Things are going to get very weird. I reckon one of NZ’s biggest shocks will be when people have to get over the idea that it can’t happen to lil ole us in godzone.
Chapala has weakened and yesterday a Category 2 storm made landfall along the coast to the west of the port city of Al Mukalla, a region with very little or no experience with hurricanes. Bob Henson of Weather Underground said it “is difficult to overstate the rarity and gravity of this event: a hurricane-strength storm striking near a large, ancient city, situated near mountains, with no modern experience in dealing with tropical cyclones”.
The rainfall poses a huge danger, with Chapala likely bring at least five years’ worth of rain to parts of Yemen.
The last hurricane event to go through the eastern Yemen area in 2008 dumped a tonne of rain and caused mass floods, but does not create lasting water for a higher level of vegetation than normal. It would probably require a deep sea current change to bring regular rainfall to the area, but warmer temperatures will make hurricanes more frequent.
Interesting decision-
” [2]
The search warrant applications were largely prepared by the private investigators.
It was common ground well before trial that they were invalid.
The private investigators participated in the execution of the warrants along with police officers.
There are two other particular points that should be mentioned:
(a) the Patterson warrant was unsigned; and
(b) one of the police officers involved in the Van Essen warrant and its execution was Mr Gibbons’ son-in-law. ”
It seems you don’t even have to be the FBI or a Hollywood mogul to hire our cops for a bust. It must be official police policy now that –Better to just do it wrong and apologise later- because its okay to frame the right guy – that’s not a miscarriage of justice.
I like your …..”evidence from an oxymoron ?”. Certainly true in name. In nature probably nothing oxymoronic about it. For an institution which is part of the power structure and contributes to it . Bit of a worry really. Because this institution sets threshholds of behaviour.
TPP Countries Aiming To Publish Final Agreement Text Later This Week
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries are aiming to make public the final agreement text before the end of this week, after making more progress than expected at a drafting session that wrapped up in Tokyo at the end of October, according to informed sources. http://insidetrade.com/
Do you ever get the feeling you are surrounded by idiots, living here in Nu Zuland?
A PM who repeatedly pulls the hair of a woman in a position of service, harasses and abuses her, and gets away with it.
An MP that refers to women performing demeaning sex acts to an audience of technology professionals at Sky City, and gets away with it.
A Ministry that hires “model sheep” from a sex shop for their xmas party because you know, that’s f-ing hilarrrrious and everyone will love that surely………
The annual parade of idiots setting things on fire and traumatise animals because we allow idiots to purchase dangerous explosives:
If you had a 13 year old daughter would you do that her?
There are so many wrongs it’s hard to know where to start.
A professional stunt woman was interviewed on 3 news last night. She was absolutely gobsmacked at the sheer stupidity and risk of it.
A child’s life has been endangered with the permission of her idiot parents.
Neil Jorgensen, the driver of the truck, when asked by the RNZ interviewer couldn’t say that the girl (don’t know her name) volunteered for the stunt, he just kept referring to a discussion with the family. His argument is that he has known the girl’s Dad for 20 years, as if that is relevant to putting a young life at risk.
Oh, and she wasn’t strapped in, I was wrong. Jorgensen was quite adamant about that. Said she could have jumped at any time. Lucky girl eh, having that choice. A choice between something going wrong and going up in flames or jumping from a moving vehicle and breaking your bones.
my partner is one of the many unpaid voluntary firefighters in NZ, and yes, the stupidity of people is astounding.
Considering that it is the season, I have given up on sleeping through a night until winter next year.
Cause that beeper (while they still have pagers) is not gonna stop, cause lighting a bbq with flame accelerator is fun, lobbing fire crackers in the bush is fun, burning shit without a permit is fun, and so on and so on and yeah….huwud’avethunk.
Huge respect and gratitude to your partner Sabine.
I don’t have the level of tolerance for idiots that members of the volunteer fire service would need to possess in order to do their job and keep themselves calm and sane.
Two years ago one of our neighbours managed to set the vegetation on the roundabout next to our house on fire. The firework set alight very dry ornamental grasses. The flames went up so fast, metres into the air. I was on the phone to 111 immediately and the fire service were there within one minute. Probably one of many call outs to similar fires that night.
I fully support their calls last year for a discussion around the banning of the public sale of fireworks. If that happened you might get a few more uninterpreted nights with your partner.
Guts of a letter to the editor of my local newspaper
I hope Prime Minister John Key isn’t planning to wear a white ribbon this November as it is clear from his past actions that he has no idea what the White Ribbon campaign stands for, which is men standing up and saying to other men that violence towards women is not okay.
When former Labour leader Cunliffe did exactly this, rather than support him, John Key publicly denigrated him to score political points. He even went so far as to wear a T Shirt saying “I’m proud to be a man” after Cunliffe had lost the election and resigned. He couldn’t resist having one more jab just for the pleasure of it. The worst thing a man can do is actually denigrate other men who stand up and say violence against women is not okay.
As well, John Key persistently harassed a female café worker despite her objections, claiming afterwards it was just a bit of fun and an indication of his “casual” style. He doesn’t seem to understand that he is not the only male that does this sort of thing and if every man who went in a café felt entitled to harass female staff they would be put upon the whole day long. This is the sort of thing that goes on in a lot of countries.
As far as I can see, the Prime Minister is still in denial about his attitude and behavior. A good first step for him this November would be to do what many other men have already done. Stand up in public amongst a group of men and women (with accompanying media for maximum publicity) and take the White Ribbon Pledge “I promise never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence towards women”.
Excellent letter. Thanks for sharing. Where did you find it?
In my very humble opinion for all it’s worth, FJK is in denial, because his behaviour points to that of a cold, calculating psychopath. He is completely devoid of any emotion towards anyone he abuses, hurts, humiliates, denigrates or offends!
There is enough evidence there in that letter describing FJK’s behaviour, for a full psychiatric conference I’m sure!
Quote from the post
Former Manu Samoa player, Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu, is calling Samoan men out, urging them to put a stop to domestic violence against women in Samoa. His comments come after the brutal murder of 25-year-old mother of two Fatima Tupa’i, who was beaten to death by her estranged husband while she was asleep next to their children.
“A protection order is a piece of paper and a piece of paper will not stop a violent man. Fatima was still beaten to death while she slept with her children. She told the Police and they did nothing. They failed her and her children,” he said. He believed incidents of domestic violence in Samoa were increasing, and urged all men to put a stop to it.
“Domestic violence is a man’s issue! Who is doing the violence, the rape, the abuse? Men, we have to speak out against our brothers, fathers, uncles and friends. Men, if you see something, do something.”
“We have to stop being cowards,” he said. He believed women were devalued in Samoa. “Domestic violence is a product of a society that does not value women.”
I’m in mind of the televised giggles about who’s not coming to dinner at or about the time Smith fled to Brazil. This in the presence of the president of Brazil FFS. Footage that went round the world.
If we’d pity the 10 year old on the school trip who screws up the speech of thanks at the dairy factory…….surely we wouldn’t more or less celebrate ?
This is our prime minister and it’s happens more frequently. Worn with robust disdain, an amalgam of Vaudeville/Monty Python. It trickles down. Until the ‘spectacle’ becomes a melting ‘popsicle’ riding a broken-down ‘bicycle’.
Hey MSM, you wanna make that the broadly acceptable norm ?
Luckily for us our Dear Leader, now that the rugby is over and the boys are safely back in the country, will be on it. Surely, he will check with his OZ Dear Leader mate to make sure that the kiwis in detention on Manus Island will be treated as humanly as the Saudis treat NZ donated sheep in the desert. Or sum such thing. or maybe not. Oh …look, there is Sir Richies leg to hump.
Having been seen off by Northland, Wellington and the Hawkes Bay Paula Bennet is still going to corporatise councils by bribing with our own money (taxpayer funds) subsidies only if they go to CCO’s right?
So us ratepayers and taxpayers are looking forward to another round of expensive consultation that we don’t want to fund followed by the transfer of major council assets to undemocratic entities which will be locked in (and Northland is first for the chop).
Can we transfer the threatened regional assets to a company with the directors being the elected regional councillors and the shareholders being those on the electoral role entitled to vote for said councillors having one share each? Then the provisions of the companies act would click in so that major changes could not be made without putting it to shareholder vote, i.e us ratepayers or changing the wholes companies act? Are there other pre-emptive strategies we could look at – might be a better spend of the money
“Government was proposing a “viable alternative to large-scale amalgamation”. Regions could transfer some core services between regional and territorial authorities. Or they could transfer them to “arms-length” organisations similar to Auckland’s Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs).
Half of CCOs’ directors are appointed by the council. Mrs Bennett admitted there could be some resistance to transferring core services to less democratic entities. But she said changes would not be forced on regions, and would be community-led.
The Government planned to introduce law changes next year which would allow the new structures to be “locked in” for the long-term.”
WASHINGTON, DC (November 3, 2015) – In the opening days of the month when National Geographic magazine is scheduled to be turned over to 21st Century Fox, the magazine’s employees were told to stand by their phones to wait for calls – one by one – to come to Human Resources to learn the fate of their jobs.
“There were times early on when I’d walk down the hall, pass only three or four inmates, and think, ‘How are we going to make it to the end of the month?’” said Parks, recalling several periods in which the company “hemorrhaged money” due to low recidivism, the result of occasional public investment in criminal rehabilitation programs. “Compare that to now, though, when all of our prisons are filled to the gills and we’re housing the overflow on bunks in the gymnasiums.”
“And what’s more, we’re hiring them all out as manual labor at pennies on the dollar,” he added. “Talk about a success story.”
North Carolina, while without a system comparable to the other states, did not prohibit the practice until 1933. Alabama was the last to end the practice of official convict leasing in 1928.
It is illegal to import goods produced by prisoner labour in the US but perfectly fine for them use prisoner labour to create consumer products.
A significant amount of controversy has arisen with regard to the use of prison labour if the prison in question is privatized, a phenomenon present in a few areas of the United States, where goods produced through penal labour are regulated through the Ashurst-Sumners Act which criminalizes the interstate transport of such goods.
Minimum wage in the United States, in dollars per hour528: $5.15
Average hourly rate paid at a prison camp in Nevada529: $0.13
Maximum wage paid to prisoner workers in dollars per day in Georgia and Texas530: $0
Most prisons that pay prisoners for work have a range of pay depending on the job. Average of the minimum wages for prisoners paid by the states, in dollars per day for non-industry work531: $0.93
Average of the maximum wages paid to prisoners by the states, in dollars per day532: $4.73
Lowest wage reported, in dollars per day, for prisoners working in private industry533: $0.16
I also wonder what the real unemployment figure is. RNZ said Statistics NZ look at those registered with WINZ and look at the total number of people in work. I don’t know what that second bit meant.
Relying on the number of WINZ registered unemployed is flawed as some of us unemployed aren’t eligible for assistance because our partners earn slightly more than peanuts. (Doesn’t matter that each week is an absolute struggle and debt is increasing due to having to use a credit card for living costs).
We’re simply not counted in the figures. A few of my friends are also in this position. How many unemployed around NZ aren’t registered with WINZ?
This is largely incorrect, the main measures of unemployment collected in NZ are not related to WINZ registrations. WINZ registrations are collected and counted by MSD, but these are not used for the official employment measures.
There methodology is subtly different to statistics NZ. I think its always a politically motivated decision to suggest one is more real, than the other and the important thing for policy is to be consistent across time. On the other hand Australians think their Roy Morgan unemployment rate is more realistic than their national statistics office.
Henry talked about that this morning with the money guy and then went to the longest interview I’ve seen him do with key and not one mention of it was made , all they talked about was fucking knighthoods the pair of arseholes.
Yep….a WINZ worker told me add another at least 1%….so many don’t even bother applying. So many involved in the ‘grey economy’….downside of which is not only skewed unemployment stats but also slightly lower tax take. Also undermining labour laws (such as they are) as the ‘job’ does not really exist.
