No money for poverty.
No money for food in schools.
And why would our government, as Key has noted there are hardly any kids needing food in the schools he visits?
Will the government have some spare for some millionaires and billionaires needing a handout?
No no no Paul you have got it wrong, think of all the jobs it will bring to NZ if the cup comes back to NZ. All those additional waiters and servants required on zero hours contracts.
sarc/
What about all the boat builders up and down the country.
Jobs well paid high skilled well paid jobs.
The boat building industry has grown from $120 million a year to $2 billion a year on the back of New technology and high quality workmanship.
After all the investment New Zealand has made in this high value industry it would be very foolish to throw it all away!
I have studied economics for a long time now,One big growth trend is making money out of wealthy people.
Its one Area in manfacturing that we are World leaders we can not afford to loose our edge.
7 Out of 10 America,s cup boats were built right here in New Zealand the GST payments off just this section of the boat building industry.
We also build super yatchs having our industry on show in Bermuda!
Its time we took the bull by the horns and looked for other niche manufacturing industries which New Zealand is good at and target the uber rich they have deep pockets and pay well.
Taxing them doesn,t work that well as they buy goverment or move their money to where they Don,t pay any tax!
Targeting products they buy and suppling the wealthy with high value high quality products is much smarter long term!
How many boat builders were able to employ more people at good wages after the 8 straight losses at the last exhibition of obscene wealth being blown around by the wind? Possibly less than we would have had without the stupid race.
Oh why not turn our entire economy into one designed to serve the 0.1%?
Won’t that be fun and fulfilling for everyone else?
At the end of the day however, such an economy doesn’t add up. Building McYachts, McMansions and selling McSUVs won’t form the backbone of any worthwhile civilisation.
CR
You are so right. While we wait for the situation to be redeemed maybe we should try to keep some industry afloat in NZ, something that’s in water and not milk.
How much money would have to come into the country in boat building revenue to get 34million in tax off it . have to say I loved watching those big boats fly.
I have studied economics for a long time now,One big growth trend is making money out of wealthy people.
Yeah, so have I. The problem is that you’re not talking economics there but finances which is a completely different kettle of fish.
Economics is about managing limited resources, specifically, minimising their use. If the economics you champion results in ever greater use of those resources then it is uneconomic.
I haven’t visited Auckland much, but I was there for a week recently. Two images have stuck in my mind: a yacht crew carrying their gear through the viaduct, emblazoned with brands and wearing sunglasses that cost more than I earn in a week, and the guys sleeping the the doorways of the city mission, next to the YMCA where I was staying.
Sadly, i think KDC should have saved his money for the yachties. It might well have had more impact on his position.
Would be OK if we actually won the damn thing, which to do you much actually be in front of the other boat when you cross the finish line. Despite what people might think, you cannot win the America’s Cup just by turning up to the race.
We have all moved on from 1995 and Peter Blake’s red socks.
The whole thing’s become a circus anyway. It used to be, that it you wanted to host an America’s Cup regatta, you had a win the thing. Now you can just write a cheque out and you get it anyway.
Peter Blake’s money raising red socks – buy and donate to the NZ challenging the big boys cause – not made in NZ red socks.
That is so common now it is a cliche. Even the RSA got their red poppies to remember the NZ fallen sourced from overseas – I think from Aussies who probably ordered them from Asia. e&oe This is conjecture though.
edited
Hope they do as it reinforces the govt priorities of the wealthy elite first…..another brick in the wall of arrogance muddle nz need to wake up to given such issues as you’ve highlighted Paul.
It used to be about boat racing, now it’s about the size of billionaires dicks or wannabes like JK.
4. Degrade education so more charter schools can be set up ready for privatisation of education.
5. Degrade Health system so more private institutions and insurance can be set up ready for privatisation of health.
If you want to see our future under Key, just look at New Orleans in the U.S. , where shock doctrine was applied after Katrina to privatise education.
As for Health, watch Michael Moore’s Sicko to get a feel for the health policy Key and his cronies are prepared to deliver for their banking and corporate masters.
Apologies to all concerned, including Judith. She is into her rhythm .. good to see musical talent in the cabinet. The cropped image gave a different impression.
She is well-known for her gentle, mild and co-operative, inclusive manner.
I’ve just finished, as in five minutes ago, reading “Dirty Politics”. Sarcasm is the gentlest form of response to Judith Collins and her style of politics that I can muster.
Nicky Hager didn’t do anything for her to lose her cabinet position. She was brought down by the members of her own DP side, people like Slater, Odgers and Key, remember?
Picture of Judith – Poor Judith – a difficult moment in the smallest room in the backbenchers’ lobby looks to me. A concerted attempt to negate the resonating charge – “You’re full of it Jude !”
