment which are making us poorer.
“Perfect time for Lab/Greens/NZ First to take over.”
I know that’s meant as a sly jab but there’s truth in it too. It is a good time for them to take over. National’s immigration driven economic ‘growth’ has almost reached its zenith and now it’s time for a housing surge to prop up the economy.
A big house building boom should see Labour through two terms at least I’d think. We’re in more risk of a recession under National.
The big house building boom under Labour isn’t going to happen until some fairly basic issues are solved
1) Who’s going to be developing the land
2) Lack of tradespeople, apprentice builders don’t cut it.
3)Lack of materials
4)Lack of building component companies within the construction pipeline, eg: Aluminium joiners, kitchen makers
That’s simplistic rubbish. Houses don’t need many tradespeople to build them and there’s no shortage of materials.
I think you’ll find it’s you whose spouting nonsense, homes are complicated and there’s a fuck load of trades involved in the building process both on-site and off.
The land can be developed by the Govt, that’s what they’re there for.
Didn’t realise the Govt owned any earth moving gear?
We had an entire ministry with earth moving gear and that sort of thing at one stage. Fuckers sold it off. Now tories are all “ohmahgerd, govt doesn’t have bulldozers! You’re silly!”
Yeah, they’re gone like everyone else the government is at the whim of the private sector.
Personally, I don’t really like it, but that’s the situation we find ourselves in currently, haven’t read anything about Labour changing anything either
Oh, when faced with a rorting private sector and 100k homes to build, the government will either get into the contruction business (like prefabrication factories) or do the same fuckall you’re lot have been up to as the crisis deepens.
lol, you’re only now just catching up with the policies you’ve been shitting on for months?
ISTR the local community trust has already bought a mill or something, and the $20mil was based on a decent business case to expand the site into a full prefabrication facility.
Oh, and there was already interest. The policy didn’t come out of thin air, it came from the region as part of Labour’s consultation, where they actually listened to what the regions needed. The idea of listening to the people is alien to you as a National shill, of course.
Yeah, they’re gone like everyone else the government is at the whim of the private sector.
The government is never at the whim of the private sector.
We now find ourselves in a crisis brought about by shifting governance to the private sector. The only way to correct that is to take it back into the hands of the populace.
Personally, I don’t really like it
That’d be a lie. you wouldn’t support profit and the private sector the way you do if you didn’t think that’s the way it should be. That’s why you vote National.
Homes are complicated? Where did you get that nonsense from, houses are simpler today than at any time in history.
They need tradesmen to supervise and oversee a less skilled workforce, they don’t need tradesmen to do every job. Anyone with reasonable hand-eye co-ordination and memory can work on a building site. That’s how the world was built.
The building industry *wants* more tradespeople. It doesn’t need them, there’s already plenty to go around. Of course they’d want them, it’s much less hassle for the management to hire people who can work unsupervised. But want doesn’t mean need.
When there’s more work than tradespeople you turn some of the tradesmen into supervisors and hire unskilled labour. The building industry has worked that way since, well, forever
And before you come up with another snide and ignorant comment look at your history. The allied WWI and WWII efforts were won by filling the factories with unskilled labour.
Leafing through my uncle’s journal of New Zealand Houses from the 1950’s there is barely any difference to what a regular new build looks like today and the building processes are all the same. You could bring back all the tradies from that era onto a new build and they would be fine apart from not knowing how to work a power drill and getting pissed off with most of the regulations.
LOL at the banning the export of building materials.
Why? Same as when Russia, when they had that drought a few years ago, banned the export of food. They needed it for themselves because they didn’t have enough.
The profits of the private sector come second to that.
Comrade Jacinda will make an appearance on The Peoples National TV Station (RadioNZ) and loudly shout into the camera.
“Nyet to the export of building materials from this day forward !!!, citizens who ignore this decree will be sent to the gulags (Dunedin), I Comrade Jacinda have spoken!!.
Interesting that the Chinese have a government that does things……
They don’t believe in the invisible hand of the all seeing market.
They also don’t allow foreigners to buy land or property in their country.
Funny, that – having a government that protects the sovereignty of the nation.
Jarrod Gilbert’s take down of Joyce and English is worth a thread of its own.
I’m sure others have spotted it.
‘I write this one for all of the morons out there.
The fools, the buffoons, the vapid oxygen thieves who are the enemies of reason, whose foolishness is only matched by their self-righteousness, whose understanding of key issues is inversely proportional to the loudness with which they speak. Gather around my enemies, I wish to have a word.
I need to talk about political tribalism, this phenomenon that so often mocks the principles that uphold our democracy while chipping away at its foundations……
…..Whether of not Joyce set out to cause mischief, or he simply misread the books and embarrassment and pigheadedness meant he was unable to back down (the latter theory I favour), we’re all aware that a swath of leading economists came out and debunked what he said.
What did Joyce do? Deny, deny, attack, deny, deny. And, of course, many of his people defended it, made excuses, or misrepresented the evidence.
All good people should have called that nonsense out in unison.
To the tribalists who didn’t I ask this: if Labour had made the same accusation against National and not a single economist supported it, would you have reacted the same way?
No. Of course not. And that’s what defines you as a moron.
In fact, looking at any issue and asking how you would react if the other side did it is a handy test we should all employ. Even when we claim neutrality such a test often teases out our unconscious biases……..
……..What ugliness awaits us now that this brazen low has been established? Where is our ambition for a democracy that exists on open debate and the exchange of ideas?
Wherever our allegiances fall we must not allow ourselves to be the foolish. The integrity of our system must stand before our desire for our team to win. Let us be a country that exhibits the best in politics and doesn’t embrace the very worst.’
Gilbert = sore loser. It is just his opinion, though no doubt loved by Standardnistas.
The figures Labour presented did add up, but only if there was no new spending (other than heath and education) in 2019 and 2020. Having no provision for new spending in the proposed 2019 and 2020 budgets was not credible. For instance National provides $1.5 billion unallocated expenditure in each of the out years.
The failure to provide additional spending meant there was a wide open hole for National to exploit, especially when the argument is made by the very people with the most real world experience of how government budgets are made up.
So for instance adding back $2 billion new spending in each of these years adds up to $6 billion, since you have to baseline the $2 billion from 2019. I would say for Labour $2 billion would be light. The $11 billion figure was based on $3.7 billion new spending in each year.
There are hundreds of thousands of voters with much better accounting and economic knowledge than Gilbert who could easily see the logic of Joyce and English’s arguments.
“The figures Labour presented did add up” Then we are in agreement and the National Party were lying like a flat fish. No need for a further four paragraphs twisting words like a column of smoke. Two ticks NZF here i hope Winnie goes with the Greens and Labour you lot are nothing but liars.
Attempting to spin them into something else only demeans you further…
It is noticeable that when Nats start feeling the pressure, the nasty streak which is present in every one of them rises to the surface for all to see.
Yep Wayne’s big hole revelation is disingenous in the extreme. The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree. Rewriting history is just par for the course. At least he’s stopped blathering on about the greens saving the gnats – I’m thankful for small mercies.
Actually, Wayne, when you said “The figures Labour presented did add up” you were admitting that Joyce told lies. He was very specific about the lines of expenditure that he claimed weren’t being accounted for and therefore did not add up. If he wasn’t lying deliberately at first (and was simply incompetent), then his and English’s shifting versions of this smear over time (morphing over time into your – false – claim that there was no allowance for new spending in 2019 and 2020 other than health and education) and refusal to back away from the “hole” idea was definitely a lie. As for your claim that this allegation came from the people who know the process best, I’d say Michael Cullen knows a thing or two about budgets, wouldn’t you?
Fake news spin for fakery. Scum tactics to win are still scum tactics and you must be so proud, beaming with pride, at the result. Legacy and honour builder FAIL.
What “loser?” The outcome of the election isn’t known yet. The fact the Nats think they “won” the election when they’re no more able to form a government than anyone else is a manifestation of Tory born-to-rule mentality – it has comedy value only.
I’d like to draw your attention to the following if you don’t mind. It was towards the end and you may have missed it:
Where is our ambition for a democracy that exists on open debate and the exchange of ideas? Wherever our allegiances fall we must not allow ourselves to be the foolish. The integrity of our system must stand before our desire for our team to win. Let us be a country that exhibits the best in politics and doesn’t embrace the very worst.