Methinks this is exactly how Our Leaders want the economy to go….
Yep. Always relevant. If any political party is coming in with promises of tax cuts you can be sure that things are about to get worse for the majority of people and social services get cut again and again and again.
People working longer is already an issue for gen Y workers. There is little chance for advancement within organisations. It’s a tough situation for everyone involved as we all need the money!
The industries required in the future are the service and aged care industries, it would be helpful if they could offer an liveable wage for the frontline workers who cannot be easily replaced by machines.
I agree, a short term solution would be to copy the USA and its service industry driven economy.
It would involve a complete change of mind set within certain sectors of NZ.
That is, stopping being a tight arse , opening your wallet and start hiring people to do stuff for you.
That’s what they have drummed into the Americans, having people doing your chores isn’t a sign of laziness, it’s a form of charity which keeps the economy going and people in jobs.
I’m not sure the US style is to be emulated as it seems to be entirely predicated on businesses leaving renumeration of their employees to their customers.
As far as the mindset change goes, employers must be offering wages that reflect the high levels of skill and care that is required to do these kind of service jobs properly, and that needs to start with decent reimbursing of care workers now, which this government and aged care providers seem deadset against. That’s not going to encourage the next generation of workers to enter these industries.
Well there is no point in hiring people if they don’t get paid enough to live as for example Walmart employment is doing. Or ‘tipped’ servers that earn 2.10$ an hour plus tips that they have to share with bussers, dishwashers and often the cooks.
As for cleaners, lawn mowers, and house keepers these are probably the some of the oldest jobs on the planet, and should not be treated as charity but as work. The cleaner at the hotel does a full time job keeping the rooms clean, so does the lady that comes to ones own domicile to clean.
The trouble that we have is not that we don’t have jobs that need doing, we do, ‘the Auckland Transport owned Berms’ that are being mowed free of charge by people having houses behind them comes to mind. We have jobs that need doing, buy that we don’t want to pay for. We – the populace that wants tax cuts, and the current government -that would like to spend money of PR rather then infrastructure, social welfare, education, energy creation. WE could do with more nurses in hospitals, doctors even and decent cooks, we could do with more mental health care workers, we could do with more police and paid fire fighters, early child hood teachers and tertiary teachers, we could do with street cleaners and Park workers, Bus Drivers, Youth workers etc. but no one seems to want to pay for it.
So no, there is no need for high unemployment other than a wage drive downwards, high competition for the last remaining paid jobs (no matter how lowly they are paid) and the idea that general misery for many makes a virtuous populace.
How will you survive once you don’t have a job anymore? Ever thought of that? Or are you very very sure in your assumption that you will always have a paid gig, and that that gig is gonna cover all your costs?
I agree, a short term solution would be to copy the USA and its service industry driven economy.
Nope, that’s the worst thing to do as a service industry doesn’t actually create any wealth. And that is, IMO, why we have such increasing poverty in NZ. We’ve already become too dependent upon low paid services for jobs rather than creating new high value ones in and through R&D.
That is, stopping being a tight arse , opening your wallet and start hiring people to do stuff for you.
Thing is, that’s not actually possible as the people hired to do services must be paid lower than the people hiring them which means that only a few percent of people at the top can actually afford to hire others to do services.
This strikes me as a rather strange view. An economy which is focused on creating ‘wealth’ would seem to me to be a high resource impact economy. I want the opposite, a low resource impact economy. At the same time there seems to be no reason to suggest that economies are degenerating because they are not creating enough ‘wealth’ (what ever that is, I am assuming its real resources organised into useful technology). This suggests a service based industry would be a good thing if it could be organised.
The second paragraph is equally strange. There are no such tiered sectors of the economy which require that the service sector must be paid less. One part of the service sector can just the same spend on another part of the service sector. A service based economy could equally have a very flat wage structure. I can see no reason to believe that inequality in the economy had to develop, or is related to an increase in the service economy. Income inequality has been driven by factors unrelated to that, such as high unemployment rates, de-unionisation, and legislation against workers rights.
This strikes me as a rather strange view. An economy which is focused on creating ‘wealth’ would seem to me to be a high resource impact economy.
Not necessarily. Generally speaking you want a society producing everything that it needs from it’s own labour and resources. What you don’t want it doing is over producing to produce money which is what we have now.
There are no such tiered sectors of the economy which require that the service sector must be paid less.
We already have a service economy with our service sector at around 70% of the economy. Please note that around 75% of the population has an income less than the average wage. These people can’t afford to hire services.
This is what out present system has delivered and we’re getting more and more services all the time because we’re not developing our economy. Apparently that’s just too hard and costs too much.
“Generally speaking you want a society producing everything that it needs from it’s own labour and resources. What you don’t want it doing is over producing to produce money which is what we have now.”
This doesn’t differentiate between service and non-service wealth. Also what does over-production mean? In a largely service based economy it appears to mean people providing services to each other. I strongly disagree that is harmful or unsustainable in and of itself. You have been advocating for a UBI, so how is a bunch of people working to produce money any different to them not working and being given a UBI?
“We already have a service economy with our service sector at around 70% of the economy. Please note that around 75% of the population has an income less than the average wage. These people can’t afford to hire services.”
So arguably there is a correlation there (you didn’t show any real correlation), but this doesn’t mean that there is a cause. What is the supposed causal mechanism meaning a service economy must be highly unequal? We know about many of the causes of inequality in the economy but none of them appear to be that too much of the economy is focused on working on or producing services.
Over production is where excessive use of resources occur. Farming is a good example in that it over uses the land to produce money while not actually providing for our society.
In a largely service based economy it appears to mean people providing services to each other.
And how does that supply what we need? How is the food grown? How are the vehicles produced? etc. etc
Services don’t produce anything. To a degree they’re needed but we’re already pushing to excessive amounts.
You have been advocating for a UBI, so how is a bunch of people working to produce money any different to them not working and being given a UBI?
The UBI is to allow for people to buy the products of their society. In capitalistic terms, which I don’t like, they could be considered the dividend from simply being a citizen of the country. This overly simplistic though as the purpose of the economy is actually to provide people with what they need to live and thrive.
What is the supposed causal mechanism meaning a service economy must be highly unequal?
I said that a service economy didn’t work because the wages of service workers needed to come down to the point where they’re living in poverty for the majority of people to be able to afford them but as they’re the majority then they won’t be able to afford themselves.
So the economy is in a state of ‘over-production’, and its not producing enough of what we need at the same time?
I still don’t understand what’s requiring service workers wages to come down or be lower than other sectors in all of this.
As far as I can see it would be a good thing if both more people were employed and mostly at higher wages because the economy is quite far from in a state of over-production and also in a state of wide income inequality. And at the same time service industries seem like a good place for them to be employed still as this is mostly less physically resource intensive.
I think your getting a bit confused about the definition of the service economy. You realize education is part of the service economy right?
I suspect that the larger part of the current advancement problem is that people need to hold onto their jobs rather than successfully applying for better ones or risking a business startup (we still haven’t returned to the number of new company registrations in 2009-10).
You could very well be right, I also think that peoples continuing mortgage requirements into later life also contribute to staying in employment. Also others have mentioned NZ’s (small c) conservatism, and this sort of risk-adverse attitude is probably wise in such ‘interesting times’ as these too!
The industries required in the future are the service and aged care industries
Well, over the next couple of decades until the Baby Boomers start dying off.
The Baby Boomer demographics are a bulge in the population. Essentially, subsequent births didn’t match and thus scuttled most of the growth in the economy that the politicians had, quite literally, been banking on. An increasing population is always a growing economy even if you don’t get productivity increases.
it would be helpful if they could offer an liveable wage for the frontline workers who cannot be easily replaced by machines.
That could easily be done if it was the government directly doing it and we had a sovereign monetary system. The money paid would be directly created by the government to pay the workers and then taxed back out of existence.
I know this is a long way out there but how about:
1. Change the standard work week to be 20 hours instead of 40,
2. Increase the minimum wage so that those 20 hours are enough to live on,
3. Put overtime laws back in so that if an employer wants to have one person working more than 20 hours per week it will cost them more.
Surely this creates a requirement for more employees to do job’s, and the increased money in the bottom end of society which is normally spent straight away increases the earnings of those same buisnesses that will have increased staff costs.
Again I get this is a loooong way out there and not going to happen. However I think to say it can’t be fixed is a bit far as well.
France dropped their working week to 35 hours from 39 in 2000. The idea is it would increase employment. Critics have pointed out that no real increase in employment has happened, workers are just under more pressure to produce the same amount of output in less time.
I guess cutting from 40 to 20 wouldn’t have the same sort of problem, because you’d simply have to hire more people. But also this change is so dramatic it will not happen any time in the next 10 years, so you’d be better off focusing on potential solutions that could be implemented, not pie-in-the-sky daydreams.
It seems that the French system isn’t all that good. Workers get rest days rather than overtime rates.
What I’d like to see is what we used to have – simple penal rates. They would have to apply to people on salary as well though just to make sure they worked as more people are on salary now than used to be.
Maybe not anyone but the government could achieve full employment in a matter of months. Of course, that would have the business leader whinging again as they were in the 1970s and 80s about about the government taking all the employable people and them thus having to compete for them.
The undesirably high unemployment rate is a trivial problem for the country to solve. As BM argues later in this thread, you need somebody to employ these people (BM suggests the private sector should just start believing in a service economy, which is a fantasy, its not going to happen). But if the government wants them employed, it could simply employ them and pay them a wage to do something and then your problem is solved. The only problem here is the government doesn’t want them employed so it doesn’t employ them, it leaves them unemployed (its more focused on running a political budget surplus at present, which is why employment is stuck around 5-6% for ages).
If in addition to solving the unemployment problem the government doesn’t want to put pressure on wage rates, which might push inflation up, then it should only employ people the private sector doesn’t want to employ. So it should pay these people (the ones who are being employed by the government just for the purposes of being employed) only the minimum wage and then the government doesn’t compete with the private sector at all and so this policy causes no inflation at all as well.
So there you go problem solved. Somebody should probably mention this to Andrew Little.
Interestingly enough, very few jobs on offer in IT at the moment. That’s normally a warning sign. yeah, it,s end of year, but there’s normally something.
Tradition algorithms capture images at multiple distances to watch for obstacles, meaning the amount of processing power needed will only allow a drone to fly about 6 miles per hour, at most. Barry, however, set his drone to detect only what is 10 meters away.
“You don’t have to know about anything that’s closer or further than that,” Barry said. “As you fly, you push that 10-meter horizon forward, and, as long as your first 10 meters are clear, you can build a full map of the world around you.”
Bit of a cheats way of doing it but it’s one of the step you take on the way to full implementation.
International ridicule – worse than being a ‘slave’ eh steve
Pity we can’t get key stuck in this rapidly setting amber.
“”Those of you with a marginally broader perspective – say, anyone above the age of eight – may be tempted to pick holes in Williams’ definition of captive servitude. Welcome to The History of Slavery with Steve Williams, in which white men are brutally invited to carry the golf bags of black men, savagely consulted over club selection and putt lines, sadistically given a share of the winnings, cruelly allowed to leave whenever they want,” wrote Jonathan Liew in Britain’s Telegraph.””
“Kim Dotcom from New Zealand introduces a revolutionary Internet alternative: new non-IP based, non-hackable, surveillance-proof and encrypted network, which will be 100% crowd-funded.
Max Keiser from Keiser Report interviewed Kim Dotcom, who also talked about NSA spying and his ongoing prosecution by the US government…
and Part Two: Dotcom is not only a genius , he is also highly moral
First they came for MegaUpload Dotcom and then they came for Google…but they bit off more than they could chew
…Dotcom talks about his philosophy, whistleblowers, Wikileaks, Snowden and Manning
…and the Sony hack/leak which he believes was not done by Google or South Korea …but which exposes Hollywood USA political corruption and which could be used to defend Google
‘Meganet’, Part 2: Kim Dotcom plans crowdfunded replacement to internet (Ft. Max Keiser)
@ Clean_power…A better question: were NZ politicians bribed to persecute/prosecute Dotcom in New Zealand by Hollywood?