For those of you who think that spying was only a problem in East European countries and it was them damn Russkies who where so evil that they killed millions of their own for merely speaking truth to power, here is a nice history of the elite spying on their own people in the Western world. All 5000 years of it:
5,000 Years of History Shows that Mass Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent
The other thing that concerns me is the fact that there is an incentive for groups like the GCSB, the SIS and the Police to favour right wing governments because RW govts will increase powers of surveillance. The actions or inactions on the Hager/Slater and Jon Stephenson reinforce my view that these groups are becoming more active in discouraging any dissent, almost as if they are sending out a warning to dissenters to intimidate them. How can environmentalists be regarded as “terrorists”? There was a good interview of Jason N Parkinson on Nine to Noon on the UK surveillance of journalists.
Those interested in the surveillance state expansion would be interested in thes interview with a Brit journalist this morning on Radio NZ. I heard part of it and remember him saying that he is a journalist who regularly covers protests and exposes behaviours on the left or right that are outside correct and lawful practices.
He commented that he had applied to see his secret service file and finally got it by knowing the small print and file No. to ask for and found how much stuff was on him. Exhaustive contents. Also environmental protests were noted and his work and contacts on those, yet one he did on some right wing outfit that started in 2009 and was revealed to be plotting events, with one Brit solder making nail bombs in his bedroom on his days off, was not mentioned.
It sounds as if the police are paranoid and definitely harrassed him as a registered journalist going about his lawful business. I think he said that in 2007 it seemed to be hotting up and in that year he was stopped, I think, 23 times and questioned while on his way to report some left-wing type of event.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20159785
British journalists spied on by state, put on extremist list ( 24′ 12″ )
09:20 Jason N Parkinson is a freelance video journalist, who covers subjects ranging from environmental disaster to conflict. He was nominated for the Rory Peck News Award for his work during the Egyptian revolution and in London during the riots.
Jason is one of six members of the British National Union of Journalists who are asking the English High Court for a judicial review of the collection and retention of surveillance data about them. He says he and other journalists were subject to wide-ranging surveillance and put on a domestic extremist list, simply for doing their jobs.
Most interesting in this Zero Hedge article are the comments – people scrimping and saving, unable or unwilling to spend money in restaurants and bars any more, going to home brew instead of buying a beer.
Meanwhile in April this year, NYC apartment prices hit record highs of US$970K. Sounds very much like a tale of two cities eh. For the 1%, and that for everyone else.
The same is happening here in AKL. I have a small shop, hand made chocolates and the likes, and I can tell you from daily experience that people are counting the pennies, and then then turn them over a few times before spending them.
I am still doing well enough to keep myself and the two shop girls busy, but it should not get any worse.
But I guess you are not going to see an article in the NZ Herald about peeps not buying boats and big SUV on the paper value of their not yet paid off houses.
It is not a tale of two cities, it is a tale of a hand full of very rich against the rest of the country.
Well, retail and the service sector in Dunedin are definitely struggling at the moment (although as always there are stronger sectors and weaker ones). And looking around what should be the centre of town there are far too many empty commercial lots, many of them large, and a number of which have been untenanted for 6 months or more.
What no one is looking forward to is the flow on effect of lower milk prices…
Meanwhile the capitalists rub their hands and praise the prospect of doing business with the burgeoning middle class in China and India. The old middle class in USA has been decimated (into deciles) by their country’s business corporate machinations with their politicians. That is, the western capitalists have fouled their own nest but no matter, find a new nest to foul overseas and leave the chicks to rot in the old one.
I’m most impressed with David Parker who has regrouped after losing the leadership contest, and come out swinging strongly from the back benches, well done chap. Parker is absolutely correct that PC Plod are dragging their heels over investigating some of Hager’s claims.
The Fuzz are playing favourites, and I would like to know who is pulling their strings and why?
“Now I can’t name either of those sources and I can’t prove those allegations to be true and they are both hearsay allegations to me, but these allegations must be investigated.”
Littles doing well but he doesn’t need chumps like Parker dragging him down
I disagree, Little was doing well, till he supported the terror legislation. That just reminds me, as it should remind others – Labour are nothing but a bunch of corporate elects.
Well I think he showed pragmatism on that, its fine to be all tub thumping to appeal to your core but when you get the information you then have to do the right thing by your country and if hes elected leader then hes the leader of the whole of NZ not just the anti-war left
So on this its no negative feedback for Little
Anti-war, misdirection and diversion? I’m not anti-war – I just don’t see the point in fighting wars for other countries/corporations. This piece of legislation is an attack on civil liberties, I’d have thought the right wing were fan’s of freedom. As I get older, I’m finding they are not.