It seems to me that Gilbert is arguing that there is indeed a “loser” but it is not him; it is all of us …
Hundreds of thousands of voters with much better accounting and economic knowledge than Gilbert and the many, many experts who rubbished Joyce and English?
Those whose superior financial intellect saw them vote for Joyce and English
are probably still partying for the Argentina win over All Blacks last weekend.
I think BM has set himself up as the lefts conscience, well done BM, the troll that trawls, he/she probably reads these comments more closely than the rest of us, to correct the groupthink, meanwhile defending Nationals blatant lying, lovely, just lovely.
I also think it’s interesting that BM assumes that it’s a bad thing to have a boyfriend, and that any statement with an inbuilt assumption that a person might have one must therefore be a homophobic slur.
Wayne, Joyce’s failed academic record and English’s shifty and shifting answers on the Todd Barclay affair, does not make for confidence in their abilities. In other words, flexible integrity or lack of it. What they do have is ability to bluster, twist, distort ….. And through handing out cosy jobs for the boys they can wheel out people like yourself and other past their use by types to make it seem there is a groundswell of support for Greens to hold hands with National, despite the years and years of insults thrown at them.
Whatever the outcome, Jacinda and her team are behaving impeccably in contrast.
@Wayne: I accept that you have managed to create a justification for your belief in the invisible black hole that wasn’t evident to Cameron Bagrie, Ganesh Nana, Dr Vernon Small, Keith Ng, Brian Fallow, Bernard Hickey or Shamubeel Eaqub. I was impressed by the position that you took supporting an inquiry into Afghanistan civilian deaths. Therefore, why do I find it hard to understand how you can continue to support and defend a government that has continually behaved in an underhand way, that I would not have thought that you would condone.
Jeeez Wayne,
You should have let Stephen and Bill know that you believed their BILLSHIT about the 11 billion dollar hole that way when they were asked to provide one person that backed up what they said……..just one person…..even a taxi driver…. they could have confidently said well actually Wayne believes us and everything would have been sweet as. As it weas they couldnt name one person bbecause it was a lie.
By the way, typical Nat ploy by you, play the man (Jarrod Gilbert) not the ball as it was not him that said the hole didn’t exist he was merely reporting on what leading NZ economists had said. What he was saying is how sad it is that people are so indoctrinated into their own political beliefs that they refuse to see the truth in front of them.
Ed: “if Labour had made the same accusation against National and not a single economist supported it, would you have reacted the same way?
No. Of course not.”
Remember the relentless year long attack from National/Act on whether NZF had received a donation from Glenn or not? NO. Even a Privileges Committee “trial.”
And what happens to Joyce, Key, English much more serious lies? Nothing but support from the Media.
Actually, National supporters, including the tribalists, would consider the idea that they should vote for some other party, simply because Joyce made a boo boo, downright silly.
Don’t minimise this, mikesh – Joyce didn’t “make a boohoo” – he and his PM deliberately lied and misled their supporters. This was a clear, demonstrated example – one that even the most committed tribalist should be able to acknowledge. Given that, and the scale of the lie, how is anyone meant to believe that this was the only lie? Politics is about trust – are these people trustworthy?
Plus, let’s remember that it wasn’t only Nat tribalists who were being lied to – the aim was to influence swinging voters, and all the evidence suggests that they succeeded in this aim. That makes this a very significant lie.
“Whatever.”
So, you now concede that it was a lie, but hey – what does truth matter when decisions are being made about our nation’s future?
“National party supporters would still consider it silly to let it influence their vote.”
Did you fail to read or comprehend the final paragraph of my comment, mikesh? The lie wasn’t targeted at Nat supporters (they were always going to overlook the dirty politics and stay with their team, just as they have in the past) – it was aimed at swinging voters. The evidence of the polls before and after the lie and its constant repetition suggest that it had an effect on them. It didn’t have to be a big effect in order to make a difference in this very tight race.
I see the Herald has wheeled out another opinion piece denigrating Peters and extolling the worth of a Nat/Greens coalition. This time its Michael Cox.
Michael Cox who? I hear you say. He was an insignificant Nat MP in the 1980s. Cox has gone even further back in time to dredge up another politician to link Peters to – Benjamin Disraeli.
The authorities in Vegas are still trying to ascertain the motive of yet another mass killing. Well as our ” dear friend” Richard Prebble once opined… I’ve been thinking.
I’m a minor Dixie Chick fan because of their song “I’m not ready to make nice” ,which was penned by Natalie Main (lead singer) over what happened to the band after they commented at a concert in London that they were embarrassed that the President (G W Bush) came from Texas, which they did too. A documentary “Shut up and sing” was made about the severe antagonism and hatred the group then suffered. Death threats etc…. it was serious stuff for what was only an aside at a concert in a foreign land. The Country and Western Southern base went totally ballistic in their hatred for the Dixie Chicks…….
Maybe Paddock didn’t like something the group featuring at the concert in Vegas had said or sung, so he flipped and decided to do something about it and set about it thoroughly. Paddock was obviously a devout Republican as 99% of that area are (and all the people investigating him there would be too ) and in his rabid state decided that anyone who listens to that music is a communist and should die.
I could be totally wrong.
I’m being frivolous, which is inexcusable on such a serious subject as the mass killing of innocent people – but perhaps the killer just didn’t like country and western music!
that’s all most of these pieces of shit want , their 15 minutes , there name should never be made public and their corpses should be ground and feed to the pigs .
in saying that the us is getting what it votes for so i lose no sleep over it.
Central and South America really do have a worse problem with gun violence than the US. Along with a lot of southern Africa, some of the middle east and some of Asia. Check out the graphic at the bottom of this article.
Thanks I suppose I also thought it was an apple orange scenario in that the total gun deaths in the us over the same period would be an apt comparison.
Your maths leave a little to desire….there are about 10,000 firearm murders in USA each year, that is 0.003% of the population.
In Honduras yearly murders average 5,500 each year, that is 0.061% of the population. That is a rate TWENTY TIMES that in the USA….I repeat why are 60 American deaths headlines?
The point being you could refer to Guatemala or Brazil or El Salvador etc etc and make the same point.
Because it’s much more likely the readers of our local media will have some sort of connection with the victims and/or where it happened and/or a feeling of “it could have been me” when it happens it the US compared to when it happens in Honduras.
Paddock was obviously a devout Republican as 99% of that area are (and all the people investigating him there would be too ) and in his rabid state decided that anyone who listens to that music is a communist and should die.
Oh kee-rist…the ignorance burns…it just goes to show that nowhere is immune from someone making ludicrous claims.
The Nevada secretary of state’s office on Friday reported there are 1,464,819 active registered voters statewide who are eligible to participate in the Nov. 8 general election.
There are 577,679 Democrats, 488,861 Republicans and 304,528 nonpartisans. The rest are minor- party registered voters.
Democrats represent 39.4 percent of the total active registered voters, Republicans 33.4 percent and nonpartisans 20.8 percent.
How often do you read an article with the words ‘ since the 1980s’?
More precise reporting would say ‘since the advent of neoliberalism.’
‘Moerewa, near Kaikohe, has embarked on a makeover that it hopes will continue under whatever new government is formed this month.
The town was once a thriving community where nearly everyone had a job at the freezing works or dairy factory.
But since the 1980s it has gone downhill, with more than 80 percent of its people on a benefit or retired.’
How about all the empty local Dairy factories, drove past about 10 in the Naki recently.
Imagine the potential in those sites if we break the shackles of neo liberal market driven behaviour and moved to a sustainable produce/manufacture/distribute locally model.
There do appear a lot for sale at the moment.
Wonder if that is more land being bought up by foreigners?
This book is very interesting on the subject.
The Land Grabbers – The New Fight over Who Owns the Earth
by Fred Pearce
‘An unprecedented land grab is taking place around the world. Fearing future food shortages or eager to profit from them, the world’s wealthiest and most acquisitive countries, corporations, and individuals have been buying and leasing vast tracts of land around the world. ‘
Perfect plan tc we need local industry now to work more effeciently and produce local jobs and secure families.
I live 80kms north of gisborne and daily see a flood of milk tankers going south 300+ kms to Palmerston north factories and then they are shiped north again as export products 280 kms to Port of Napier.
What a waste of transportation and pollution along the way and waste of fuel!!!!!!!
got a mate – did some hemp growing – great plant so many uses just so many, and the flax is so good too. Some great areas for growing harakeke, areas not drained for cowland. I see these two resources/crops/plants as being ESSENTIAL for future sustainability and survivability.