….as it would appear from the Sony hack/leaks ….. that USA politicians have been bribed by Hollywood to begin the persecution/prosecution of Google for piracy
…it would appear from the hacks/leaks that Google was facing the very same plotting behind the scenes…accusations/case that was levelled against Dotcom MegaUpload
…as it doesnt seem to have worked against Google …and in fact there is counter legal action by Google for the political corruption exposed ….where does this leave the NZ government?
Brave New World : Violent Passion Surrogate (V.P.S.), Violent Market Surrogate, Violent Crowd Surrogate
“V.P.S is great for keeping people divided over pointless issues and bogged down by as never-ending stream of misinformation and biased interpretations which exist only within a truncated frame of reference” ( urban dictionary .com)
Cashless society = bank surveillance, data mergers, censorship , state/corporate control ( social engineering, negative interest rates) ?
Bitcoin = an alternative ( to bankster control) plus future digital privacy ( an alternative to bank blockchain technology)
All this discussed on the Keiser Report with Tracy and Max and Brett Scott:
“Every week Max Keiser looks at all the scandal behind the financial news headlines.
In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss Violent Market Surrogates as the doors of misperception in a brave new world in which central bankers are fighting the wrong war. In the second half, Max interviews Brett Scott, author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money, about financial surveillance states and cashless societies.”
OK this post is unrelated to the above ,but I was flabbergasted to hear John Key on RNZ this morning saying he was “quite mates” with Richie McCaw…..what the hell is a “quite mate”???????…..someone who you think likes you but your too bloody insecure to go the whole hog and call him a mate……does anybody out there have a “quite mate”or is this a new sort of relationship bond that only our PM indulges in…..?????
Maybe Sir Richie, the mighty leg (for leghumpers anyways), is just too polite to tell our most exalted Dear Leghumper that he is not quite mates with with our most exalted Dear Leghumper.
He also said knighthoods & damehoods have increased in popularity in NZ, tho fuk knows how he figured that out. In the same article he said the royals might join the All Blacks on one of their parades.
The titles were obviously very popular with those who got awards between 2001 and 2008 that entitled them to use Sir or Dame after the titles were reintroduced in 2009.
There were 85 of them, of whom 72 accepted the titles. That included at least one former Labour MP who must have really annoyed Helen Clark.
Of the other 13 a couple were “Clayton’s” refusals as they already held the title via other awards. I notice that they never relinquished their prior titles.
Thus the vote was 72 aye, 11 nay and 2 effective abstentions. http://www.odt.co.nz/the-regions/otago/67860/who039s-opting-titular-honour-and-who039s-not
I’ve just seen David Cunliffe give an amazing speech in Parliament in the General Debate. Just reaffirming once again why he should still be the Labour Leader. He managed to encapsulate in one rousing speech just what is wrong in NZ, from Stephen Joyce’s appalling management of MOBIE including “blow up sheep”, to the National Party’s manipulation of our media, their dirty politics a la Slater and Collins with the former SFO Head, the Ombudsman’s office failing to compel ministers to answer OIA’s, through to Westpac releasing Nicky Hager’s account details to the police.
He mentioned all of the journalists who have been removed from prime time television and newspapers who have sought a better home at Radio NZ. He mentioned the person responsible for the funding of Radio NZ is John Key’s former electorate head and wondered how long it would be before funding for Radio NZ would be reduced or stopped altogether.
This kind of speech from David Cunliffe is why the members are still so angry that the ABC crowd forced him to relinquish the leadership. The public voted in the major newspapers polls that Cunliffe had won most if not all the political debates in the election! So much for him being so unpopular. He just had too little time to establish himself as leader before the election, coupled with hatchet jobs from the media (Armstrong etc) and sad to say, from within!! If David Cunliffe had had the time as leader that Clark or Goff had had, things would be very different in Parliament today. David Cunliffe talked about Key’s “peeing in the shower and in the pockets of the All Blacks”!! Funny and the absolute truth!
Good to be reminded why I supported and voted for David Cunliffe. I also think it was the right thing for David to avoid any limelight for a year after the election. Had he launched any attacks sooner, the DP mob and their media acolytes would have accused him of trying to upstage Andrew Little.
Now that Little is firmly established and has the total support of every caucus member – plus the ordinary members – I hope Cunliffe will be brought back to the fore of proceedings again. His quick brain and smart rhetorical skills are much in need.
Sorry Saarbo – I thanked Hami for putting that clip up but it was actually you who did – Hami did a good summary of what was in it. Thanks. It is excellent.
“The public voted in the major newspapers polls that Cunliffe had won most if not all the political debates in the election”
And then the public voted in the election and showed that the support for him as PM was pretty thin among the voters.
Were there any real polls done by the newspapers as to who “won” the debates. I am not aware of any. There were of course some of the self selecting variety but I don’t think anyone could take them seriously.
Can you give me a reference to a professionally run poll that supports your thesis?
Yes it is a shame that David Cunliffe (a) didn’t get support from the ABC crowd and (b) wasn’t given another chance. The current Labour lot are ineffectual. They need to get rid of the traitors and Andrew Little needs to get a backbone. Many people are saying to me they don’t like National but Labour are just the same so why bother voting, wont make any difference. I would like to see David Cunliffe given the finance portfolio as Grant Robertson doesn’t have the credibility IMO.
all those ABCs who did not support Cunliffe are wannabes with more ambition than talent…we all have a fair idea who they are
they betrayed the Labour Party membership who voted for David Cunliffe …and they betrayed the Labour Party…and they betrayed the New Zealand electorate
imo David Cunlffe deserves to be Deputy Leader after Annette King and he deserves to be not only high profile Finance spokesperson but high profile spokesperson for Climate Change issues and Environment ( which are linked to Finance)
David Cunliffe is an old style New Zealand politician with high integrity
( about as far from jonkey nact as it is possible to be)
If David Cunliffe is given a high profile for the New Zealand Labour Party …its fortunes could turn around…as more and more are seeing through jonkey nact
+100 Thanks for putting that up Hami – it’s such a relief to hear an MP actually tell it like it is. I was shocked by the treatment dished out to Cunliffe when he was the LP leader, and I have not forgotten the heroism with which he hung on, under huge pressure, and forced the leadership question to be taken back to the membership. I too would like to see him restored to a position befitting his talents.
I stand by all that. My concerns about Hager are essentially twofold: first, that he uses the label “journalist”, with all its connotations of even-handedness and impartiality, to disguise his true purpose, which is that of an ideological crusader; and second, that the publication of his Dirty Politics book was carefully timed to coincide with a general election, in the clear hope that it would cause maximum political damage. But neither of those concerns could be construed as endorsement of any disregard for his rights or violation of his privacy.
I do, however, share Cameron Slater’s view that the reaction to the latest disclosures exposes a gaping double standard. Where was the media outrage when Slater’s email account was hacked?
There’s a difference, of course, in that this time it’s an agency of the state that’s digging into someone’s personal affairs. That’s infinitely more alarming than the actions of a rogue private hacker. But Slater is right to point out that the hacker, Rawshark, largely escaped media condemnation – as did Hager, who used the information Rawshark obtained.
If Hager had sat on the information for a couple of years, you guys might have a point about the timing. But he received the information in January and it was published in August. Seems to be a reasonable timeframe.
The media outrage at slater being hacked was somewhat lessened by the outrage at what those pricks had been up to, and their absolutely contemptable attitudes and behaviour. But then you’ve always had a problem understanding the concept of “public interest”.
Hager is an invetigative journalist. Just because you don’t like the truths he exposes, it doesn’t mean that if Labour or the Greens were up to the same thing he wouldn’t also report that.
Not a good article entirely
– calling Hager and idealogical crusader not a journalist is simply idiotic – the content of his book would be gobsmacking no matter who was doing it – Nact have only themselves to blame that they were in the limelight – and nobody has sued so we can take it that it’s pretty much factually right- personal responsibility there for Nact
– releasing it to cause maximum political damage – oh please – don’t do it to start with and don’t all MSM outlets write stories and release tehm for best effect.
Lastly Hager does factual content and investigation, du Fresne does an opinion column, why does the MSm support one but not the other.
You seem to suffer from the TVNZ disease which aches as to say that the first imperative is ‘balance’ (as though it were a calculable absolute). “Balance’ is the MOST subjective number and in TVNZ is generally reflected by reporting this and not reporting that, according to a lonely and untested personal sense of what is ‘balance’. Very well paid contenders to the next level of very well paid, even excessive, even obscenely extravagantly paid contenders.
Why is a child prime minister deemed to be central, reliable, our desired ‘us’ ? If this is ‘balance’……(gulp)……please do not show me imbalance. I am a precariously positioned pensioner. I have impecuniosity and nostrils keen to the stink of shit. Especially that passed on by yuppie Cafe Society wannabes of the Auckland media.
…….and I’m guessing your all very comfortable with females to this country being sexually assaulted by our customs officials …… if their crime is visiting Kim Dotcom
Hell ….. I’d even bet you 3 would join up to be customs officers …… if you could get in on some of that.
Kim Dotcom was a man who could get things done and had vision in the computer and internet industries …………… Nationals plan was more cows
Still you 3 keep giving yourself mutual hand-jobs ………….. because you really are wankers 🙂
The survey results reinforce the Vollgeld Initiative, which currently has more than 90,000 signatures of the 100,000 required to force a binding national referendum in Switzerland. [Update on 2nd Nov: More than 100,000 verified signatures were collected.]
Iceland is also having such discussions but no indications yet that they going to have a referendum on it.
alwyn ………….. I missed your late arrival for the now four-way with your buddies clean power, infused and puke rouge …….
Like those other trolls you are here to spread misinformation or derail …. and with your comments on Cunliffe you did just that ……. in this instance you left out the dirty politics hatchet job that the Nats cooked up and engineered for the election.
Cunliffe as most people know was the victim of a national dirty politics hit job involving the usual suspects of Key, Slater, farrar, the herald etc …….. and 1 dishonest dodgy rich immigrant named ‘Lui’ …..who was charged with domestic violence at the time.
The Herald in particular ran a counterfactual and unsubstantiated smear job on cunliffe and Labor ………………. all sorts of false accusation were put into print …………. Cunliffe was called to resign by Armstrong and others ……………. and the Nats in a pre-planned and coordinated way always referred to Cunliffe as ‘tricky’.
The truth in the matter which made the story against Labor and Cunliffe counterfactual …………….. Was that John Key and others were around having meals at Lui’s house ……. and picking up $10,000 dollar donations to the national party…..they were the ones associating and taking money from him …… but we never read that in the Herald or elsewhere
The Slater, Key, Farrar cliche were at the peak of their Dirty politics underhand sleazy tricks when they did their job against Cunliffe …………… but thanks to Nicky Hager we now know how they operate which has hobbled them ……. for the time being.
The unintended consequences from their shit slinging hit job on Cunliffe was Winston s rising …………
Winston is of course now sitting in the northland seat ………… courtesy of what could be John Keys dirtiest political act of all regarding one Mike Sabin ………… and who knew what when they knew it going into the general election.
Personally I think Key will resign before that shit storm hits ……..
His job is done now that he has signed away our sovereignty with the TPPA ……..
Winston is of course now sitting in the northland seat ………… courtesy of what could be John Keys dirtiest political act of all regarding one Mike Sabin ………… and who knew what AND when they knew it going into the general election.
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. Does breathing contribute to CO2 ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: KiwiRail’s seemingly endless requests for more money is damning. At one point, KiwiRail assured Robertson when he was the Finance Minister that the worst-case scenario would be an extra $300 million before requesting $1.2 billion a few months later. Not what most people ...