So let me be the voice of freedom – I don’t want my freedoms stomped on because your a little scaredy cat – who jumps at your own shadow. I’m over wimps on the right, who feel they are justified to feed their paranoia and fear to the general population.
The big bad terrorist ,is a lie – bit like the big bad communist lie. Just change the rhetoric from the 1950’s to now.
ISIS is falling apart, if we strangle off the money coming from the Saudi Arabia and others. Their days would be severely numbered. Good old economic terrorism that the west is good at. Why do we need to put troops on the ground? We don’t.
How can I be so confident ISIS is fubar? They have completely wiped out the middle classes, either in a physical sense or in the fact most of the professional classes are running away from them. How long do you think they will be able to operate a modern society, without a professional class? And failing that, how long do you think they will be able to contain a youthful population look at the luxury and lifestyle modernism has to offer? ISIS is a pitiful joke, and only nut jobs who want to send our young men and women off to die, seem to be under the illusion that this whacked out army of boy jihadists aren’t going to eat themselves – if we do the right thing, and cut the money off.
You are assuming they want a modern society which I doubt they want to go back to the dark ages were believing in mythical being’s are used to control the youthful population.
ISIS is something that needs to be stopped but they need to be stopped by the people who live there. If they’re stopped by those from outside then they’ll just arise again in a probably worse form.
We also need to work out why young men from all over Europe (the world?) are joining up to fight for groups for ISIS. It seems to me we are have thrown a whole generation of young people on the scrap heap, called them lazy and useless, and then wonder why they are starting to like what the bloke down at the local mosque has to say.
+100 Draco. Could not agree more. But lets help the people there, by stopping ISIS getting the money from supporters around the region, and lets stop pretending Saudi Arabia is an ally of ours.
i dunno skinny..parker is still number one on my list of mp’s ‘most likely to go postal’..
..there is much grindingly-unfufilled there..anger both seethes and drips from him..it has even made his face all puffy/blotchy..and his voice has changed..all dangerous signs..)
..(in other recent moves on that list..brownlee has jumped to number two..and tho’ he is minister of defence..i wd advise he be kept well clear of any actual weapons..
..and of course.kennedy graham..with his death-ray eyes/gaze is always somewhere in the top five..
..and foss-the-hapless often seems to be barely hanging on..so is also there..)
Ngati poaka don’t need their strings pulled. They know instinctively where their loyalties lie. In that respect, they’re a lot like journalists. What they both need is continuous pressure to do their jobs properly.
Is there anyone here, artist/cartoonist, that can draw a caricature of Key, with the Pinocchio’s long nose, with his pants on fire, hands raised high up in the air like Nixon’s and a speech bubble coming out of his bum with the words, “Awkchully, honestly speaking, at the end of the day, I don’t lie!”
Yes Trans Tasman do seem to have been getting steadily dafter and right over the years. Their analysis used to be pretty good with a known slant.
But everything I have seen in recent years can be characterized as being written by a wingnut and one with a similar political and economic skill level to Mike Hoskings – ie more characterized by bigotry than analysis.
At a superficial glance, he does seem preferable to idiots like Abbott and Bjelke-Newman. However, with a second glance you see that the only difference is in the presentation. They’re all as thick, dishonest, and arrogant as each other.
The single most significant task facing Aotearoa –
IMO it is identifying exactly how much and which areas of our land are now in foreign ownership, or longterm leasehold. When the land is gone, what do have? Who are we? Do we even exist as a nation? There is an urgent need for a comprehensive audit of this, with publication of the results, as well as the basic register of foreign owners.
Will be a useless register while folks can fly in from China for a weekend on a visa given because of their gold credit card status and buy as much property as they wish to purchase, tax-free with money borrowed at 0.5% in China and easy to get into NZ due to direct currency trading now of Chinese renmimbi to NZ dollars. (Thanks JK.)
I’m not xenophobic, but reporting facts. One Chinese ‘tourist’ man can be identified as now owning 50 houses in Auckland by doing exactly as I have written above.
Where to begin to correct this ? Well said, Manuka AOR –beyond urgent, isn’t it.
Why are we just letting it go on? It’s a kind of insanity, imo.
This is our LAND! This is our Nation. This is what and who we are.
The Gallipoli Centenary is approaching and they are making much of it. Our ancestors fought there so that we could have this land. Several of mine were there and not all returned. They in turn lost sons during WW II for the same reason – that we could have a country that was ours, that was free.
We are throwing this all away!!
I don’t begin to comprehend it.
It is not just Auckland, and it is not just John Key.
Anecdotally, there are many ‘banked’ properties reported in Sydney and Melbourne
– see ‘www.catherinecashmore.com.au’ who has just published
“SPECULATIVE VACANCIES 7” which I think can be downloaded from that link.