Like all good things, greenies will have been promoting it for a decade or three before it’s taken up by the mainstream – as someone here often says, “follow the hippies”.
Yep there are lots of places where great things could be started. Neo liberalism has a lot to answer for. Going small and local and community orientated are the way to roll back the neo liberal 1980s experiment.
🙂 “But since the return of Liberalism in the 1980s…”
“since the advent of neoliberalism” suggest something new popped up. But nothing new popped up. You can read Dickens and get a very good understanding of what kind of society gets created by Liberalism/neo-liberalism, but won’t make the connection if you think the 80s was all about something that had never been tried before – tried and then rejected some time around the 30s/40s by “the west” but still foisted on “the global south” by “the west” by way of “structural adjustment programmes (SAPs)
Last week, rapper B.o.B made headlines after setting up a GoFundMe page to finance a rather bizarre project; sending a satellite into space to prove that the Earth is flat. His plans involve sending a satellite “as far into space as possible” to take a photo of the Earth, which he believes will look like a map.
Caught up with an angry voter, angry because they now want to change their vote, angry because they have only recently realised they’ve been lied to and misled by national. They can’t change their vote, but they said they are never voting for national again. They are also very embarrassed that they believed the tax lies flowing from the mouths of national mps during the election and perpetuated by a media who gave it airplay again and again and again.
Ethics in schools please, at least the misinformed voter would have been more informed by their kids if civics was being taught in schools.
Meanwhile… 3 more sleeps until Saturday 😀 Bring on the special vote count 😀
Because we are all political junkies, well versed in DP the media etc etc. Some people believe everything the pm says, he’s the pm he must be telling the truth.
But Bill Ralston said…… but Bill Ralston writes bill englishes speeches.. etc etc.
But the soundbites… and the facebook… if you are not versed in media manipulation then you’ll probably swallow it hook line and sinker.
But mum and dad said…… sorry huni mum and dad are being manipulated by soundbites and fake news as well
It’s amazing how much trust and faith some put in the media or people in power, they neglect to realise that some of those people are only manipulating others for their own gains.
As well as ethics in schools can we please have a 24hr kiwi tv channel, as well giving parental, practical, mental health, lifestyle and social advice and info, chuck in some educational documentaries too, please and thank you.
I no that there are some who will try and pin any bull shit on me because that is there mentality to fuck me up there are many story’s that I have not told about my interaction with these people and these stories would do more damage to there image and they would not give a shit because they can hide in plain clothes. and unmarked cars while OUR people in uniforms take the heat This is the last I commenting on this subject .The pepper is doing a better job than I thought probably got a few more miles in the old truck.
Baby cheeses. Just published …. corruption within corruption …. part of ACC sold off without tender to staff …. so much is wrong with this .. Sir Owen Woodhouse must be turning in his grave …
I guess Pence and his Xtian Taliban are running the shop.
The US is one of just 13 countries to have voted against a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty for having gay sex.
Although the vote passed, America joined countries such as China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in opposing the move.
The Human Rights Council resolution condemned the “imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations”.
This article and research paper is worth a thread its own right.
‘Most river pollution comes from streams that don’t need fencing, research shows
Most of New Zealand’s river pollution comes from streams that would be exempt from waterway fencing rules, new research shows.
It calls into question the effectiveness of current efforts, which would become law under legislation proposed by the National Government.
A paper published by the American Journal of Environmental Quality found that 77 per cent of contaminants in New Zealand’s rivers came from smaller waterways exempt from proposed fencing rules.
The paper, by Ag Research scientist Dr Richard McDowell as part of the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge, found that most pollution does not come from those waterways.
It modelled the contaminant load for over half a million stream segments around the country, which were divided into those that would need to be fenced and those that would not.
It determined 77 per cent of the pollution load nationwide came from streams that would not require fencing.
The contribution of individual pollutants from smaller streams ranged from 73 per cent of total nitrogen to 84 per cent of dissolved reactive phosphorus.
It was particularly evident in agriculturally-productive regions such as Canterbury, Southland, Nelson and Hawkes Bay, which “exhibited large contaminant loads from exempt catchments”, the research said.’
An evil industry.
A killing machine.
An immoral operation.
And they know that if people really found out how their industry operates, it would be all over.
‘Dairy farmers jumpy over media attention at calving time
Springtime, and the paranoia is rising – at least among dairy farmers.
Chastened by scrapes with animal rights groups and the media in recent years, farmers are on high alert for cameras lurking behind cowsheds or drones whirring in the skies.
In calving season images of distressed or abused bobby calves are the last thing the industry needs.’
Funny, myself and others got roundly criticized for pointing this out before the election, I’m guessing the Blairite hacks will carry on with those attacks.
Skinner’s key policy points were that he wanted :
– Free education
– Free healthcare
– Scrapping zero-hour contracts
– A return to high unionism
So, just on the policy front Labour’s policies going into the election covered all of that, as Trotter is well aware.
Skinner also noted clearly that the scale of intervention required was due to the catastrophic destruction and population displacement of World War 2. We don’t have that scale of crisis.
Skinner was also clear to praise the new Labour leader for his electoral success. If only Trotter could pull himself out of his sickly nostalgia and do the same. It’s also noteworthy that Jacinda and her predecessor united the party in policy and personality – unlike Corbyn who has gone through shadow Cabinets like scrunched up newspaper on an engineering shop floor.
Finally on the results front whee all of this matters, Ardern is even closer to achieving actual government than Corbyn. And in far shorter a time than Corbyn.
On the policy front, the historical context front, the leadership front, and on the results front, New Zealand’s own Labour Party is at least as advanced as UK Labour if not moreso.
Skinner’s career was protected by massive union membership and total state control of the coalmines, and never even got close to having to make Cabinet., so he hasn’t had to face business at all.
His best quality was that he had a great turn of phrase and taught Blair most of his rhetorical skills.
Jacinda gave a better speech at the Auckland Town Hall at the launch.
Skinner also noted clearly that the scale of intervention required was due to the catastrophic destruction and population displacement of World War 2. We don’t have that scale of crisis.
I’d say we do:
Under funded health
Under funded police
Housing crisis
Climate Change (this one alone more than meets the criteria – it’s not our ‘nuclear-free issue of a generation’ but ‘the WWI & II at the same bloody time’ issue of generations.)
It’s also noteworthy that Jacinda and her predecessor united the party in policy and personality – unlike Corbyn who has gone through shadow Cabinets like scrunched up newspaper on an engineering shop floor.
It’s interesting to note that the problem, in both places, seems to be a bunch of self-righteous politicians not listening to the party members and, in fact, telling them that they’re wrong.
I’d say that Corbyn is doing a slightly better job of uniting UK Labour because he’s getting rid of the white-anters.
If you want to compare World War Two to the underfunding of NZ services, go right ahead. Ardern has it pretty well covered on climate change, and will continue to do so even if she cannot lead a government this time.
Don’t bother trying to measure self-righteousness in politicians – the really good ones just keep the rhetorical arm-waving in check.
The white-anting of New Zealand Labour’s caucus finished since Little started as leader. As a result Labour’s MPs have presented a fully united front since that time. Corbyn’s Labour is still unstable by comparison.
If you want to compare World War Two to the underfunding of NZ services, go right ahead.
I didn’t.
Ardern has it pretty well covered on climate change,
Not really. Still tied to ‘the market’ delivering rather than the government giving full direction.
The white-anting of New Zealand Labour’s caucus finished since Little started as leader. As a result Labour’s MPs have presented a fully united front since that time.
I do seem to recall a few instances here and there. I also note that NZ Labour now has a leader chosen by the caucus rather than the members.
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
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 ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
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. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
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. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
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. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
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. ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
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 ...
NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff is calling on all political parties to support the new Member’s Bill from Labour’s workplace relations and safety spokesperson Camilla Belich MP that would ensure negligent companies are held accountable when their employees ...
A historian with an uncanny track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go very wrong for him. ...
Ngaio Marsh House is one of Christchurch’s best kept secrets – and contains more than a few mysteries of its own.Trust Ngaio Marsh to leave more than a few mysteries scattered through her house long after her departure. For a start, there’s the curious concrete portal in the garden, ...
Appointment viewing has been lost to the mists of time, but memories of Montana Sunday Theatre can still be conjured by hitting play on a particular piece of classical music. “You’re not going to be able to sell it.” Over 30 years on, Karen Bieleski still recalls how the task ...