No one knows what it's likeTo be the bad manTo be the sad manBehind blue eyesNo one knows what it's likeTo be hatedTo be fatedTo telling only liesHave you ever wondered what life must be like for Mike Hosking? Seeing things in black and white through blue tinted specs? In ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past two week’s editions.Share More Than A FeildingBike bling, London Read more ...
Hi,I think we all made it through another week — congratulations. I’ve been digesting the new Arab Strap record, which is astonishing. In other news, I’m going to be doing a Webworm popup in Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday July 13. I’ll bring a bunch of merch, and some other ...
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am going to explore the Bill from the perspective of its proponents with their ...
New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be shooting the proposal in the foot. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Associate Education Minister David Seymour is urging the PostPrimary Teachers Association to put learning ahead of ideology. He wants the union leaders to call off their teachers meetings around the country where they hope to muster the strength to undo the government’s plans to establish several ...
What are police for? "Fighting crime" is the obvious answer. If there's a burglary, they should show up and investigate. Ditto if there's a murder or sexual assault. Speeding or drunk or dangerous driving is a crime, so obviously they should respond to that. And obviously, they should respond to ...
Michael Reddell writes – I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s ...
Graham Adams writes that 20 years after the land march, judges are quietly awarding a swathe of coastal rights to iwi. Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has passed an unpleasant milestone: she has now been absent for as many parliamentary sitting days as she has been present for this year. Tana is on full pay while she is suspended, and will benefit from a ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a ...
This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Seeing that, in order to discredit the figures and achieve moral superiority while attempting to deflect attention away from the military assault on Rafa, Israel supporters in NZ have seized on reports that casualty numbers in Gaza may be inflated … Continue reading → ...
David Farrar writes – Newstalk ZB report: The man responsible for a horror hit and run in central Wellington last year was on a suspended licence and was so drunk he later asked police, “Did I kill someone?” Jason Tuitama injured two women when he ran a red ...
Muriel Newman writes – Former US President Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” The fight for ...
Why Courts should have said Waitangi Tribunal could not summons Karen Chhour Gary Judd writes – In the High Court, Justice Isacs declined to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal to compel Minister for Children, Karen Chhour, to appear before it to be ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The number of voices raising concerns about the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill is rapidly growing. This is especially apparent now that Parliament’s select committee is listening to submissions from the public to evaluate the proposed legislation. Twenty-seven thousand submissions have been made to Parliament ...
An average of 166 New Zealand citizens left the country every day during the March quarter, up 54% from a year ago.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy and housing market is sinking into a longer recession through the winter after a slump in business and consumer confidence in ...
The government has made it abundantly clear they’re addicted to the smell of new asphalt. On Tuesday they introduced a new term to the country’s roading lexicon, the Roads of Regional Significance (RoRS), a little brother for the Roads of National (Party) Significance (RoNS). Driving ahead with Roads of Regional ...
School is outAnd I walk the empty hallwaysI walk aloneAlone as alwaysThere's so many lucky penniesLying on the floorBut where the hell are all the lucky peopleI can't see them any moreYesterday morning, I’d just sent out my newsletter on Tama Potaka, and I was struggling to make the coffee. ...
Hi,I wanted to check in and ask how you’re doing.This is perhaps a selfish act, of attempting to find others feeling a similar way to me — that is to say, a little hopeless at the moment.Misery loves company, that sort of deal.Some context.I wish I could say I got ...
I have hitherto been fairly quiet on the new season of Rings of Power, on the basis that the underwhelming first season did not exactly build excitement – and the rumours were fairly daft. The only real thing of substance to come out has been that they have re-cast Adar ...
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 ...
“The thing is,” Chris Luxon says, leaning forward to make his point, “this has always been my thing.”“This goes all the way back to the first multinational I worked for. I was saying exactly the same thing back then. The name of our business needs to be more clear; people ...
Buzz from the Beehive It’s been a momentous few days for Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Court of Appeal has overturned a High Court decision which blocked a summons order from the Waitangi Tribunal for her. And today she has announced the Government is putting children first by introducing to ...
In 2014 former Australian army lawyer David McBride leaked classified military documents about Australian war crimes to the ABC. Dubbed "The Afghan Files", the documents led to an explosive report on Australian war crimes, the disbanding of an entire SAS unit, and multiple ongoing prosecutions. The journalist who wrote the ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – According to the respected Pew Research Centre, “In seven of eight [European] countries surveyed, the most trusted news outlet asked about is the public news organization in each country”. For example, “in Sweden, an overwhelming majority (90%) say they trust the public broadcaster SVT”. ...
David Farrar writes – Kata MacNamara reports: Details of Tony Blakely’s involvement in the New Zealand Government’s response to the pandemic raise serious questions about the work of the Covid-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry over which he presides. It has long been clear that Blakely, a ...
Chris Trotter writes – Are you a Brahmin or a Merchant? Or, are you merely one of those whose lives are profoundly influenced by the decisions of Brahmins and Merchants? Those are the questions that are currently shaping the politics of New Zealand and the entire West. ...
RNZ reports – It’s supposed to be a haven of healing and spiritual awakening but residents of the Kawai Purapura community say they’ve been hurt and deceived. It’s the successor to the former Centrepoint commune, and has been on the bush block opposite Albany shopping centre since 2008. It ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. Usually we have a video chat to go with this wrap, but were unable to do one this week. We’ll be back next week.Several reports ...
The Transport Minister has set a hard 'fiscal envelope' of $6.54 billion for transport capital spending. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy is settling into a state of suspended animation as the Government’s funding freezes and job cuts chill confidence and combine with stubbornly high interest rates to ...
To be precise, the term “anti- Zionism” refers to (a) criticism of the political movement that created a modern Jewish state on the historical land of Israel, and to (b)the subjugation of Palestinians by the Israeli state. By contrast, the term “anti-Semitism” means bigotry and racism directed at Jewish people, ...
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Because hurricanes are one of the big-ticket weather disasters that humanity has to face, climate misinformers spend a lot of effort muddying the waters on whether climate change is making hurricanes more damaging. With the official start to the hurricane ...
Yesterday the Mayor released what he calls his “plan to save public transport” which is part of his final proposal for the Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP). This comes following consultation on the draft version that occurred in March which showed, once again, that people want more done on transport, especially ...
And it's a pleasure that I have knownAnd it's a treasure that I have gainedAotearoa’s coalition government is fragile. It’s held together by the obsequious sycophancy of Christopher Luxon, who willingly contorts his party into the fringe positions of his junior coalition partners and is unwilling to contradict them. The ...
The Select Committee hearing submissions on the fast-track consenting legislation is starting to become a beat-up of regional councils. The inflexibility and slow workings of the Councils were prominent in two submissions yesterday. One, from the Coromandel Marine Farmers Association, simply said that the Waikato Regional Council’s planning decisions were ...
Back in April, the High Court surprised everyone by ruling that Ministers are above the law, at least as far as the Waitangi Tribunal is concerned. The reason for this ruling was "comity" - the idea that the different branches of government shouldn't interfere with each other's functions. Which makes ...
Buzz from the BeehiveTolling was mentioned when Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced the government was re-introducing the Roads of National Significance (RoNS) programme, with 15 “crucial” projects to support economic growth and regional development across New Zealand. All RoNS would be four-laned, grade-separated highways, and all funding, financing, and ...
or the past 14 years, ever since the Spanish government cheated on an autonomy deal, Catalonia has reliably given pro-independence parties a majority of seats in their regional parliament. But now that seems to be over. Catalans went to the polls yesterday, and stripped the Catalan parties of their majority. ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ report: Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said the Electoral Commission should make sure the system ran smoothly and “taking away the right of thousands of people to vote” was not the answer. “Thousands of people enroled and voted on the day. If ...
Don Brash writes – There was a rather revealing headline in the Herald on Sunday today (12 May). It read “One in 8 Auckland homes on market were bought during boom, may now sell for loss”. The first line of text noted that “New data shows one in ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – At a time when universities are understandably nervous regarding the establishment of the University Advisory Group (UAG) and the Science System Advisory Group (SSAG) it may seem strange – or even fool-hardy – to state that there are long-standing issues in the tertiary sector ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
Legislation to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has been introduced to Parliament. The Bill’s introduction reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the safety of children in care, says Minister for Children, Karen Chhour. “While section 7AA was introduced with good intentions, it creates a conflict for Oranga ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week travel to the UK and Italy to meet with her defence counterparts, and to attend Battles of Cassino commemorations. “I am humbled to be able to represent the New Zealand Government in Italy at the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of what was ...
The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today. $153 million in new funding will be provided over four years to establish and operate up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist and Kelvin Anthony, RNZ Pacific digital journalist Police have used tear gas and stun grenades on rioters at an airport near Nouméa as the chaos in New Caledonia stretched into its sixth day. Five people, including two police officers, have died and hundreds of ...
Asia Pacific ReportThe global human rights watchdog Amnesty International has called on France to not “misuse” a crackdown in the ongoing unrest in the non-self-governing French Pacific territory of Kanaky New Caledonia in the wake of a controversial vote by the French Parliament to adopt a bill changing the territory’s ...
A major provider of school lunches fears the government's new $3 limit for most students will see them eating more pre-packaged and processed food. ...
The star of Dark City: The Cleaner takes us through his life in TV, including the VHS revolution and the John Campbell impression that started it all. Best known for his comedic roles, Cohen Holloway says he struggled at times to maintain the stone cold facade of serial killer on ...
David Hill remembers an old friend, who you’ve probably never heard of. My friend Doug never travelled; he had little interest in the world beyond his own tiny rural town. I’ve rarely known anyone who radiated such contentment. Doug (I’ll call him that) died in March. You won’t know him. ...
Some of the earliest photos of life in Aotearoa are on display at Auckland Museum right now – but the identities of some of the people in them are a mystery.What was it like to be one of the first people in New Zealand to have their photo taken? ...
Since its founding almost a decade ago, Featherston Booktown has grown into one of the country’s most interesting and idiosyncratic literary events. Erin Banks reports from the audience. “Come in, have you had lunch? I’m about to make a cheese toastie.” Mary Biggs, operations manager of Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival, ...
After 33 years abroad, Loveni Enari recently returned to Aotearoa and Samoa in what a friend joked was an “existential crisis”. He learnt and re-learnt so much about his family, friends and both countries. Almost as an afterthought, he got a Samoan tatau. This is his story. (Accompanying it are ...
Nearly 30 years ago, two people told me they’d killed a woman they knew. I thought the truth would come out, that others would tell it. In the end, I had to. The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Fact: in 1995, Angela Blackmoore ...
Editor Madeleine Chapman looks back at the week and shines a light on some increasingly rare longform journalism. Mōrena and welcome to The Weekend where there will sadly be no aurora to see. After a busy week last week of short, sharp pieces, this week we swung the other way, ...
ANALYSIS:By David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a revered Kanak visionary, was inspirational to indigenous Pacific political activists across Oceania, just like Tongan anthropologist and writer Epeli Hao’ofa was to cultural advocates. Tragically, he was assassinated in 1989 by an opponent within the independence movement during ...
Forget thin is in, apparently now bigger is better … or is it? After over a decade of body positivity, girls, teens and women are even more confused about what body positivity actually is. The movement began with women confronting unrealistic expectations of how their bodies should look. But sub-strands ...
Grace always sat at the bar at the back of The Cambridge, where she could watch who came in. A huge mirror ran the length of the pub, so you could sometimes watch people without them knowing. The mirror made the place seem a lot bigger than it really was. ...
MONDAY Sheriff Mark Mitchell rose at dawn. He had a long day’s ride ahead of him. He was headed for Waikeria. Waikeria! Even the name itself stirred his blood, and set root in his imagination. There was nothing and no one in Waikeria. But he would bend it to his ...
The first phase of the inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones finished this week, turning up plenty of revelations and few answers. But through all the confusion, heartbreak and antipathy on display, the simple fact at the heart of this case remains: if little Lachie’s body had ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roger Benjamin, Professor in Art History, University of Sydney “She’s no oil painting”. Those were the unkind words of a colleague commenting on the subject of Vincent Namatjira’s acrylic painting, Gina. Every one of the prominent Australians and cultural heroes in Namatjira’s ...