One has to be careful due to echoes of the ‘White Australia’ policy but there is also evidence that the China boom has peaked in many markets and there are cities of unsold apartments in China itself.
A global bubble is playing out – and given levels of unsustainable debt in some quarters most rational observers are hoping for a soft landing.
Whether that will happen is another story, but Aotearoa is a very small player in all this.
@ Wairua
There are reports of empty apartments that have replaced old housing which was being lived in. The new is of course too dear for the previous dwellers to rent. I remember reading about it. Also there has been much money spent on infrastructure and city building as in the empty apartments.
It seems to me a deliberate policy to turn earnings and profits into tangible assets, as the future of the financial system is uncertain. Profits left sitting can be undermined by inflation, and deliberate crashing of the financial system which would wipe out the previous Chinese accumulated credits.
I think the Chinese are being canny and converting the paper money into bricks and steel. Perhaps the message of the Yip Harburg song about Al the hard worker, now beggar, of the USA in Buddy Can You Spare a Dime has been received loud and clear by the Chinese. They don’t want to be the Als, with a lot of useless money. This version is probably the best you’ll hear and see and uses the word Buddy rather than Brother which seems less authentic.
It seems to me a deliberate policy to turn earnings and profits into tangible assets, as the future of the financial system is uncertain
Yes, but what they’ve done is turn housing into yet another speculative financial asset. Collateral which is hypothecated then rehypothecated, leveraged then overleveraged, then securitised and sold on to unsuspecting investors. Certainly an apartment block is more “concrete” than $10M of numbers in an electronic account which can be “vapourised” at a key stroke, but the way it is being treated now – like dairy farms which will soon never be able to pay back their mortagages – makes them worth little more than unaffordable McMansion junk.
And that’s assuming all these units which have been built with nothing more than profit in mind, don’t leak.
CR
That’s a good point. Just thinking of the reality of leaky buildings which we found here. Leave them for a while and they can be full of deadly fungus that gets up people’s noses, literally. And nearly possible to eradicate. In apartment buildings they would have to spray individual apartments then possibly gas them as well and leave them closed for a time to penetrate and kill the organisms. Then leave them open for a week, then probably have to turn fans on as some of the gas might be heavier than air or something.
One of the problems with rented buildings in NZ is people don’t open their windows to let fresh air in. Perhaps because of fear of burglars, or they aren’t used to the concept of airing rooms and having fresh air and sunshine coming in. Leaving the windows closed all the time leads to a build-up of mould, which is preventable if the rooms are aired daily with a flow from one side of the house to the other. I haven’t heard this mentioned when damp, unhealthy houses are mentioned, but some people have to be educated apparently as to such good and necessary practice. They should fit their own burglar and child proof attachments to one window in every room if the landlord won’t do it.
Sportspeople, past and present, are generally brainless, conformist halfwits—New Zealanders will be all too familiar with such unedifying and depressing examples as Israel Dagg, Corey Jane, that dopey mustachioed rower who barracked for John Key, Dick Quax, Paul Quinn… the list is too long and depressing to finish, but you get the picture.
But there ARE genuinely thoughtful, decent people involved in sports. Here are just a few of them…..
Sorry should have added massive generalization and incredibly petty and small minded judging an extremely large group of people by a very small group of drop kicks
Yep. And how about the cries here in Chch from rich professional sports business people for elderly ratepayers to pay for a new stadium with a roof to keep their heads dry and warm when they can’t even fill the current stadium?? And when we are struggling to pay for replacement sewers and roads and libraries and swimming pools for the kids??
Quite astounding.
Funny though that most of those rich sports business people have realised their folly and gone quiet in embarassment. They no longer ask for the poor and elderly ratepayers to pay for their work premises.
Nothing wrong with the occasional generalisation – there is generally something in said generalisations..
And it aint just people running such sports (cycling types are always calling for the elderly to pay for their velodromes too) who make this call, it is too often the players and participants themselves. It is heard all the time amongst general sports talk.
Cricket has just been given such largesse in Chch with new Hagley Park grounds.
It is a classic race to the bottom – best example being the Olympics. Olympics plays off cities against one another to see who can do the best deal. End result being that all host cities end up chronically in debt with pretty much no benefit whatsoever.
Sport has been riding this game for a while now – be interesting to see how much longer it lasts. Personally, I think cities should call the bluff of the rugby unions, the Olympics committees, the velodrome nutters, the Americas cup bludgers, the V8 racers, and give them zip. If they don’t come then so f%$king what? Net result is a win for the cities as these events always cost – there is never a net benefit.
massive generalization and incredibly petty and small minded judging an extremely large group of people by a very small group of drop kicks
Yeah, in the same way beneficiaries and the parents of poor children are depicted when tories claim that the parents waste any money on booze, drugs, and cigarettes.