Performance Review King Luxon sat behind His massive polished oak desk. It is Performance Review time. There is a knock on the door. “Enter!” says the King. In steps Minister of Disabilities and Carer Pedicures, Penny Simmonds. “I can explain everything …” she begins. “Fine,” says King Luxon, pressing the ...
The pair opened their first fully collaborative exhibition, Nina for Flowers, last Saturday. Gabi Lardies visited their studio to find out who Nina is and what working together was like.‘It didn’t start out like, ‘This is a show about Nina,’” says Josephine Jelicich, gripping a thermos of peppermint tea. ...
Thank you, Dr Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner, for your brilliant invention. I’m another mid-20s Kiwi who had an OE last year. I hopped on my bicycle where France meets the Atlantic and cycled east. I pedalled through the Loire Valley, down rivers lined with willows and ancient wisteria-draped chateaus. I relished ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
In amongst the plethora of lamentations for Tom Petty (who was Tom Petty?) in Daily Review last night, CoroDale slipped in two references to a RNZ broadcast which may have passed unnoticed! The whole is worth listening to, but here’s a couple of extracts:
“When you’ve got a government that comes out and says, we’ve got to tolerate 8 or 9 percent unemployment or that one third of children in New Zealand live in poverty, when you’ve got a prime minister who then says ‘well, we can’t do anything about that now because we’ll run out of money’, that’s an insidious lie.”
and
“The Greens are neo-liberals on bikes and the Labour Party are neoliberal lite. They say ‘I’ll do austerity but I’ll do it fairer’.
“There’s no such thing as fair austerity when you’ve got a third of your children living in poverty.”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/201852897/there-s-no-such-thing-as-fair-austerity
Does he explain how the GP’s economic plan is austerity, or is he just using the surplus slogan without explanation?
Both Labour and the Greens have committed themselves to some ¨responsible¨ budgeting agreement.
Yep… this is the basis for Bill Mitchell’s statement. And he’s right. Unless Labour and Greens are prepared to tear up their fiscal pledge, it looks like more of the same neo-liberal economics… but with a nicer face.
On RNZ this morning – 70 companies banned from hiring migrant workers since April – new law focusing on employers breaching employment regulations when hiring migrant workers. The bans last from 6-18 months.
One of the banned companies is Mainfreight.
Plus, there aren’t enough inspectors to investigate all the complaints.
Link to the list of 70 at the RNZ article.
Unfortunately @Carolyn, it all starts with that Natzi type mindset such that employees should be grateful if an employer deigns to employ them.
You issue an immigrant a visa that ties him or her to a specific employer. If the employer is good – count yourself lucky.
You then shift the Labour Inspectorate and Immigration NZ under a business focussed Ministry and completely under-resource them.
If the employer turns out to be an arsehole, tough luck. If you want to change employer, you’re then faced with INZ application fees, and perhaps the cost of an immigration lawyer – something hard to do if you’re living hand to mouth, underpaid/less than minimum wage – sometimes even having your passport retained, and living in some shithole somewhere.
It’s actually a form of bondage of employee to employer.
Then of course the other unintended/(actually probably intended) consequence.
Why would the unscrupulous employer employ an unemployed Kiwi (who does not have to suffer that form of bondage) when you can exploit the immigrant for all they’re worth and make a tidy (often cash-based) profit?
It has now been going on for years. And of course if the exploited do get a bit uppity and challenge either the employer, OR the Inspectorate, OR both – you can always make them in breach of their visa conditions and boot them out of the country and get another one.
It all dovetails in nicely with some of the shoddy private tertiary institutions and labour supply/recruitment/contractor companies – some of whom have cosy little relationships with immigration consultants.
100% to Once was Tim,
Government consists of “public servants”; – these who are our ‘public servants’ should firstly be serving the needs and ‘interests’ including aspirations of their employees who are ‘the public’
Public service’. 2 :a service rendered in the public interest
So according to the legal requirements of these ‘public servants’ they are legally required to serve the public interests firstly and not their own needs right?
Here is the proof;
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/public%20service
Webster dictonary
Definition of public service
1 :the business of supplying a commodity (such as electricity or gas) or service (such as transportation) to any or all members of a community
2 :a service rendered in the public interest
3 :governmental employment; especially :civil service
“Government consists of “public servants”; – these who are our ‘public servants’ should firstly be serving the needs and ‘interests’ including aspirations of their employees who are ‘the public’
Public service’. 2 :a service rendered in the public interest”
That’s the theory @ Cleengreen, but it hasn’t been the case since neo-liberalism took hold and was allowed to run rampant. It’s been corporatised into a series of little fiefdoms – the chiefs being ‘CEOs’ ffs! and senior management chiefs who get to choose who best serves their agendas. (Usually good honest frontline Public Servant peons doing there best, but who often operate in fear of their masters – their masters who take credit for the ‘win wins going forward’, but who apportion blame down the heirarchy when things go tits up)
The ‘Public’ Service as a bizzniss – equipped with all its purchase agreements and KPI’s that (as it can be shown) are regularly abused without consequence.
At the time of the reforms I think we were promised greater efficiency and effectiveness, accountability, and non-partisan administration – that is improvements to what we once had. Instead – the opposite. You only have to look at the sucking up and arse protecting of Ministers – or even just the record to date in areas such as Health, Education, NZTA, MPI (border incursions for example), MoBIE (shitty steel and suspect buildings, exploitation of workers, etc., etc., etc.). Then of course there’s abuse of OIAs and cronyism. And then there’s the real standouts such as WINZ and CYPS.
But then back to the exploitation that @Carolyn-nth mentions.
It’s a “win win” for the exploiters and those engaged in preserving the (so-called public ‘service’) structure that enables it.
– An unthinking public that has blind faith in others supposedly serving their interests (that romantic notion of an actual Public/Civil Service) can simply see that it’s all these bloody immigrants coming over here taking all our jobs!
– A Minister – supposedly responsible but who can rely on his Munstry to protect his arse – who now screams ‘low quality immigrant’ in Peter Dutton fashion. Even the fairly reasonable Senior Public Servant (I could name names) who occasionally fronts media and who now has a big mortgage to pay, is likely to succumb to the cool aid – and after all – those ‘low quality immigrants’ are probably used to it.
After their supping the cool aid for so long – its now all NORMAL!, and why would they seriously want to challenge it all?
There’s a simple starting point:
– IF the only way you can run a business profitably by exploiting those economic units (that we’ll put on the spreadsheet, OR the MYOB/Xero equivalent as a COST), then your bizzniss IS NOT VIABLE – (going forward of course). I’ve even personally witnessed Labour Inspectorate managers tell me they know of worker exploitation based prices being charged for lunches and coffee ‘deals’ that aren’t sustainable considering their overheads – such as rent, electricity, etc., and that the only other option in order they break even – LET ALONE amass profit -is through worker exploitation. But then …. they go home to the missus and the kuds, and tomorrow is another day.
– ELSE if those managers can’t actually challenge the shit they know is happening or the heat in the kitchen, then get the fuck out!
Then there’s some obvious solutions – AT LEAST as a starting point – unless of course 3rd World humanity is OK in ‘lil ‘ole Nu Zull and now something we’re all supposed to aspire to in this neo-liberal nirvana of the market the market! (Perhaps THIS since we’ve set up the structure to encourage and enable: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/as-chinas-economy-slows-business-cults-prey-on-young-job-seekers/articleshow/60881676.cms),
OR any other SS Joyce/ACTian view of the future). I hope they’re really confident in the security of their local gated community – well it’s probably not really a community, rather a number of individualists living in close proximity to one another. But then “yeow” as Mister Farrar and Chem Slator would say – the Murrays might get restless.
STOP bonding employees to employers
PURGE those employers from the country RATHER than their victims (when they only have residency status)
STOP the conflicts of interest – those that exist between contractors/PTEs/etc. and immigration officials. (we could go deeper and talk about things like Swamp Kauri PS enablers)
START resourcing INZ, LI, NZQA properly and take them the fuck away from a Munstry that was founded on promoting/enabling the bizznizz interest over and above the citizen and person as a social being.
I got 2 wake up calls last night from Civil Defence.
Anyone else get the same?
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/10/civil-defence-trials-alert-in-middle-of-the-night-waking-thousands.html
Well that’s confidence inspiring.
After the second I had to get up and check that Trump hadn’t dropped a fucking bomb.