Government plans to require local councils hold a referendum on whether to have Māori wards breaches the Treaty of Waitangi, a Waitangi Tribunal report has found. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, Industry Professor and Chief Economist, University of Technology Sydney This year the National Rugby League (NRL) opened its season in Las Vegas. It was an audacious move by the league’s ambitious head honcho Peter V’Landys to showcase the game in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Strong, Associate Professor, Music Industry, RMIT University Leading music organisations have praised the federal budget for its investment in the live music sector. The budget includes A$8.6 million for a program called Revive Live: to provide essential support to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marnee Shay, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, The University of Queensland The 2024 federal budget contains A$110 million for Indigenous education. This includes funding for various different organisations to represent and help Indigenous people as well as scholarships in a bid to ...
Air New Zealand has confirmed Nouméa’s Tontouta International airport in New Caledonia is closed until Tuesday. The airline earlier told RNZ it would update customers as soon as it could. Earlier today, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Morning Report government officials had been working on an “hourly basis” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Linley, PhD Candidate in Ecology, Charles Sturt University Grant Linley Australia’s unprecedented Black Summer bushfires in 2019–20 created ideal conditions for misinformation to spread, from the insidious to the absurd. It was within this context that a bizarre story ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcel Scharth, Lecturer in Business Analytics, University of Sydney OpenAI executive Mira Murati launching GPT-4o.OpenAI Earlier this week OpenAI launched GPT-4o (“o” for “omni”), a new version of the artificial intelligence (AI) system powering the popular ChatGPT chatbot. GPT-4o is promoted ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Treasure McGuire, Assistant Director of Pharmacy, Mater Health SEQ in conjoint appointment as Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Bond University and as Associate Professor (Clinical), The University of Queensland Speedkingz/Shutterstock Menopause is a natural biological process that marks the end of a ...
A new poem by Hannah Patterson. Xiāng There’s a pear tree in our backyard And Xiāng tells me She can’t eat them anymore Not after some things that have happened in her life. She tells me, in Mandarin The word for pear sounds the same as the word for disassociation ...
‘Cycling Works’ aims to show business support for citywide cycle infrastructure. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, supermarket giant Foodstuffs lost its attempt to block the construction of a cycle lane outside Thorndon New World in Wellington. The Spinoff’s Wellington editor ...
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 Slow Productivity by Cal Newport (Penguin, $40)Taking out the top spot in Auckland this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University For decades, Australia has exported uranium – but not used it, other than in the Lucas Heights research reactor. But change is coming. We now face a rapidly deepening commitment to ...
"In future I should walk away," Green MP Julie Anne Genter says after complaints over an exchange in Parliament and from two members of the public. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Graffam, PhD Candidate in Theatre, Monash University Gianna Rizzo/Malthouse Music pumps; lights pulsate; two sweaty bodies sway together, touching, breathing in each other’s scent. A male body framed by downlight restlessly shifts between stances and gestures. He undresses. The intensity ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sandra van der Laan, Professor of Accounting, University of Sydney Mtaya/Shutterstock At some point, you or someone else will need to make a decision about your “send-off”. Most Australians die in an institution, such as a hospital or aged care facility. ...
Asia Pacific Report Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai — who is also Chairman of the Melanesian Spearhead Group — has reaffirmed MSG’s support of the pro-independence umbrella group Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) stance opposing the French government’s constitutional bill “unfreezing” the New Caledonia Electoral Roll. It is ...
Producer Susan Leonard remembers her father Ernie, a pioneer of Māori television, and how his legacy lives on in Pathfinders.My father was a fabulous man. His name was Ernie Leonard and he started in TV in the 1970s when it was still glamorous – when TVNZ made behind the ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk, and Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist The suspected ringleaders of the unrest in New Caledonia have been placed in home detention and the social network TikTok has been banned as French security forces struggle to restore law and order. The French ...
Multi-year appropriations - which give the government authority to spend money without reapplying annually - are loosening Parliament's control of the public purse, auditor-general says. ...
Dr. Eric Chuah who stood for a centrist NZ political party in the October 2023 NZ Elections for Maungakiekie Auckland will stand as a candidate for Tauranga City Council Ward of Matua-=Otumoetai and Mayor of Tauranga. ...
If you can’t get to the comedy fest, let us bring the comedy fest to you. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is in full swing at the moment, with a veritable smorgasboard of comedy treats ...
A new poll commissioned by Unions Wellington shows an overwhelming majority of Wellingtonians oppose the Council’s plan to sell the 34% public stake in Wellington Airport. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aruna Sathanapally, Chief Executive, Grattan Institute, Grattan Institute A central focus of this week’s budget is the treasury’s forecast for inflation. By this time next year, inflation is projected to be back within the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target range. Inflation has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yolanda van Heezik, Professor of Ecology, University of Otago Getty Images Cities across Aotearoa New Zealand are trying to solve a housing crisis, with increasing residential density a key solution. But not everyone is happy about the resulting loss of natural ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Reeve, Deputy Program Director, Energy and Climate Change, Grattan Institute WDG Photo/Shutterstock For years, the electricity sector has been the poster child for emissions cuts in Australia. The sector achieved a stunning 26% drop in emissions over the past 15 ...
It’s often the last thing people want to do, but asking someone if they’re having suicidal thoughts is a critical first step to helping them. Content warning: this story discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. For a list of resources that can help if you or someone you know is feeling ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy J. Ralph, Associate Professor, Macquarie University The pyramids at Giza, like dozens of others, are located several kilometres west of the current path of the Nile.Alex Cimbal / Shutterstock The largest field of pyramids in Egypt – consisting of 31 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute ABO PHOTOGRAPHY/Shutterstock Receiving a cancer diagnosis is life-changing and can cause a range of concerns about ongoing health. Fear of cancer returning is one ...
Winston Peters has been on tour around the Pacific while two unrelated crises unfolded, explains Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Two separate ...
This is the Mount Everest of artificial meatcraft.Ah, bacon. Pig’s gold. Toast’s consolation. Dawn’s savoury embrace. If meat was a currency, bacon would be the Benjamin Franklin. Or if you’re feeling patriotic, the Lord Rutherford. When it comes to fake bacon, the obvious question is: why bother? In the ...
From illegal milk to sprinkler bans and airplane ticket scams, Tyrone Barugh is on a one-man mission through New Zealand’s most obscure legal loopholes. I’m deep undercover, investigating Wellington’s criminal underworld. Inside this store, I’ve been told there is a million-dollar trade in illicit substances. A man dressed in black ...
It’s been a recess week at Parliament, which might indicate slim pickings for conversation topics for the Raw Politics team. But things are never dull in politics, especially with a new Government keen to follow through on its law and order promises, and a NZ First minister who wants to ...
Dear Hon Judith Collins, Minister of Defence, and Hon Christopher Penk, Associate Minister of Defence I have written to you, to attempt to give you an insight into the incredible hardship of being an NZDF family. Whilst I cannot speak on behalf of serving personnel, I can speak from my ...
Analysis: What a difference a year makes. In mid 2023, Wayne Brown the Auckland Mayor was a politician diminished by a calamitous response to the region’s Anniversary Weekend storm emergency and later forced against his preference into a half sale only of the city’s airport shares. His demeanour among his ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 17 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
New Zealand’s drug legislation hasn’t been overhauled in nearly 50 years, in spite of a recommendation from the Law Commission in 2011 to do so. Our Misuse of Drugs Act was passed in 1975 and is based on a United Nations framework set in 1961. Now a new organisation, Harm ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) A free copy of this amazing story of a woman who operated behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France was up for grabs this past fortnight. Readers were asked to share a story of wartime bravery, ...
Ranking of digital rights in tech companies.
https://rankingdigitalrights.org/index2015/
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11539503
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11539525
It might be good time for our government to wtfu and start doing something about cc.
Things are going to get very weird. I reckon one of NZ’s biggest shocks will be when people have to get over the idea that it can’t happen to lil ole us in godzone.
The optimist in me hopes rain in places like Yemen will become a regular thing ,and there might be rapid growth to lock up some carbon ,.
The last hurricane event to go through the eastern Yemen area in 2008 dumped a tonne of rain and caused mass floods, but does not create lasting water for a higher level of vegetation than normal. It would probably require a deep sea current change to bring regular rainfall to the area, but warmer temperatures will make hurricanes more frequent.
Swales (and other rainwater harvesting techniques) can make use of high but infrequent rainfall for food growing.
Van Essen v The Attorney-General [2015] NZSC 166 (3 November 2015)
http://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZSC/2015/166.html
Interesting decision-
” [2]
The search warrant applications were largely prepared by the private investigators.
It was common ground well before trial that they were invalid.
The private investigators participated in the execution of the warrants along with police officers.
There are two other particular points that should be mentioned:
(a) the Patterson warrant was unsigned; and
(b) one of the police officers involved in the Van Essen warrant and its execution was Mr Gibbons’ son-in-law. ”
It seems you don’t even have to be the FBI or a Hollywood mogul to hire our cops for a bust. It must be official police policy now that –Better to just do it wrong and apologise later- because its okay to frame the right guy – that’s not a miscarriage of justice.
one statement stands out like dogs balls,
” In doing so the Court relied on the IPCA investigation and a subsequent report”
case closed i guess. works every time!
why would a court accept evidence from an oxymoron? !
I like your …..”evidence from an oxymoron ?”. Certainly true in name. In nature probably nothing oxymoronic about it. For an institution which is part of the power structure and contributes to it . Bit of a worry really. Because this institution sets threshholds of behaviour.
TPP Countries Aiming To Publish Final Agreement Text Later This Week
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries are aiming to make public the final agreement text before the end of this week, after making more progress than expected at a drafting session that wrapped up in Tokyo at the end of October, according to informed sources.
http://insidetrade.com/
Finally we might get to see the fine print.
Do you ever get the feeling you are surrounded by idiots, living here in Nu Zuland?
A PM who repeatedly pulls the hair of a woman in a position of service, harasses and abuses her, and gets away with it.
An MP that refers to women performing demeaning sex acts to an audience of technology professionals at Sky City, and gets away with it.
A Ministry that hires “model sheep” from a sex shop for their xmas party because you know, that’s f-ing hilarrrrious and everyone will love that surely………
The annual parade of idiots setting things on fire and traumatise animals because we allow idiots to purchase dangerous explosives:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/288726/fires-on-first-day-of-fireworks-sale
Idiots that can’t see a problem with strapping a 13 year old girl on to the front of a truck and sending her into flames, for kicks.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/288814/driver-defends-flaming-wall-truck-stunt
Also see Mickey’s post on a blighted future. Idiocy combined with cruelty.
Some days you’ve just gotta put your hands in your hands and sigh.
The flaming stunt trick was quite impressive, very mad max.
If you had a 13 year old daughter would you do that her?
There are so many wrongs it’s hard to know where to start.
A professional stunt woman was interviewed on 3 news last night. She was absolutely gobsmacked at the sheer stupidity and risk of it.
A child’s life has been endangered with the permission of her idiot parents.
Neil Jorgensen, the driver of the truck, when asked by the RNZ interviewer couldn’t say that the girl (don’t know her name) volunteered for the stunt, he just kept referring to a discussion with the family. His argument is that he has known the girl’s Dad for 20 years, as if that is relevant to putting a young life at risk.
Oh, and she wasn’t strapped in, I was wrong. Jorgensen was quite adamant about that. Said she could have jumped at any time. Lucky girl eh, having that choice. A choice between something going wrong and going up in flames or jumping from a moving vehicle and breaking your bones.
I agree, it was utterly stupid and showed a complete lack of awareness.
For a start she could have been impaled on the bits of flaming wood, not a lot of intelligence on display there.