Well sports is one of the areas where left and right wingers can and do interact
The rugby club used to be a microcosm of NZ society (not always in a good way i grant you) where blue collar and white collar got on and discussed the importanct issues of the day (well probably not)
Just thinking that lumping the majority of sportspeople who play for the love of the game in with the administrators of tha games (which is where the problems usually begin) is a quite short sighted
I can’t be the only one who thinks its a great sight going past (or when i get roped in myself) touch fields filled with all kinds of people playing simply because its enjoyable
Surely you must still pass them on occasion, and think it’s a great sight that parents and kids of all backgrounds can get together for the simple joy of social interaction?
Crude generalization of what are in fact complex groupings of real people is just bigotry, and to prove the superior moral tone of the left, there will be no more of it on this blog.
The exception being when the generalisation is based on a characterisation by which the groupings are delineated – calling tories “fuckwits”, for example, is merely a description that emphasises one of the characteristics that makes a tory a tory.
True that.
For a start I have a life outside of left wing blogs.
And I pride myself on taking any point head on and trying to grapple with it, rather than attempting to lead the discussion up a side road every time I strike a sharp retort.
yup, and I see all people as genuine and real and worthy of respect, in all their endless variation of political opinion, as opposed to a simplistic division into 2 camps of saints and fuckwits…
But I’m probably eating up your band width here, so back to you.
I don’t need to trool opposing blogsites to provoke negative reactions that I can then use to pretend that my life has any level of meaning or significance in the universe and reinflate my delusional sense of adequacy. That’s all you.
Good one, Morrissey. Had no idea about Barthez’s protest against Israel’s brutality back in 05. It’s pretty rare for me to praise a former Man Utd player (or, indeed, anyone or anything to do with that particular club) but good on him.
1960 AB Tour of Apartheid South Africa. Certainly the great George Nepia protested. By the early 70s, Ken Gray and Chris Laidlaw had moved in the same direction and, of course, by 81 AB Captain Graham Mourie and Centre, Bruce Robertson.
Incidentally, Frank Bunce (from memory) was the main (possibly only ?) Celebrity endorser for the Alliance in the 1996 (or was it 99 ?) election campaign. Starkly contrasting with the Michael Jones, Paul Quinns and Tuigamalas of this world.
Overall, though, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that professional sportspeople do indeed tend to be as Thick as Mince.
Overall, though, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that sportspeople do indeed tend to be as Thick as Mince.
– no thats quite unreasonable when you look at the number of people who play sport vs the drop kicks who bring the game into disrepute
As an example theres a little over 145 000 registered rugby players, 140 000 approx registered Netball players NZ and around 22 000 registered league players in NZ
Yeah, I immediately edited in professional just to add a little more clarity and precision (presumably while you were in the middle of composing your reply).
Personally, I played football (ie soccer) from age 8 to 39 (competitively on Saturday, socially on Sunday, and the Indoor variety during the week).
“1960 AB Tour of Apartheid South Africa. Certainly the great George Nepia protested. By the early 70s, Ken Gray and Chris Laidlaw had moved in the same direction and, of course, by 81 AB Captain Graham Mourie and Centre, Bruce Robertson.”
I have noticed that the men who you mentioned seem to have had their talents largely unutilized by the NZRFU after their careers came to an end, apart from a breif stint coaching the Hurricanes/Lions in Mourie’s case. while those that went on the 1986 rebel Cavaliers tour ended up enjoying large amounts of oppurtunities in administration and coaching long after their playing careers ended.
Of course, it could be purely co-incidental. and talking to any administrator from around that era would come up with a truck load of denials. But it does seem fishy, that those who stood up against NZ Rugby’s contact with SA seemed to find their rugby careers curtailed.
Morrissey, do you have any idea why Graham Bell is invited on the Panel?
He’s a celebrity, and he expresses himself forcefully. That works well on radio.
I don’t understand why his boorish ill educated views are sought after.
I agree with you that he often sounds boorish, and I have often cringed—or raged—at some of the things he has said. Today, for instance, he tried to argue that the arrest of a top cop in Northland for selling drugs showed how incorruptible the New Zealand Police are. Disappointingly, neither the host Simon Mercep nor Selwyn Manning decided to challenge him on that point. Bell also made a crazed attack on Nicky Hager; Mercep and Manning let that pass as well.
On the other hand, Graham Bell does have an enlightened and tolerant side; he was relatively civilized and intelligent when he commented on the need to respect Maori protocols and language a few years ago.