A close reading of the Herald article ( ignore the headline) gives 4 reasons for the slowing of the housing crisis.
winter
bank lending limits
the election
China’s crackdown on capital flows
The most interesting section is this……
‘ James Steele, QV Auckland senior consultant, said sales volumes were down to very low levels because demand was halted “by the ability for purchasers to finance property deals.
Steele said Auckland had continued to flatten to reach what Steele called a stalemate situation. A change would only occur if a significant economic shock destabilised prices by further reducing demand or there was an easing of lending restrictions, he said.’
Is the banks’ reluctance to lend caused by a realisation of a future ‘significant economic shock’? They do not want to get burnt. That added to ‘China’s crackdown on capital flows’ could see a crash on its way.
I sense the economy is about to get very bumpy.
Perfect time for Lab/Greens/NZ First to take over.
Good luck Chaps.
Yup – God knows we wouldn’t want that Bill fella anywhere near the wheel – he never had a clue.
Time for a return to a ‘self sufficient society’ again thank god as NZ is in a prime position to become this better than any other country I know today.
I have some history of what a country can become when it turned into a self sufficient society while in Rhodesia during the 1970 era PM Ian Smith actually turned that country around by restoring almost everything from cars trucks homes and industry as well as food and electricity sources and water.
The origional african people got homes built and jobs so it worked, until UK Government forced a deal to turn the government over to a “tyrant’ who still runs a murdering government today under a invested interested ‘corporate’ controlled system.
All previous successful self sufficient regions/countries have been toppled by corporate interests and their media persuasion.
Now it is Spain last year it was Venezuela remember this, as what is next?
What’s your definition of a ‘self-sufficient” NZ?
Pretty simple question BM I am surprised you dont know the answer.
self-sufficient
This refers to single persons as well as countries, so my interest is for our Government consisting of “public servants” to carry out their role to provide our needs and interests as required under legal references to “public servants” to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance:
Of course the excess product can then be used to sell to any exrternal buyer for further financial income.
Here are the dictonary expanation of self sufficient.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/self-sufficient
‘The nation grows enough grain to be self-sufficient.’
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
adjective
1.
able to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance:
The nation grows enough grain to be self-sufficient.
2.
having extreme confidence in one’s own resources, powers, etc.:
to supply one’s own or its own needs without external assistance
So we make everything and cancel all our trade agreements?
It’s what we used to do back when we had a more egalitarian society with less poverty.
The idea that we just keep trading more commodities is making us poorer. Of course, that does seem to be what it was designed to do:
That article is about aid but it applies to this thread because the entire financial system is designed to benefit a few at everyone else’s expense and we’re getting poorer because of it.
Yes, the good o’l days.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/at-home/610220/Rebirth-of-the-K9
I didn’t say it was perfect.
And then there’s the point that if we had kept making TVs in NZ they wouldn’t be anywhere near as labour intensive as then. In fact, with the correct development, producing them wouldn’t use any labour at all.
Bm is trolling you….
No, I’m not, I’m actually interested to see how a trading nation such as NZ is supposed to survive if it shuts the door and turns its back on the world.
Let’s look at how countries like Sweden and Norway operate.
Sweden is in the EU, not exactly cut off from the world.
Norway is a European free trade association member.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway%E2%80%93European_Union_relations
Have you seen their tax rates?
Tax rates? what’s that got to do with self-sufficiency.
BM we can be part of the British Commonweath again without the decietful rules imposed upon us now under some other trade pratices like TPPA and NAFTA. while remain ‘independent’ as we were under the British commonwealth trade system , as we see now clearly those later ones dont work for us thanks.
And before you rubbish the idea of ‘self sufficient’ remeber I qualified the use of overproduction of our own surplus products to sell to other countries who wanted it without any trade rules.
That way we get our finances to expand our lives and communities without borrowing offshore again.
Yes it is. The question is more if Labour can understand the lessons that are coming and get rid of the delusional financial system that they implemented all those years ago. To ban foreign ownership and investment which are making us poorer.
“Perfect time for Lab/Greens/NZ First to take over.”
I know that’s meant as a sly jab but there’s truth in it too. It is a good time for them to take over. National’s immigration driven economic ‘growth’ has almost reached its zenith and now it’s time for a housing surge to prop up the economy.
A big house building boom should see Labour through two terms at least I’d think. We’re in more risk of a recession under National.
The big house building boom under Labour isn’t going to happen until some fairly basic issues are solved
1) Who’s going to be developing the land
2) Lack of tradespeople, apprentice builders don’t cut it.
3)Lack of materials
4)Lack of building component companies within the construction pipeline, eg: Aluminium joiners, kitchen makers
That’s simplistic rubbish. Houses don’t need many tradespeople to build them and there’s no shortage of materials.
The land can be developed by the Govt, that’s what they’re there for.
That’s simplistic rubbish. Houses don’t need many tradespeople to build them and there’s no shortage of materials.
I think you’ll find it’s you whose spouting nonsense, homes are complicated and there’s a fuck load of trades involved in the building process both on-site and off.
The land can be developed by the Govt, that’s what they’re there for.
Didn’t realise the Govt owned any earth moving gear?
They can buy it or, even better, make it.
We had an entire ministry with earth moving gear and that sort of thing at one stage. Fuckers sold it off. Now tories are all “ohmahgerd, govt doesn’t have bulldozers! You’re silly!”
Yeah, they’re gone like everyone else the government is at the whim of the private sector.
Personally, I don’t really like it, but that’s the situation we find ourselves in currently, haven’t read anything about Labour changing anything either
Correct me if I’m wrong though
Oh, when faced with a rorting private sector and 100k homes to build, the government will either get into the contruction business (like prefabrication factories) or do the same fuckall you’re lot have been up to as the crisis deepens.
So, the plan is to fund a prefabrication factory in Gisborne and freight the houses to Auckland?
What happens if no one puts their hand up? has there been any interest shown?
lol, you’re only now just catching up with the policies you’ve been shitting on for months?
ISTR the local community trust has already bought a mill or something, and the $20mil was based on a decent business case to expand the site into a full prefabrication facility.
Oh, and there was already interest. The policy didn’t come out of thin air, it came from the region as part of Labour’s consultation, where they actually listened to what the regions needed. The idea of listening to the people is alien to you as a National shill, of course.
The government is never at the whim of the private sector.
We now find ourselves in a crisis brought about by shifting governance to the private sector. The only way to correct that is to take it back into the hands of the populace.
That’d be a lie. you wouldn’t support profit and the private sector the way you do if you didn’t think that’s the way it should be. That’s why you vote National.
Homes are complicated? Where did you get that nonsense from, houses are simpler today than at any time in history.
They need tradesmen to supervise and oversee a less skilled workforce, they don’t need tradesmen to do every job. Anyone with reasonable hand-eye co-ordination and memory can work on a building site. That’s how the world was built.
Homes are complicated? Where did you get that nonsense from, houses are simpler today than at any time in history.
What a ridiculous comment. 🙄
Only because it’s showing you up as ignorant.
The building industry *wants* more tradespeople. It doesn’t need them, there’s already plenty to go around. Of course they’d want them, it’s much less hassle for the management to hire people who can work unsupervised. But want doesn’t mean need.
When there’s more work than tradespeople you turn some of the tradesmen into supervisors and hire unskilled labour. The building industry has worked that way since, well, forever
And before you come up with another snide and ignorant comment look at your history. The allied WWI and WWII efforts were won by filling the factories with unskilled labour.
Leafing through my uncle’s journal of New Zealand Houses from the 1950’s there is barely any difference to what a regular new build looks like today and the building processes are all the same. You could bring back all the tradies from that era onto a new build and they would be fine apart from not knowing how to work a power drill and getting pissed off with most of the regulations.
1. The government
2. Training
3. ban export of building materials
4. Training or, even better, development of automated systems
The big problem with you RWNJs is that you’re still stuck in the 19th century mindset that’s a proven failure.
So the great building revolution will what start in about 10 years time?
LOL at the banning the export of building materials.
We’re still waiting for the Great Leap Forward.
Blinded by the Brighter Future – oh, wait, that’s because of delayed eye surgery…
Why? Same as when Russia, when they had that drought a few years ago, banned the export of food. They needed it for themselves because they didn’t have enough.
The profits of the private sector come second to that.
Yes, I can see it now
Comrade Jacinda will make an appearance on The Peoples National TV Station (RadioNZ) and loudly shout into the camera.