Onya BM. Leave the stunts to Mad Max
BMadmax !
my partner is one of the many unpaid voluntary firefighters in NZ, and yes, the stupidity of people is astounding.
Considering that it is the season, I have given up on sleeping through a night until winter next year.
Cause that beeper (while they still have pagers) is not gonna stop, cause lighting a bbq with flame accelerator is fun, lobbing fire crackers in the bush is fun, burning shit without a permit is fun, and so on and so on and yeah….huwud’avethunk.
Huge respect and gratitude to your partner Sabine.
I don’t have the level of tolerance for idiots that members of the volunteer fire service would need to possess in order to do their job and keep themselves calm and sane.
Two years ago one of our neighbours managed to set the vegetation on the roundabout next to our house on fire. The firework set alight very dry ornamental grasses. The flames went up so fast, metres into the air. I was on the phone to 111 immediately and the fire service were there within one minute. Probably one of many call outs to similar fires that night.
I fully support their calls last year for a discussion around the banning of the public sale of fireworks. If that happened you might get a few more uninterpreted nights with your partner.
Guts of a letter to the editor of my local newspaper
I hope Prime Minister John Key isn’t planning to wear a white ribbon this November as it is clear from his past actions that he has no idea what the White Ribbon campaign stands for, which is men standing up and saying to other men that violence towards women is not okay.
When former Labour leader Cunliffe did exactly this, rather than support him, John Key publicly denigrated him to score political points. He even went so far as to wear a T Shirt saying “I’m proud to be a man” after Cunliffe had lost the election and resigned. He couldn’t resist having one more jab just for the pleasure of it. The worst thing a man can do is actually denigrate other men who stand up and say violence against women is not okay.
As well, John Key persistently harassed a female café worker despite her objections, claiming afterwards it was just a bit of fun and an indication of his “casual” style. He doesn’t seem to understand that he is not the only male that does this sort of thing and if every man who went in a café felt entitled to harass female staff they would be put upon the whole day long. This is the sort of thing that goes on in a lot of countries.
As far as I can see, the Prime Minister is still in denial about his attitude and behavior. A good first step for him this November would be to do what many other men have already done. Stand up in public amongst a group of men and women (with accompanying media for maximum publicity) and take the White Ribbon Pledge “I promise never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence towards women”.
That is an excellent letter e p. What paper was it in?
@ esoteric pineapples (6) –
Excellent letter. Thanks for sharing. Where did you find it?
In my very humble opinion for all it’s worth, FJK is in denial, because his behaviour points to that of a cold, calculating psychopath. He is completely devoid of any emotion towards anyone he abuses, hurts, humiliates, denigrates or offends!
There is enough evidence there in that letter describing FJK’s behaviour, for a full psychiatric conference I’m sure!
this is how its done, but Dear Leader is clearly above these ‘trivial’ matters
https://www.facebook.com/SamoaMoSamoa/photos/a.225162717501562.64779.225138367503997/1091286354222523/?type=3&fref=nf
Quote from the post
Former Manu Samoa player, Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu, is calling Samoan men out, urging them to put a stop to domestic violence against women in Samoa. His comments come after the brutal murder of 25-year-old mother of two Fatima Tupa’i, who was beaten to death by her estranged husband while she was asleep next to their children.
“A protection order is a piece of paper and a piece of paper will not stop a violent man. Fatima was still beaten to death while she slept with her children. She told the Police and they did nothing. They failed her and her children,” he said. He believed incidents of domestic violence in Samoa were increasing, and urged all men to put a stop to it.
“Domestic violence is a man’s issue! Who is doing the violence, the rape, the abuse? Men, we have to speak out against our brothers, fathers, uncles and friends. Men, if you see something, do something.”
“We have to stop being cowards,” he said. He believed women were devalued in Samoa. “Domestic violence is a product of a society that does not value women.”
+1 Sabine
I’m in mind of the televised giggles about who’s not coming to dinner at or about the time Smith fled to Brazil. This in the presence of the president of Brazil FFS. Footage that went round the world.
If we’d pity the 10 year old on the school trip who screws up the speech of thanks at the dairy factory…….surely we wouldn’t more or less celebrate ?
This is our prime minister and it’s happens more frequently. Worn with robust disdain, an amalgam of Vaudeville/Monty Python. It trickles down. Until the ‘spectacle’ becomes a melting ‘popsicle’ riding a broken-down ‘bicycle’.
Hey MSM, you wanna make that the broadly acceptable norm ?
who would not like a few teeth in their stew? And Food Hygiene is for suckers anyways.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/nov/03/human-teeth-found-in-meal-served-to-asylum-seekers-on-manus-island?CMP=fb_gu
or maybe a bit of violence and torture in ‘detention centers’ run by the ozzies
https://www.facebook.com/KelvinDavisLabour/posts/1068955776469602?fref=nf
maybe a bit of emotional torture for someone who has completed his sentence for the possession of marijuana, and a lonely death for a partner
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/288326/kiwi-detained-while-partner-dies-alone
Luckily for us our Dear Leader, now that the rugby is over and the boys are safely back in the country, will be on it. Surely, he will check with his OZ Dear Leader mate to make sure that the kiwis in detention on Manus Island will be treated as humanly as the Saudis treat NZ donated sheep in the desert. Or sum such thing. or maybe not. Oh …look, there is Sir Richies leg to hump.
+1 Sabine.
At least + 1 Sabine. One tiny edit: “Oh …look, there is Sir Richies leg [Ripe] to hump.”
Canterbury gets a bailout https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/canterbury-dhb-denies-its-struggling-despite-getting-16m-bailout and Southland/Otago gets a commissioner to slash the budget http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/69475533/Southern-DHB-commissioner-to-start-board-cleanup-process
(Both have a deficit)
i prfer to term it that both are underfunded.
Nash would call that as having a glass half full attitude CV
Definitely are…
Having been seen off by Northland, Wellington and the Hawkes Bay Paula Bennet is still going to corporatise councils by bribing with our own money (taxpayer funds) subsidies only if they go to CCO’s right?
So us ratepayers and taxpayers are looking forward to another round of expensive consultation that we don’t want to fund followed by the transfer of major council assets to undemocratic entities which will be locked in (and Northland is first for the chop).
Can we transfer the threatened regional assets to a company with the directors being the elected regional councillors and the shareholders being those on the electoral role entitled to vote for said councillors having one share each? Then the provisions of the companies act would click in so that major changes could not be made without putting it to shareholder vote, i.e us ratepayers or changing the wholes companies act? Are there other pre-emptive strategies we could look at – might be a better spend of the money
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11539528
“Government was proposing a “viable alternative to large-scale amalgamation”. Regions could transfer some core services between regional and territorial authorities. Or they could transfer them to “arms-length” organisations similar to Auckland’s Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs).
Half of CCOs’ directors are appointed by the council. Mrs Bennett admitted there could be some resistance to transferring core services to less democratic entities. But she said changes would not be forced on regions, and would be community-led.
The Government planned to introduce law changes next year which would allow the new structures to be “locked in” for the long-term.”
+1 Red Baron
Didn’t take Murdochs mob long.
WASHINGTON, DC (November 3, 2015) – In the opening days of the month when National Geographic magazine is scheduled to be turned over to 21st Century Fox, the magazine’s employees were told to stand by their phones to wait for calls – one by one – to come to Human Resources to learn the fate of their jobs.
https://nppa.org/node/72817
NG was compromised some time back
The magazine cover used ‘conspiracy theories’ as cover for “the war on science” , attacking ” reasonable people”
The digital age takes deception to a level beyond the capacity of people to understand
Executive Recalls Booming Private Prison Corporation’s Humble Beginnings As Modest 6-Cell Facility
Yeah, it’s the Onion…
You can dress up what their doing any way you want but that is government assisted slavery pure and simple.
You do know what the Onion is?
You do know the history of prisons in the US?
North Carolina, while without a system comparable to the other states, did not prohibit the practice until 1933. Alabama was the last to end the practice of official convict leasing in 1928.
I do now
It is illegal to import goods produced by prisoner labour in the US but perfectly fine for them use prisoner labour to create consumer products.
Maybe you need to know a bit more.
Convict leasing appears to be alive and well.
Prison labor in the states
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/prisonindex/prisonlabor.html
Oh I’ve been had….the barstards!! Still many a truth said in jest.
Free market really working for all!
Unemployment up to 6%.
Not panic time, but would be great to see an actual plan from the Government on this.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11539885
Looks like stagnation in 2016, not much better in 2017.
More to the point, I wonder what the real unemployment figure is?
I also wonder what the real unemployment figure is. RNZ said Statistics NZ look at those registered with WINZ and look at the total number of people in work. I don’t know what that second bit meant.
Relying on the number of WINZ registered unemployed is flawed as some of us unemployed aren’t eligible for assistance because our partners earn slightly more than peanuts. (Doesn’t matter that each week is an absolute struggle and debt is increasing due to having to use a credit card for living costs).
We’re simply not counted in the figures. A few of my friends are also in this position. How many unemployed around NZ aren’t registered with WINZ?
This is largely incorrect, the main measures of unemployment collected in NZ are not related to WINZ registrations. WINZ registrations are collected and counted by MSD, but these are not used for the official employment measures.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/income-and-work/employment_and_unemployment/a-guide-to-unemployment-stats.aspx
Have you seen the Roy Morgan unemployment statistics?
http://www.roymorgan.com/morganpoll/new-zealand/rmr-vs-snz-unemployment
There methodology is subtly different to statistics NZ. I think its always a politically motivated decision to suggest one is more real, than the other and the important thing for policy is to be consistent across time. On the other hand Australians think their Roy Morgan unemployment rate is more realistic than their national statistics office.
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/unemployment-roy-morgan-abs-comparison-201307110402
Henry talked about that this morning with the money guy and then went to the longest interview I’ve seen him do with key and not one mention of it was made , all they talked about was fucking knighthoods the pair of arseholes.
make unemployment benefit eligibility so hard that no one applies for benefits. Problem solved.
Yep….a WINZ worker told me add another at least 1%….so many don’t even bother applying. So many involved in the ‘grey economy’….downside of which is not only skewed unemployment stats but also slightly lower tax take. Also undermining labour laws (such as they are) as the ‘job’ does not really exist.
Methinks this is exactly how Our Leaders want the economy to go….
Increasing unemployment is their plan as it helps the capitalists to screw down wages.
As relevant now as it was back then.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0508/S00023.htm
Yep. Always relevant. If any political party is coming in with promises of tax cuts you can be sure that things are about to get worse for the majority of people and social services get cut again and again and again.
Only going to get worse and there’s nothing any one can do about.
a so thats the type of guy you are? A nothing can be done about nothing type of guy. That is pretty sad, really.
Automation and people living/working longer are going to be the big issues in next couple of decades.
I’m not ashamed to say, I don’t have the answers.
Its going to be very interesting to see if Mr Little has a few answers.
People working longer is already an issue for gen Y workers. There is little chance for advancement within organisations. It’s a tough situation for everyone involved as we all need the money!
The industries required in the future are the service and aged care industries, it would be helpful if they could offer an liveable wage for the frontline workers who cannot be easily replaced by machines.
I agree, a short term solution would be to copy the USA and its service industry driven economy.
It would involve a complete change of mind set within certain sectors of NZ.
That is, stopping being a tight arse , opening your wallet and start hiring people to do stuff for you.
That’s what they have drummed into the Americans, having people doing your chores isn’t a sign of laziness, it’s a form of charity which keeps the economy going and people in jobs.
I’m not sure the US style is to be emulated as it seems to be entirely predicated on businesses leaving renumeration of their employees to their customers.
As far as the mindset change goes, employers must be offering wages that reflect the high levels of skill and care that is required to do these kind of service jobs properly, and that needs to start with decent reimbursing of care workers now, which this government and aged care providers seem deadset against. That’s not going to encourage the next generation of workers to enter these industries.
Haha. “Be more like America.”
Sounds like a great idea.