6.) World-renowned Kiwi netball champion, Irene Van Dyk, has given her backing to the #BeCrueltyFree New Zealand campaign for a ban on cruel and outdated animal testing for cosmetics such as mascara, shampoo and anti-wrinkle cream.
That’s good to hear. However, I have heard her on several occasions ranting about how dangerous South Africa is “now”, implying it wasn’t dangerous before the blacks took over. Talk to a white South African, and there’s a high probability that kind of lazy racist rhetoric will spill forth eventually.
During the apartheid years, the primary violence (I think) was the institutional injustice and violence from the white government and the powerful white landowners against the blacks. Now the violence is primarily due to economic, drug, gang reasons I think. I am not sure as I am not familiar with the actual situation there apart from reading about car jackings, burglary,rapes and heaps of murders. Not sure if it is racially motivated. Is it?
I am not sure if it is that simplistic. She may be meaning the reality, the common violence (not the apartheid violence) on the streets now which ‘probably’ did not exist previously. I do not know. Would be interesting to hear factual views of the situation there now of any South African readers. It is difficult for people to express honest views if they are then defined/characterised/judged by others as being racist.
No I don’t think Irene Van Dyk is some kind of Paul Holmes or John Ansell. She seems to be a pleasant person. I don’t think she’s nasty or overtly racist; but the idea that South Africa has gone to the pack since Mandela was released is a racist trope that is often recycled by white South Africans.
South Africa certainly hasn’t gone to the pack since Mandela was released, but the ANC is far more ruthlessly market-oriented that the old white Nationalist Party was. The transition in South Africa is interesting in a horrible kind of way because the ruling class managed successfully (and it was an impressive achievement) to de-couple apartheid and capitalism, with the former being abolished and the latter being strengthened at the same time.
I always ask a South African when they left the country.
Many seemed happy to stay under apartheid, but left when the whites lost political ascendancy.
Of course, as Naomi Klein and others have highlighted, the white establishment maintained its economic stranglehold over the country.
Okay, have it your way. In Te Ao Te Reo, white South African “exiles” never reflexively parrot racist tropes, just as your good self has never reflexively parroted black propaganda—-that means lies, by the way, not propaganda by black people—-against journalists and truth-tellers.
But as you’ve heard these rants many times, you’ll have no problem backing up your claim, eh.
I heard her interviewed several times by Murray (AKA “Deaks”, AKA “The Screaming Skull”, AKA The Most Dismal Sports Commentator Ever) Deaker and she almost always talked about how dangerous South Africa had become.
As I say, back it up. I’m sure a quick search will find copies of those interviews. Otherwise you are just attributing to an individual a trope you believe applies to all white South Africans. That’s kinda like racism, eh?
btw, I have a good friend who is in his mid fifties and who left SA a few years ago and who says the place is definitely more dangerous post apartheid. Is he racist, too? He’ll be surprised to hear it, being the lovely, liberal and man that he is.
As an aside, while SA is still astonishingly dangerous, the violent crime rate is actually dropping. Not by enough, but dropping all the same. I have a sneaking suspicion that it always was violent, but prior to the democratic changes only crimes against the dominant community were recorded in any detail, making the joint seem a lot safer than it really was.
I’ll be sure to let him know you think he’s a racist, Moz. As someone with a south Asian family heritage and classified as ‘Indian’ under apartheid, he knows a thing or two about the matter.
Some of the stupidest, most racist comments you’ll hear in this country are made by the likes of Willy Jackson, Tau Henare and Winston Peters. They should know a thing or two about racism as well, but it doesn’t stop them saying the most incendiary things.
So if your friend is saying that South Africa becoming a democratic state is a bad thing, then his ethnicity should not immunize him against criticism, surely?
Already putting the spokesperson for the Hospitality industry under pressure.
Simon Mercep doing the Panel a lot better than Mora by simply letting the Panel talk.
Jesus Murray Rawshark, I wished I had seen that Scoop article in November 2005.
Be assured the surveillance of ordinary NZers has been occurring on and off for decades, and it didn’t just apply to Maori activists. Neither was it just the SIS. The police were also up to their eyeballs in clandestine political surveillance.
I still don’t know whether it was the SIS or the police who targeted me in the late 70s/80s and early 90s. Some of the incidents were witnessed by others and a former boss of mine was known to be a SIS informant. With the benefit of hindsight I have long since realised that… as a public servant who was also active in the Labour Party, I was a sitting target. There was also a political associate (a woman) who went to extraordinary lengths to befriend me and who – years later – I discovered had been ‘informing’ on me.
I spent years trying to get to the bottom of it all, but came up against a brick wall every time. But along the way, I learnt a lot about the NZ establishment and how it sometimes operated. Not a pretty sight!