“Nyet to the export of building materials from this day forward !!!, citizens who ignore this decree will be sent to the gulags (Dunedin), I Comrade Jacinda have spoken!!.
BM – if symptoms persist, consult your medical specialist.
+111
mmm Auckland house prices crash 0.6 % to an average of $1.04m a house. Some slump.
The headline should really be “Auckland house prices remain at outrageously high levels despite Chinese finance crackdown”.
Interesting that the Chinese have a government that does things……
They don’t believe in the invisible hand of the all seeing market.
They also don’t allow foreigners to buy land or property in their country.
Funny, that – having a government that protects the sovereignty of the nation.
Yes Ed if the chinese dont let us buy houses in their country we shouldn’t let them buy in ours should we?
This is how a free trade system works???
No thanks!!!!! we should get out now.
Jarrod Gilbert’s take down of Joyce and English is worth a thread of its own.
I’m sure others have spotted it.
‘I write this one for all of the morons out there.
The fools, the buffoons, the vapid oxygen thieves who are the enemies of reason, whose foolishness is only matched by their self-righteousness, whose understanding of key issues is inversely proportional to the loudness with which they speak. Gather around my enemies, I wish to have a word.
I need to talk about political tribalism, this phenomenon that so often mocks the principles that uphold our democracy while chipping away at its foundations……
…..Whether of not Joyce set out to cause mischief, or he simply misread the books and embarrassment and pigheadedness meant he was unable to back down (the latter theory I favour), we’re all aware that a swath of leading economists came out and debunked what he said.
What did Joyce do? Deny, deny, attack, deny, deny. And, of course, many of his people defended it, made excuses, or misrepresented the evidence.
All good people should have called that nonsense out in unison.
To the tribalists who didn’t I ask this: if Labour had made the same accusation against National and not a single economist supported it, would you have reacted the same way?
No. Of course not. And that’s what defines you as a moron.
In fact, looking at any issue and asking how you would react if the other side did it is a handy test we should all employ. Even when we claim neutrality such a test often teases out our unconscious biases……..
……..What ugliness awaits us now that this brazen low has been established? Where is our ambition for a democracy that exists on open debate and the exchange of ideas?
Wherever our allegiances fall we must not allow ourselves to be the foolish. The integrity of our system must stand before our desire for our team to win. Let us be a country that exhibits the best in politics and doesn’t embrace the very worst.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11929095
Gilbert = sore loser. It is just his opinion, though no doubt loved by Standardnistas.
The figures Labour presented did add up, but only if there was no new spending (other than heath and education) in 2019 and 2020. Having no provision for new spending in the proposed 2019 and 2020 budgets was not credible. For instance National provides $1.5 billion unallocated expenditure in each of the out years.
The failure to provide additional spending meant there was a wide open hole for National to exploit, especially when the argument is made by the very people with the most real world experience of how government budgets are made up.
So for instance adding back $2 billion new spending in each of these years adds up to $6 billion, since you have to baseline the $2 billion from 2019. I would say for Labour $2 billion would be light. The $11 billion figure was based on $3.7 billion new spending in each year.
There are hundreds of thousands of voters with much better accounting and economic knowledge than Gilbert who could easily see the logic of Joyce and English’s arguments.
“The figures Labour presented did add up” Then we are in agreement and the National Party were lying like a flat fish. No need for a further four paragraphs twisting words like a column of smoke. Two ticks NZF here i hope Winnie goes with the Greens and Labour you lot are nothing but liars.
So you support Joyce’s lies?
Thought you were better than that.
Those sinecures (Law commission etc) don’t get handed out for honesty Ed.
They were not lies, as I have explained.
Bullshit and jellybeans. They were lies.
Attempting to spin them into something else only demeans you further…
It is noticeable that when Nats start feeling the pressure, the nasty streak which is present in every one of them rises to the surface for all to see.
Yep Wayne’s big hole revelation is disingenous in the extreme. The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree. Rewriting history is just par for the course. At least he’s stopped blathering on about the greens saving the gnats – I’m thankful for small mercies.
Dear, dear.
How the mighty have fallen….
You are reminding me of an industry gag about Microsoft Wayne who like to exercise their market share in lieu of customer centric behaviour.
How many MS engineers does it take to change a lightbulb ?
None, define darkness as a new standard.
Actually, Wayne, when you said “The figures Labour presented did add up” you were admitting that Joyce told lies. He was very specific about the lines of expenditure that he claimed weren’t being accounted for and therefore did not add up. If he wasn’t lying deliberately at first (and was simply incompetent), then his and English’s shifting versions of this smear over time (morphing over time into your – false – claim that there was no allowance for new spending in 2019 and 2020 other than health and education) and refusal to back away from the “hole” idea was definitely a lie. As for your claim that this allegation came from the people who know the process best, I’d say Michael Cullen knows a thing or two about budgets, wouldn’t you?
They were lies.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/09/economist-consensus-there-s-no-11-7b-hole-in-labour-s-budget/_jcr_content/par/image.dynimg.full.q75.jpg/v1504582340023/D-LABOURHOLE-LBU-05-09.jpg
They were lies as has been explained to you.
But you’ll keep playing the spin because of your sociopathic need for control of everybody else.
Fake news spin for fakery. Scum tactics to win are still scum tactics and you must be so proud, beaming with pride, at the result. Legacy and honour builder FAIL.
Gilbert = sore loser.
What “loser?” The outcome of the election isn’t known yet. The fact the Nats think they “won” the election when they’re no more able to form a government than anyone else is a manifestation of Tory born-to-rule mentality – it has comedy value only.
And that very first sentence Wayne, defines you.
And around about there, with that first sentence, your credibility and argument fall
flat.
Hi Wayne,
I’d like to draw your attention to the following if you don’t mind. It was towards the end and you may have missed it:
It seems to me that Gilbert is arguing that there is indeed a “loser” but it is not him; it is all of us …
Thank you Wayne, for so thoroughly illustrating exactly what Gilbert was talking about.
” hundreds of thousands of voters with much better accounting and economic knowledge”
No doubt you mean the menkurt ideologues who thrust your worthless, dishonest, and above anti-democratic regime upon us.
Your time is done, reptilian, crawl back to the swamp and make fossils.
Hundreds of thousands of voters with much better accounting and economic knowledge than Gilbert and the many, many experts who rubbished Joyce and English?
Those whose superior financial intellect saw them vote for Joyce and English
are probably still partying for the Argentina win over All Blacks last weekend.
By mentioning the All Blacks as a counter, you show yourself to be the type of moron to whom Gilbert’s address was directed towards.
Yawn — yeah wayne? === nah nah nah!!!!
You are a very very very sore loser!!
You sound angry.
Did your boyfriend leave you?
Did your boyfriend leave you
Seriously? Homophobic slurs on The Standard, are you trying to Darwin yourself?
Youre a ‘mate’ (I call a boyfriend) of Steven Joyce are you not?
So are you implying something else please explain yourself, as I have had you denigrate me several times before now.
As an unwell person (as explained recently) am so over your insinuations.
Grow up, or run back to your National Party bunker will you!!!!!
Bm is very careful around these things unless he’s denigrating his own people then he doesn’t give a shit.
I think BM has set himself up as the lefts conscience, well done BM, the troll that trawls, he/she probably reads these comments more closely than the rest of us, to correct the groupthink, meanwhile defending Nationals blatant lying, lovely, just lovely.
I also think it’s interesting that BM assumes that it’s a bad thing to have a boyfriend, and that any statement with an inbuilt assumption that a person might have one must therefore be a homophobic slur.
How is using ‘boyfriend’ homophobic?
I’d have thought “homophilic” better – is that right?
Edit: what red-blooded said, above.
Wayne, Joyce’s failed academic record and English’s shifty and shifting answers on the Todd Barclay affair, does not make for confidence in their abilities. In other words, flexible integrity or lack of it. What they do have is ability to bluster, twist, distort ….. And through handing out cosy jobs for the boys they can wheel out people like yourself and other past their use by types to make it seem there is a groundswell of support for Greens to hold hands with National, despite the years and years of insults thrown at them.
Whatever the outcome, Jacinda and her team are behaving impeccably in contrast.
+ 1 truth
@Wayne: I accept that you have managed to create a justification for your belief in the invisible black hole that wasn’t evident to Cameron Bagrie, Ganesh Nana, Dr Vernon Small, Keith Ng, Brian Fallow, Bernard Hickey or Shamubeel Eaqub. I was impressed by the position that you took supporting an inquiry into Afghanistan civilian deaths. Therefore, why do I find it hard to understand how you can continue to support and defend a government that has continually behaved in an underhand way, that I would not have thought that you would condone.