Well there is no point in hiring people if they don’t get paid enough to live as for example Walmart employment is doing. Or ‘tipped’ servers that earn 2.10$ an hour plus tips that they have to share with bussers, dishwashers and often the cooks.
As for cleaners, lawn mowers, and house keepers these are probably the some of the oldest jobs on the planet, and should not be treated as charity but as work. The cleaner at the hotel does a full time job keeping the rooms clean, so does the lady that comes to ones own domicile to clean.
The trouble that we have is not that we don’t have jobs that need doing, we do, ‘the Auckland Transport owned Berms’ that are being mowed free of charge by people having houses behind them comes to mind. We have jobs that need doing, buy that we don’t want to pay for. We – the populace that wants tax cuts, and the current government -that would like to spend money of PR rather then infrastructure, social welfare, education, energy creation. WE could do with more nurses in hospitals, doctors even and decent cooks, we could do with more mental health care workers, we could do with more police and paid fire fighters, early child hood teachers and tertiary teachers, we could do with street cleaners and Park workers, Bus Drivers, Youth workers etc. but no one seems to want to pay for it.
So no, there is no need for high unemployment other than a wage drive downwards, high competition for the last remaining paid jobs (no matter how lowly they are paid) and the idea that general misery for many makes a virtuous populace.
How will you survive once you don’t have a job anymore? Ever thought of that? Or are you very very sure in your assumption that you will always have a paid gig, and that that gig is gonna cover all your costs?
+1 Sabine
Nope, that’s the worst thing to do as a service industry doesn’t actually create any wealth. And that is, IMO, why we have such increasing poverty in NZ. We’ve already become too dependent upon low paid services for jobs rather than creating new high value ones in and through R&D.
Thing is, that’s not actually possible as the people hired to do services must be paid lower than the people hiring them which means that only a few percent of people at the top can actually afford to hire others to do services.
This strikes me as a rather strange view. An economy which is focused on creating ‘wealth’ would seem to me to be a high resource impact economy. I want the opposite, a low resource impact economy. At the same time there seems to be no reason to suggest that economies are degenerating because they are not creating enough ‘wealth’ (what ever that is, I am assuming its real resources organised into useful technology). This suggests a service based industry would be a good thing if it could be organised.
The second paragraph is equally strange. There are no such tiered sectors of the economy which require that the service sector must be paid less. One part of the service sector can just the same spend on another part of the service sector. A service based economy could equally have a very flat wage structure. I can see no reason to believe that inequality in the economy had to develop, or is related to an increase in the service economy. Income inequality has been driven by factors unrelated to that, such as high unemployment rates, de-unionisation, and legislation against workers rights.
Not necessarily. Generally speaking you want a society producing everything that it needs from it’s own labour and resources. What you don’t want it doing is over producing to produce money which is what we have now.
We already have a service economy with our service sector at around 70% of the economy. Please note that around 75% of the population has an income less than the average wage. These people can’t afford to hire services.
This is what out present system has delivered and we’re getting more and more services all the time because we’re not developing our economy. Apparently that’s just too hard and costs too much.
“Generally speaking you want a society producing everything that it needs from it’s own labour and resources. What you don’t want it doing is over producing to produce money which is what we have now.”
This doesn’t differentiate between service and non-service wealth. Also what does over-production mean? In a largely service based economy it appears to mean people providing services to each other. I strongly disagree that is harmful or unsustainable in and of itself. You have been advocating for a UBI, so how is a bunch of people working to produce money any different to them not working and being given a UBI?
“We already have a service economy with our service sector at around 70% of the economy. Please note that around 75% of the population has an income less than the average wage. These people can’t afford to hire services.”
So arguably there is a correlation there (you didn’t show any real correlation), but this doesn’t mean that there is a cause. What is the supposed causal mechanism meaning a service economy must be highly unequal? We know about many of the causes of inequality in the economy but none of them appear to be that too much of the economy is focused on working on or producing services.
Over production is where excessive use of resources occur. Farming is a good example in that it over uses the land to produce money while not actually providing for our society.
And how does that supply what we need? How is the food grown? How are the vehicles produced? etc. etc
Services don’t produce anything. To a degree they’re needed but we’re already pushing to excessive amounts.
The UBI is to allow for people to buy the products of their society. In capitalistic terms, which I don’t like, they could be considered the dividend from simply being a citizen of the country. This overly simplistic though as the purpose of the economy is actually to provide people with what they need to live and thrive.
I said that a service economy didn’t work because the wages of service workers needed to come down to the point where they’re living in poverty for the majority of people to be able to afford them but as they’re the majority then they won’t be able to afford themselves.
That’s all rather bewildering.
So the economy is in a state of ‘over-production’, and its not producing enough of what we need at the same time?
I still don’t understand what’s requiring service workers wages to come down or be lower than other sectors in all of this.
As far as I can see it would be a good thing if both more people were employed and mostly at higher wages because the economy is quite far from in a state of over-production and also in a state of wide income inequality. And at the same time service industries seem like a good place for them to be employed still as this is mostly less physically resource intensive.
I think your getting a bit confused about the definition of the service economy. You realize education is part of the service economy right?
I suspect that the larger part of the current advancement problem is that people need to hold onto their jobs rather than successfully applying for better ones or risking a business startup (we still haven’t returned to the number of new company registrations in 2009-10).
You could very well be right, I also think that peoples continuing mortgage requirements into later life also contribute to staying in employment. Also others have mentioned NZ’s (small c) conservatism, and this sort of risk-adverse attitude is probably wise in such ‘interesting times’ as these too!
Well, over the next couple of decades until the Baby Boomers start dying off.
The Baby Boomer demographics are a bulge in the population. Essentially, subsequent births didn’t match and thus scuttled most of the growth in the economy that the politicians had, quite literally, been banking on. An increasing population is always a growing economy even if you don’t get productivity increases.
That could easily be done if it was the government directly doing it and we had a sovereign monetary system. The money paid would be directly created by the government to pay the workers and then taxed back out of existence.
I know this is a long way out there but how about:
1. Change the standard work week to be 20 hours instead of 40,
2. Increase the minimum wage so that those 20 hours are enough to live on,
3. Put overtime laws back in so that if an employer wants to have one person working more than 20 hours per week it will cost them more.
Surely this creates a requirement for more employees to do job’s, and the increased money in the bottom end of society which is normally spent straight away increases the earnings of those same buisnesses that will have increased staff costs.
Again I get this is a loooong way out there and not going to happen. However I think to say it can’t be fixed is a bit far as well.
France dropped their working week to 35 hours from 39 in 2000. The idea is it would increase employment. Critics have pointed out that no real increase in employment has happened, workers are just under more pressure to produce the same amount of output in less time.
I guess cutting from 40 to 20 wouldn’t have the same sort of problem, because you’d simply have to hire more people. But also this change is so dramatic it will not happen any time in the next 10 years, so you’d be better off focusing on potential solutions that could be implemented, not pie-in-the-sky daydreams.
It seems that the French system isn’t all that good. Workers get rest days rather than overtime rates.
What I’d like to see is what we used to have – simple penal rates. They would have to apply to people on salary as well though just to make sure they worked as more people are on salary now than used to be.
Oh well that solves it then!!
Maybe not anyone but the government could achieve full employment in a matter of months. Of course, that would have the business leader whinging again as they were in the 1970s and 80s about about the government taking all the employable people and them thus having to compete for them.
The undesirably high unemployment rate is a trivial problem for the country to solve. As BM argues later in this thread, you need somebody to employ these people (BM suggests the private sector should just start believing in a service economy, which is a fantasy, its not going to happen). But if the government wants them employed, it could simply employ them and pay them a wage to do something and then your problem is solved. The only problem here is the government doesn’t want them employed so it doesn’t employ them, it leaves them unemployed (its more focused on running a political budget surplus at present, which is why employment is stuck around 5-6% for ages).
If in addition to solving the unemployment problem the government doesn’t want to put pressure on wage rates, which might push inflation up, then it should only employ people the private sector doesn’t want to employ. So it should pay these people (the ones who are being employed by the government just for the purposes of being employed) only the minimum wage and then the government doesn’t compete with the private sector at all and so this policy causes no inflation at all as well.
So there you go problem solved. Somebody should probably mention this to Andrew Little.
Nonsense – this technique has a 25% chance of significantly improving things:
http://www.nber.org/papers/w13102
Interestingly enough, very few jobs on offer in IT at the moment. That’s normally a warning sign. yeah, it,s end of year, but there’s normally something.
Self-flying drone learns to avoid obstacles, reaches record speed
Bit of a cheats way of doing it but it’s one of the step you take on the way to full implementation.
until you blunder into a squash court !
Or a football field?
International ridicule – worse than being a ‘slave’ eh steve
Pity we can’t get key stuck in this rapidly setting amber.
“”Those of you with a marginally broader perspective – say, anyone above the age of eight – may be tempted to pick holes in Williams’ definition of captive servitude. Welcome to The History of Slavery with Steve Williams, in which white men are brutally invited to carry the golf bags of black men, savagely consulted over club selection and putt lines, sadistically given a share of the winnings, cruelly allowed to leave whenever they want,” wrote Jonathan Liew in Britain’s Telegraph.””
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/golf/73663096/new-zealand-caddy-steve-williams-blasted-for-slave-comments-over-tiger-woods
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/tigerwoods/11972102/Steve-Williams-finds-himself-slighted-at-every-turn-but-is-it-any-surprise-after-latest-slavery-comment.html
Has New Zealand deported Kim Dot Com yet? If not, why not?
No planes meet the requirements to move him.
Dotcom is a genius …that is why he is being persecuted…he threatens the monopoly of the corporates
‘Meganet’: Kim Dotcom plans crowdfunded replacement to Internet (Ft. Max Keiser)’
https://futuristrendcast.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/meganet-kim-dotcom-plans-crowdfunded-replacement-to-internet-ft-max-keiser/
“Kim Dotcom from New Zealand introduces a revolutionary Internet alternative: new non-IP based, non-hackable, surveillance-proof and encrypted network, which will be 100% crowd-funded.
Max Keiser from Keiser Report interviewed Kim Dotcom, who also talked about NSA spying and his ongoing prosecution by the US government…
🙄
I would take anything that comes out of Dotcom’s mouth with a grain of salt.
KDC plans a lot of things, alot of things that don’t come to fruition
Well, it’s better than the usual RWNJ way of not planning anything and then complaining about it not working.
and Part Two: Dotcom is not only a genius , he is also highly moral
First they came for MegaUpload Dotcom and then they came for Google…but they bit off more than they could chew
…Dotcom talks about his philosophy, whistleblowers, Wikileaks, Snowden and Manning
…and the Sony hack/leak which he believes was not done by Google or South Korea …but which exposes Hollywood USA political corruption and which could be used to defend Google
‘Meganet’, Part 2: Kim Dotcom plans crowdfunded replacement to internet (Ft. Max Keiser)
I am sure that there would be something suitable in this list.
I’m not sure how many of the Antonov’s exist but the US would probably be able to find a Galaxy to move him.
He might be big but these things are bigger.
http://www.airforce-technology.com/features/featurethe-worlds-biggest-military-transport-aircraft-4180954/
A little annoyance called “due process” is reponsible. You wouldn’t understand the concept.
@ Clean_power…A better question: were NZ politicians bribed to persecute/prosecute Dotcom in New Zealand by Hollywood?
….as it would appear from the Sony hack/leaks ….. that USA politicians have been bribed by Hollywood to begin the persecution/prosecution of Google for piracy
…it would appear from the hacks/leaks that Google was facing the very same plotting behind the scenes…accusations/case that was levelled against Dotcom MegaUpload
…as it doesnt seem to have worked against Google …and in fact there is counter legal action by Google for the political corruption exposed ….where does this leave the NZ government?