Edit: I don’t believe successive Labour leaders – up to and possibly including Helen Clark – had any knowledge of these particular spying activities. It would have been going on behind their backs.
Back in the 1960s/70s and at least part of the 80s, I think it was, in the main, a police unit of right wing thugs – the sort who find themselves with a bit of power and it goes to their heads. We’ve seen quite a few public instances of their conduct over the years, the most prominent being police brutality during the Springbok tour protests in the mid 1970s and early 80s. However there have been many documented examples of politicians and ordinary individuals having also been targeted for highly spurious reasons – the most famous being Colin Moyle.
Who would have benefited from it?
The various National governments of the day starting with Keith Holyoake followed by Marshall and eventually Muldoon – especially Muldoon.
What was the cultural imperative for it?
In a nut-shell it was obsessive Cold War paranoia on the part of Western establishments around the world. NZ was not immune from the condition. It meant that anyone to the left of Genghis Khan (slight exaggeration) was suspected of being a Communist subversive. There is no question the police (and no doubt the SIS) had infiltrators inside the Labour Party and that probably included the particular electorate to which I was attached. I was far from the only Labour activist who reported strange ‘going ons’ throughout that time. In my case there was an added consideration (too complex to explain here) that meant I was targeted – and my father before me – in an even more insidious way.
It still occurs of course but in more subtle ways. I think lprent’s niece, Rocky is a good example in more recent times.
There was a poaka intelligence unit set up in the late 70s to keep an eye on potential threats. I met a couple of them who worked openly, but there were plenty who worked secretly as well. They targeted groups including outlaw biker clubs, Mongrel Mob and Black Power, Polynesian youth groups, and hippies on Coromandel communes, that I know of.
Former Guantanamo chief prosecutor writes about torture.
The bigger question will be what now? The U.S. led the effort to enact the Convention Against Torture (CAT), a treaty that has been ratified by nearly every country in the world, including the United States. When President Ronald Reagan sent the CAT to the Senate for ratification in 1988 he said it clearly expressed “United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice,” and noted that it “required (a signatory) either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.” The CAT also requires us to provide alleged victims of torture a legal avenue to pursue compensation.
I have been reading and listening to the aftermath of Trump’s comments about the four female first term Democratic representatives, all of whom are “people of color.” I found the US coverage interesting both as evidence of partisanship and the ...
The Herald reports that the housing shortage / bubble has hit a new level:New Zealand is short of 130,000 homes, the tally having risen lately by 30,000, two economists say. Jarrod Kerr and Jeremy Couchman, Kiwibank economists said: "This time ...
Milk producer Fonterra is one of New Zealand's biggest coal-users, using it to power all its South Island (and a few of its North Island) dairy factories. They'd previously "committed" to not building any new coal boilers after 2030. Now, ...
The proposed Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill treats biogenic methane emissions differently from all other carbon emissions. The latter are to be measured net so that emissions from fossil fuels can be offset by carbon stored in trees. ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh This article aims to answer a simple question, whether the conflict is only a rural one or whether it is also urban. The verb ‘to be’ is conjugated in the present tense as ,despite what some ...
Yesterday the government released its discussion document on action on agricultural emissions. As sadly usual, it proposed enormous subsidies for farm emissions, including for nitrogen-based fertiliser. This is a huge mistake. In addition to being one of the chief drivers ...
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act (this replaced their previous plans to hold a secret consultation with handpicked people). 285 people submitted on ...
Always Playing Catch-Up: Throughout the 1970s, the purchasing power of the ordinary worker’s pay packet – the only meaningful measure of his or her wealth – was being eaten away every passing year by seemingly inexorable rises in the cost-of-living. ...
The Interim Climate Change Committee's report on Action on agricultural emissions: Evidence, analysis and recommendations was finally released today, and as you might guess from the title, it is recommending that we actually act, rather than let farmers keep ...
On Sunday July 7, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter announced their intention to review the Ministry of Health’s Funded Family Care policy and repeal Part 4Aof the 2000 NZ Public Health and Disability Act. These are festering injustices ...
Agriculture is our biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for 48% of the total. It follows that meeting any credible emissions reduction target requires cutting agricultural emissions, most likely by having fewer cows. But National thinks people shouldn't be ...
How scummy is the UK Home Office? This scummy:The Home Office lied to EU member states to remove victims of human trafficking and modern slavery in breach of European law, according to whistleblowers. Legal experts have said the practice is ...
Belle is a lovely fifteen year-old border collie who belongs to our friends and neighbours at Bryan’s Beach, Michael and Judy Corboy. Belle, in her old age, can hardly see or hear, but – as a constant participant at social ...