Jeeez Wayne,
You should have let Stephen and Bill know that you believed their BILLSHIT about the 11 billion dollar hole that way when they were asked to provide one person that backed up what they said……..just one person…..even a taxi driver…. they could have confidently said well actually Wayne believes us and everything would have been sweet as. As it weas they couldnt name one person bbecause it was a lie.
By the way, typical Nat ploy by you, play the man (Jarrod Gilbert) not the ball as it was not him that said the hole didn’t exist he was merely reporting on what leading NZ economists had said. What he was saying is how sad it is that people are so indoctrinated into their own political beliefs that they refuse to see the truth in front of them.
Ed: “if Labour had made the same accusation against National and not a single economist supported it, would you have reacted the same way?
No. Of course not.”
Remember the relentless year long attack from National/Act on whether NZF had received a donation from Glenn or not? NO. Even a Privileges Committee “trial.”
And what happens to Joyce, Key, English much more serious lies? Nothing but support from the Media.
100% ianmac; – brillance there. I vividly remember this, and was the reason I now suppoort NZF.
“Remember the relentless year long attack from National/Act on whether NZF had received a donation from Glenn or not?”
Actually, National supporters, including the tribalists, would consider the idea that they should vote for some other party, simply because Joyce made a boo boo, downright silly.
Don’t minimise this, mikesh – Joyce didn’t “make a boohoo” – he and his PM deliberately lied and misled their supporters. This was a clear, demonstrated example – one that even the most committed tribalist should be able to acknowledge. Given that, and the scale of the lie, how is anyone meant to believe that this was the only lie? Politics is about trust – are these people trustworthy?
Plus, let’s remember that it wasn’t only Nat tribalists who were being lied to – the aim was to influence swinging voters, and all the evidence suggests that they succeeded in this aim. That makes this a very significant lie.
Whatever. National party supporters would still consider it silly to let it influence their vote.
“Whatever.”
So, you now concede that it was a lie, but hey – what does truth matter when decisions are being made about our nation’s future?
“National party supporters would still consider it silly to let it influence their vote.”
Did you fail to read or comprehend the final paragraph of my comment, mikesh? The lie wasn’t targeted at Nat supporters (they were always going to overlook the dirty politics and stay with their team, just as they have in the past) – it was aimed at swinging voters. The evidence of the polls before and after the lie and its constant repetition suggest that it had an effect on them. It didn’t have to be a big effect in order to make a difference in this very tight race.
I see the Herald has wheeled out another opinion piece denigrating Peters and extolling the worth of a Nat/Greens coalition. This time its Michael Cox.
Michael Cox who? I hear you say. He was an insignificant Nat MP in the 1980s. Cox has gone even further back in time to dredge up another politician to link Peters to – Benjamin Disraeli.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/headlines.cfm?c_id=280
National “deep dark state operations” are dredging every past of politicians whom pose a threat to their lib/con sellout policy to denigrate them.
Best we get our coalition of Labour/green/NZF to throw them out pronto.!!!!!!!!
The authorities in Vegas are still trying to ascertain the motive of yet another mass killing. Well as our ” dear friend” Richard Prebble once opined… I’ve been thinking.
I’m a minor Dixie Chick fan because of their song “I’m not ready to make nice” ,which was penned by Natalie Main (lead singer) over what happened to the band after they commented at a concert in London that they were embarrassed that the President (G W Bush) came from Texas, which they did too. A documentary “Shut up and sing” was made about the severe antagonism and hatred the group then suffered. Death threats etc…. it was serious stuff for what was only an aside at a concert in a foreign land. The Country and Western Southern base went totally ballistic in their hatred for the Dixie Chicks…….
Maybe Paddock didn’t like something the group featuring at the concert in Vegas had said or sung, so he flipped and decided to do something about it and set about it thoroughly. Paddock was obviously a devout Republican as 99% of that area are (and all the people investigating him there would be too ) and in his rabid state decided that anyone who listens to that music is a communist and should die.
I could be totally wrong.
I’m being frivolous, which is inexcusable on such a serious subject as the mass killing of innocent people – but perhaps the killer just didn’t like country and western music!
… and saw it as part of a Communist plot to take over America.
They’re crazy enough to believe anything over there.
A bunch of articles I’ve read have said apparently he was a fan of country music.
The scariest suggested motive I’ve seen yet is that maybe he just wanted to set a record with his 15 minutes of fame.
Yep it is plausible that he wanted a record. As less and less is found, that scenario is more likely imo.
that’s all most of these pieces of shit want , their 15 minutes , there name should never be made public and their corpses should be ground and feed to the pigs .
in saying that the us is getting what it votes for so i lose no sleep over it.
39,000 firearm murders in Honduras 2008-2015… why is it that 60 American deaths are headline news?
Because 39000 / 7 / 365 = 15 not 60.
Central and South America really do have a worse problem with gun violence than the US. Along with a lot of southern Africa, some of the middle east and some of Asia. Check out the graphic at the bottom of this article.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/03/americas/us-gun-statistics/index.html
Just for perspective, Honduras’ population is around 9 million, US around 320 million.
Thanks I suppose I also thought it was an apple orange scenario in that the total gun deaths in the us over the same period would be an apt comparison.
Your maths leave a little to desire….there are about 10,000 firearm murders in USA each year, that is 0.003% of the population.
In Honduras yearly murders average 5,500 each year, that is 0.061% of the population. That is a rate TWENTY TIMES that in the USA….I repeat why are 60 American deaths headlines?
The point being you could refer to Guatemala or Brazil or El Salvador etc etc and make the same point.
The 15 is related to the 60
And the 60 happened in one place at about the same time by a murderer who apparently wanted to set a hideous record and did.
THAT is why it is a headline.
I get your point and agree to a point.
Note: All are “Banana Republics”, with RWNJ Governments installed by the CIA.
Because it’s much more likely the readers of our local media will have some sort of connection with the victims and/or where it happened and/or a feeling of “it could have been me” when it happens it the US compared to when it happens in Honduras.
Oh kee-rist…the ignorance burns…it just goes to show that nowhere is immune from someone making ludicrous claims.
Las Vegas leans Democratic (for what’s that worth, I don’t know), but residents are not 99% Republican.
How often do you read an article with the words ‘ since the 1980s’?
More precise reporting would say ‘since the advent of neoliberalism.’
‘Moerewa, near Kaikohe, has embarked on a makeover that it hopes will continue under whatever new government is formed this month.
The town was once a thriving community where nearly everyone had a job at the freezing works or dairy factory.
But since the 1980s it has gone downhill, with more than 80 percent of its people on a benefit or retired.’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/340805/makeover-for-northland-town
How about all the empty local Dairy factories, drove past about 10 in the Naki recently.
Imagine the potential in those sites if we break the shackles of neo liberal market driven behaviour and moved to a sustainable produce/manufacture/distribute locally model.
There do appear a lot for sale at the moment.
Wonder if that is more land being bought up by foreigners?
This book is very interesting on the subject.
The Land Grabbers – The New Fight over Who Owns the Earth
by Fred Pearce
‘An unprecedented land grab is taking place around the world. Fearing future food shortages or eager to profit from them, the world’s wealthiest and most acquisitive countries, corporations, and individuals have been buying and leasing vast tracts of land around the world. ‘
http://www.beacon.org/The-Land-Grabbers-P887.aspx
http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2012/10/05/who-owns-earth-review-fred-pearces-land-grabbers
Perfect plan tc we need local industry now to work more effeciently and produce local jobs and secure families.
I live 80kms north of gisborne and daily see a flood of milk tankers going south 300+ kms to Palmerston north factories and then they are shiped north again as export products 280 kms to Port of Napier.
What a waste of transportation and pollution along the way and waste of fuel!!!!!!!
Imagine a kick started textile/paper industry based on Flax and Hemp.
One is a return to something we used to do, the other a booming 21st century market we could get into with a progressive attitude.
Both are natural products suited to our climate with one already a native species.
+ 100
got a mate – did some hemp growing – great plant so many uses just so many, and the flax is so good too. Some great areas for growing harakeke, areas not drained for cowland. I see these two resources/crops/plants as being ESSENTIAL for future sustainability and survivability.