Brave New World : Violent Passion Surrogate (V.P.S.), Violent Market Surrogate, Violent Crowd Surrogate
“V.P.S is great for keeping people divided over pointless issues and bogged down by as never-ending stream of misinformation and biased interpretations which exist only within a truncated frame of reference” ( urban dictionary .com)
Cashless society = bank surveillance, data mergers, censorship , state/corporate control ( social engineering, negative interest rates) ?
Bitcoin = an alternative ( to bankster control) plus future digital privacy ( an alternative to bank blockchain technology)
All this discussed on the Keiser Report with Tracy and Max and Brett Scott:
https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/320603-episode-max-keiser-831/
“Every week Max Keiser looks at all the scandal behind the financial news headlines.
In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss Violent Market Surrogates as the doors of misperception in a brave new world in which central bankers are fighting the wrong war. In the second half, Max interviews Brett Scott, author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money, about financial surveillance states and cashless societies.”
Joyce stand Jackie Blue?down as commissioner in parliament today, can he do that?
OK this post is unrelated to the above ,but I was flabbergasted to hear John Key on RNZ this morning saying he was “quite mates” with Richie McCaw…..what the hell is a “quite mate”???????…..someone who you think likes you but your too bloody insecure to go the whole hog and call him a mate……does anybody out there have a “quite mate”or is this a new sort of relationship bond that only our PM indulges in…..?????
Maybe Sir Richie, the mighty leg (for leghumpers anyways), is just too polite to tell our most exalted Dear Leghumper that he is not quite mates with with our most exalted Dear Leghumper.
He also said knighthoods & damehoods have increased in popularity in NZ, tho fuk knows how he figured that out. In the same article he said the royals might join the All Blacks on one of their parades.
The titles were obviously very popular with those who got awards between 2001 and 2008 that entitled them to use Sir or Dame after the titles were reintroduced in 2009.
There were 85 of them, of whom 72 accepted the titles. That included at least one former Labour MP who must have really annoyed Helen Clark.
Of the other 13 a couple were “Clayton’s” refusals as they already held the title via other awards. I notice that they never relinquished their prior titles.
Thus the vote was 72 aye, 11 nay and 2 effective abstentions.
http://www.odt.co.nz/the-regions/otago/67860/who039s-opting-titular-honour-and-who039s-not
Self interest? About sums up the honours system I think. I have never or will ever address anyone as ‘sir’ or ‘dame’. Seems backwards looking to me.
it increased amongst the dames and sirs in parnell who would love to hump dear Leghumpers leg and maybe have some hair pulled.
Have you had this fetish long sabine? It really doesn’t seem healthy.
I’ve just seen David Cunliffe give an amazing speech in Parliament in the General Debate. Just reaffirming once again why he should still be the Labour Leader. He managed to encapsulate in one rousing speech just what is wrong in NZ, from Stephen Joyce’s appalling management of MOBIE including “blow up sheep”, to the National Party’s manipulation of our media, their dirty politics a la Slater and Collins with the former SFO Head, the Ombudsman’s office failing to compel ministers to answer OIA’s, through to Westpac releasing Nicky Hager’s account details to the police.
He mentioned all of the journalists who have been removed from prime time television and newspapers who have sought a better home at Radio NZ. He mentioned the person responsible for the funding of Radio NZ is John Key’s former electorate head and wondered how long it would be before funding for Radio NZ would be reduced or stopped altogether.
This kind of speech from David Cunliffe is why the members are still so angry that the ABC crowd forced him to relinquish the leadership. The public voted in the major newspapers polls that Cunliffe had won most if not all the political debates in the election! So much for him being so unpopular. He just had too little time to establish himself as leader before the election, coupled with hatchet jobs from the media (Armstrong etc) and sad to say, from within!! If David Cunliffe had had the time as leader that Clark or Goff had had, things would be very different in Parliament today. David Cunliffe talked about Key’s “peeing in the shower and in the pockets of the All Blacks”!! Funny and the absolute truth!
+100…this also explains why they were so keen to get rid of David Cunliffe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIxSzcoI6Nc
Very well worth Listening too. Excellent.
Good to be reminded why I supported and voted for David Cunliffe. I also think it was the right thing for David to avoid any limelight for a year after the election. Had he launched any attacks sooner, the DP mob and their media acolytes would have accused him of trying to upstage Andrew Little.
Now that Little is firmly established and has the total support of every caucus member – plus the ordinary members – I hope Cunliffe will be brought back to the fore of proceedings again. His quick brain and smart rhetorical skills are much in need.
Sorry Saarbo – I thanked Hami for putting that clip up but it was actually you who did – Hami did a good summary of what was in it. Thanks. It is excellent.
“The public voted in the major newspapers polls that Cunliffe had won most if not all the political debates in the election”
And then the public voted in the election and showed that the support for him as PM was pretty thin among the voters.
Were there any real polls done by the newspapers as to who “won” the debates. I am not aware of any. There were of course some of the self selecting variety but I don’t think anyone could take them seriously.
Can you give me a reference to a professionally run poll that supports your thesis?
When the journalists expressed opinions, and they are certainly not right leaning as some of the people here seem to believe they wouldn’t support your view would they? For example
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11318016
Yes it is a shame that David Cunliffe (a) didn’t get support from the ABC crowd and (b) wasn’t given another chance. The current Labour lot are ineffectual. They need to get rid of the traitors and Andrew Little needs to get a backbone. Many people are saying to me they don’t like National but Labour are just the same so why bother voting, wont make any difference. I would like to see David Cunliffe given the finance portfolio as Grant Robertson doesn’t have the credibility IMO.
all those ABCs who did not support Cunliffe are wannabes with more ambition than talent…we all have a fair idea who they are
they betrayed the Labour Party membership who voted for David Cunliffe …and they betrayed the Labour Party…and they betrayed the New Zealand electorate
imo David Cunlffe deserves to be Deputy Leader after Annette King and he deserves to be not only high profile Finance spokesperson but high profile spokesperson for Climate Change issues and Environment ( which are linked to Finance)
David Cunliffe is an old style New Zealand politician with high integrity
( about as far from jonkey nact as it is possible to be)
If David Cunliffe is given a high profile for the New Zealand Labour Party …its fortunes could turn around…as more and more are seeing through jonkey nact
+100 Thanks for putting that up Hami – it’s such a relief to hear an MP actually tell it like it is. I was shocked by the treatment dished out to Cunliffe when he was the LP leader, and I have not forgotten the heroism with which he hung on, under huge pressure, and forced the leadership question to be taken back to the membership. I too would like to see him restored to a position befitting his talents.
http://karldufresne.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/surprising-as-it-may-seem-i-dont.html
I stand by all that. My concerns about Hager are essentially twofold: first, that he uses the label “journalist”, with all its connotations of even-handedness and impartiality, to disguise his true purpose, which is that of an ideological crusader; and second, that the publication of his Dirty Politics book was carefully timed to coincide with a general election, in the clear hope that it would cause maximum political damage. But neither of those concerns could be construed as endorsement of any disregard for his rights or violation of his privacy.
I do, however, share Cameron Slater’s view that the reaction to the latest disclosures exposes a gaping double standard. Where was the media outrage when Slater’s email account was hacked?
There’s a difference, of course, in that this time it’s an agency of the state that’s digging into someone’s personal affairs. That’s infinitely more alarming than the actions of a rogue private hacker. But Slater is right to point out that the hacker, Rawshark, largely escaped media condemnation – as did Hager, who used the information Rawshark obtained.
Its a good article
If Hager had sat on the information for a couple of years, you guys might have a point about the timing. But he received the information in January and it was published in August. Seems to be a reasonable timeframe.
The media outrage at slater being hacked was somewhat lessened by the outrage at what those pricks had been up to, and their absolutely contemptable attitudes and behaviour. But then you’ve always had a problem understanding the concept of “public interest”.
Hager is an invetigative journalist. Just because you don’t like the truths he exposes, it doesn’t mean that if Labour or the Greens were up to the same thing he wouldn’t also report that.
– Puckish Rogue
This is the first bit I read, and I stopped reading there.
Not a good article entirely
– calling Hager and idealogical crusader not a journalist is simply idiotic – the content of his book would be gobsmacking no matter who was doing it – Nact have only themselves to blame that they were in the limelight – and nobody has sued so we can take it that it’s pretty much factually right- personal responsibility there for Nact
– releasing it to cause maximum political damage – oh please – don’t do it to start with and don’t all MSM outlets write stories and release tehm for best effect.
Lastly Hager does factual content and investigation, du Fresne does an opinion column, why does the MSm support one but not the other.
You seem to suffer from the TVNZ disease which aches as to say that the first imperative is ‘balance’ (as though it were a calculable absolute). “Balance’ is the MOST subjective number and in TVNZ is generally reflected by reporting this and not reporting that, according to a lonely and untested personal sense of what is ‘balance’. Very well paid contenders to the next level of very well paid, even excessive, even obscenely extravagantly paid contenders.
Why is a child prime minister deemed to be central, reliable, our desired ‘us’ ? If this is ‘balance’……(gulp)……please do not show me imbalance. I am a precariously positioned pensioner. I have impecuniosity and nostrils keen to the stink of shit. Especially that passed on by yuppie Cafe Society wannabes of the Auckland media.
@ clean power, infused @ puke rouge …….
Have they caught the people who killed kim dotcoms swan yet ???? http://www.businessinsider.com.au/kim-dotcom-swan-murder-2015-2
also all three of you jerks will be very sad to hear that we have not deported Dotcoms nanny s who help raise his children yet …….. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11279059
…….and I’m guessing your all very comfortable with females to this country being sexually assaulted by our customs officials …… if their crime is visiting Kim Dotcom
Hell ….. I’d even bet you 3 would join up to be customs officers …… if you could get in on some of that.
Kim Dotcom was a man who could get things done and had vision in the computer and internet industries …………… Nationals plan was more cows
Still you 3 keep giving yourself mutual hand-jobs ………….. because you really are wankers 🙂
Brilliant Reason…..quite brilliant. Allusions to the unspoken truth…..
Looks like the race is on to see which nation will have a sovereign money system first:
Iceland is also having such discussions but no indications yet that they going to have a referendum on it.
alwyn ………….. I missed your late arrival for the now four-way with your buddies clean power, infused and puke rouge …….
Like those other trolls you are here to spread misinformation or derail …. and with your comments on Cunliffe you did just that ……. in this instance you left out the dirty politics hatchet job that the Nats cooked up and engineered for the election.
Cunliffe as most people know was the victim of a national dirty politics hit job involving the usual suspects of Key, Slater, farrar, the herald etc …….. and 1 dishonest dodgy rich immigrant named ‘Lui’ …..who was charged with domestic violence at the time.
The Herald in particular ran a counterfactual and unsubstantiated smear job on cunliffe and Labor ………………. all sorts of false accusation were put into print …………. Cunliffe was called to resign by Armstrong and others ……………. and the Nats in a pre-planned and coordinated way always referred to Cunliffe as ‘tricky’.
The truth in the matter which made the story against Labor and Cunliffe counterfactual …………….. Was that John Key and others were around having meals at Lui’s house ……. and picking up $10,000 dollar donations to the national party…..they were the ones associating and taking money from him …… but we never read that in the Herald or elsewhere
The Slater, Key, Farrar cliche were at the peak of their Dirty politics underhand sleazy tricks when they did their job against Cunliffe …………… but thanks to Nicky Hager we now know how they operate which has hobbled them ……. for the time being.
The unintended consequences from their shit slinging hit job on Cunliffe was Winston s rising …………
Winston is of course now sitting in the northland seat ………… courtesy of what could be John Keys dirtiest political act of all regarding one Mike Sabin ………… and who knew what when they knew it going into the general election.
Personally I think Key will resign before that shit storm hits ……..
His job is done now that he has signed away our sovereignty with the TPPA ……..
one small typo in my post above …….
Winston is of course now sitting in the northland seat ………… courtesy of what could be John Keys dirtiest political act of all regarding one Mike Sabin ………… and who knew what AND when they knew it going into the general election.