Like all good things, greenies will have been promoting it for a decade or three before it’s taken up by the mainstream – as someone here often says, “follow the hippies”.
Yep there are lots of places where great things could be started. Neo liberalism has a lot to answer for. Going small and local and community orientated are the way to roll back the neo liberal 1980s experiment.
🙂 “But since the return of Liberalism in the 1980s…”
“since the advent of neoliberalism” suggest something new popped up. But nothing new popped up. You can read Dickens and get a very good understanding of what kind of society gets created by Liberalism/neo-liberalism, but won’t make the connection if you think the 80s was all about something that had never been tried before – tried and then rejected some time around the 30s/40s by “the west” but still foisted on “the global south” by “the west” by way of “structural adjustment programmes (SAPs)
Good point.
Why you shouldn’t idolise rappers:
Or give them money.
Why you shouldn’t idolise this rapper or give him money – I think you mean.
It is illogical to take one swallow and assume it is summer.
Caught up with an angry voter, angry because they now want to change their vote, angry because they have only recently realised they’ve been lied to and misled by national. They can’t change their vote, but they said they are never voting for national again. They are also very embarrassed that they believed the tax lies flowing from the mouths of national mps during the election and perpetuated by a media who gave it airplay again and again and again.
Ethics in schools please, at least the misinformed voter would have been more informed by their kids if civics was being taught in schools.
Meanwhile… 3 more sleeps until Saturday 😀 Bring on the special vote count 😀
More fool them for believing the lie.
If they haven’t worked National out yet…….
100% agree.
It’s difficult to figure something out correctly when all the information available is the lies.
So how come you and I can see the lies?
Because we are all political junkies, well versed in DP the media etc etc. Some people believe everything the pm says, he’s the pm he must be telling the truth.
But Bill Ralston said…… but Bill Ralston writes bill englishes speeches.. etc etc.
But the soundbites… and the facebook… if you are not versed in media manipulation then you’ll probably swallow it hook line and sinker.
But mum and dad said…… sorry huni mum and dad are being manipulated by soundbites and fake news as well
It’s amazing how much trust and faith some put in the media or people in power, they neglect to realise that some of those people are only manipulating others for their own gains.
As well as ethics in schools can we please have a 24hr kiwi tv channel, as well giving parental, practical, mental health, lifestyle and social advice and info, chuck in some educational documentaries too, please and thank you.
I no that there are some who will try and pin any bull shit on me because that is there mentality to fuck me up there are many story’s that I have not told about my interaction with these people and these stories would do more damage to there image and they would not give a shit because they can hide in plain clothes. and unmarked cars while OUR people in uniforms take the heat This is the last I commenting on this subject .The pepper is doing a better job than I thought probably got a few more miles in the old truck.
Baby cheeses. Just published …. corruption within corruption …. part of ACC sold off without tender to staff …. so much is wrong with this .. Sir Owen Woodhouse must be turning in his grave …
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/10/03/51308/questions-continue-over-acc-disputes-entity
I guess Pence and his Xtian Taliban are running the shop.
The US is one of just 13 countries to have voted against a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty for having gay sex.
Although the vote passed, America joined countries such as China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in opposing the move.
The Human Rights Council resolution condemned the “imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-gay-sex-death-penalty-un-same-sex-relations-human-rights-council-saudi-arabia-iraq-nikki-haley-a7980981.html
This article and research paper is worth a thread its own right.
‘Most river pollution comes from streams that don’t need fencing, research shows
Most of New Zealand’s river pollution comes from streams that would be exempt from waterway fencing rules, new research shows.
It calls into question the effectiveness of current efforts, which would become law under legislation proposed by the National Government.
A paper published by the American Journal of Environmental Quality found that 77 per cent of contaminants in New Zealand’s rivers came from smaller waterways exempt from proposed fencing rules.
The paper, by Ag Research scientist Dr Richard McDowell as part of the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge, found that most pollution does not come from those waterways.
It modelled the contaminant load for over half a million stream segments around the country, which were divided into those that would need to be fenced and those that would not.
It determined 77 per cent of the pollution load nationwide came from streams that would not require fencing.
The contribution of individual pollutants from smaller streams ranged from 73 per cent of total nitrogen to 84 per cent of dissolved reactive phosphorus.
It was particularly evident in agriculturally-productive regions such as Canterbury, Southland, Nelson and Hawkes Bay, which “exhibited large contaminant loads from exempt catchments”, the research said.’
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/97528658/most-river-pollution-comes-from-streams-that-dont-need-fencing-research-shows
https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/jeq/articles/46/5/1038
Dairy New Zealand.
An evil industry.
A killing machine.
An immoral operation.
And they know that if people really found out how their industry operates, it would be all over.
‘Dairy farmers jumpy over media attention at calving time
Springtime, and the paranoia is rising – at least among dairy farmers.
Chastened by scrapes with animal rights groups and the media in recent years, farmers are on high alert for cameras lurking behind cowsheds or drones whirring in the skies.
In calving season images of distressed or abused bobby calves are the last thing the industry needs.’
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/97530353/dairy-farmers-jumpy-over-media-attention-at-calving-time
Well said Chris Trotter, well said.
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2017/10/the-difference-between-jeremy-and.html
Funny, myself and others got roundly criticized for pointing this out before the election, I’m guessing the Blairite hacks will carry on with those attacks.
Skinner’s key policy points were that he wanted :
– Free education
– Free healthcare
– Scrapping zero-hour contracts
– A return to high unionism
So, just on the policy front Labour’s policies going into the election covered all of that, as Trotter is well aware.
Skinner also noted clearly that the scale of intervention required was due to the catastrophic destruction and population displacement of World War 2. We don’t have that scale of crisis.
Skinner was also clear to praise the new Labour leader for his electoral success. If only Trotter could pull himself out of his sickly nostalgia and do the same. It’s also noteworthy that Jacinda and her predecessor united the party in policy and personality – unlike Corbyn who has gone through shadow Cabinets like scrunched up newspaper on an engineering shop floor.
Finally on the results front whee all of this matters, Ardern is even closer to achieving actual government than Corbyn. And in far shorter a time than Corbyn.
On the policy front, the historical context front, the leadership front, and on the results front, New Zealand’s own Labour Party is at least as advanced as UK Labour if not moreso.
Skinner is not scared of big business.
NZ Labour is.
Skinner’s career was protected by massive union membership and total state control of the coalmines, and never even got close to having to make Cabinet., so he hasn’t had to face business at all.
His best quality was that he had a great turn of phrase and taught Blair most of his rhetorical skills.
Jacinda gave a better speech at the Auckland Town Hall at the launch.
I’d say we do:
Under funded health
Under funded police
Housing crisis
Climate Change (this one alone more than meets the criteria – it’s not our ‘nuclear-free issue of a generation’ but ‘the WWI & II at the same bloody time’ issue of generations.)
It’s interesting to note that the problem, in both places, seems to be a bunch of self-righteous politicians not listening to the party members and, in fact, telling them that they’re wrong.
I’d say that Corbyn is doing a slightly better job of uniting UK Labour because he’s getting rid of the white-anters.
If you want to compare World War Two to the underfunding of NZ services, go right ahead. Ardern has it pretty well covered on climate change, and will continue to do so even if she cannot lead a government this time.
Don’t bother trying to measure self-righteousness in politicians – the really good ones just keep the rhetorical arm-waving in check.
The white-anting of New Zealand Labour’s caucus finished since Little started as leader. As a result Labour’s MPs have presented a fully united front since that time. Corbyn’s Labour is still unstable by comparison.
I didn’t.
Not really. Still tied to ‘the market’ delivering rather than the government giving full direction.
I do seem to recall a few instances here and there. I also note that NZ Labour now has a leader chosen by the caucus rather than the members.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/02/labour-mp-poto-williams-defied-leader-to-speak-out-against-willie-jackson.html
From what I’m seeing UK Labour is quite stable – their MPs aren’t. Same as what happened to Cunliffe really.
Katherine Rich Is a nasty piece of work, who will do anything to shill for big sugar.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/10/04/51558/whaleoil-ex-mp-pr-man-to-face-jury-trial
Rich was quoted on Kiwiblog this week, getting at people who make up and use crap.
How fucken rich was that? Her, on there.
She is symptomatic of what is wrong with this country.
Sadly we thought as an MP that she was one pf the good guys. How wrong we were.
She showed her true colours in Nigel Latta’s show on Sugar.
Another Nat liar and pimp.