“We wuz robbed!” is the classic cry of the disappointed losers of a closely contested sporting contest – it is very much to the credit of the Black Caps that we heard no such sentiment from them following the stunning ...
The Youth Parliament is being held this week, and some of the youth MPs are campaigning for a lower voting age:Molly Doyle, 17, is one Youth MP who wants this to change. She is part of a non-partisan campaign run ...
Up till now, Australia has made its living by digging up coal and exporting it to other countries, destroying the global climate in the process. But now they have a new option: exporting solar power:The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep ...
Later this month, thousands of people are expected to march to parliament as part of the #HandsOffOurTamaraki movement. At its heart, the movement is about preserving whānau and demanding that the state stop removing children from their whānau, hapū and iwi. ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh The recent statements made by the former FARC commander, Carlos Lozada (legal name Julian Gallo), where, from his seat in Congress, he praised the Colombian Army demonstrate how low the farianos have sunk. Lozada began by ...
A Woman’s Place is on the Podium was a public meeting in London on 10 July to discuss women’s sports and the impact of transwomen competing against women. The venue was sold out with a packed hall of 750 people. ...
Last month I talked about the no-fly movement: people who refuse to fly or limit it to absolute necessity to avoid destroying the climate. Now, that movement has a somewhat surprising new member: Dutch airline KLM:Dutch airline KLM has launched ...
In the 1960's, humanity faced a terrible threat: global thermonuclear war. Nuclear weapons were uniquely destructive and dangerous, and if more countries got them, the logic of MAD and the pre-emptive strike would put us on a hair-trigger to destruction. ...
An occasional series where I will ponder allegations of anti-Semitism directed at the British Labour Party and its members.In this case, we are thinking about an allegedly anti-Semitic image shared by a Labour Party member. Its origins appear to be ...
Matariki has been and gone, but this year we saw a couple of op-eds arguing that it should be a public holiday, replacing the foreign monarch's fake birthday. And now, New Zealand Republic - a group which campaigns for an ...
The discussion on the quality of economic advice, which we reported last week, has spilled over into a discussion about whether so many senior appointments should be of non-New Zealanders. Recall I discussed the failure to develop career paths within ...
When Nicky Hager revealed US footage of the Operation Burnham raid, obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act, one of the obvious questions was whether Ministers had seen it - and in particular, whether they'd been told that it ...
Northern Ireland is the Alabama of the UK: a backwards region where women and gay people are denied fundamental rights. But Westminster has just decided to fix that:MPs have voted resoundingly to extend same-sex marriage and access to abortion to ...
There's a problem with "synthetic cannabis", and not just the one you think. It's the name.We're in the midst of a wave of news stories that link synthetic drugs to serious harm, through deadly road accidents and accidental overdoses (which ...
Ranjit Kauri, The Dancing Maharani and Other Stories, Swansea, Head and Heart, 2019, £6.99; reviewed by Don Franks Working people are not the same country to country. Our struggles for a better life take place in surroundings of very different ...
Let's Do Them! All Jacinda Ardern has to do to clinch the 2020 General Election is frighten the bejesus out of the electorate by describing in the most graphic terms imaginable what will happen to all the positive beginnings her ...
It may be that we have all misinterpreted the somewhat surprising “bromance” between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. It has been all too easy to assume that it is Kim who is cosying up to Trump rather than the ...
by Michael Roberts So the full circle is completed. The corrupt pro-business conservative New Democracy party in Greece that was ousted by the anti-capitalist Syriza party in 2015 has been returned to office in yesterday’s general election, with an outright ...
When the Australian government passed a series of new spy laws over the last few years, they pinky-promised that they wouldn't use them to spy on journalists and subvert freedom of the press. They lied:The anti-encryption laws passed by the ...
From 1975 to 1989, the spy agencies of South America's right-wing military dictatorships cooperated in Operation Condor, a joint campaign of extermination against the continent's left. Roughly 400,000 people were imprisoned, 30,000 disappeared, and 60,000 murdered - kidnapped, tortured, executed, ...
When she was standing for office, Jacinda Ardern promised she would take abortion out of the Crimes Act. And to be fair, there was some early action on that, with an immediate referral of the issue to the Law Commission ...
When the government introduced the Zero Carbon Bill, people rightly asked what they planned to do to reduce transport emissions, which basicly had no policy at all other than the ETS. Today, they responded, announcing a "feebate" system which would ...
At almost every level, the problem with medicinal cannabis is a lack of good information. In the US, FDA regulations make it hard to research. Most doctors aren't familiar with what research there is and most patients don't know either. ...
Redline is critical of Corbyn for his political weaknesses, but he’s no anti-Semite. There is no substance to the McCarthyist witch-hunt being run by the right wing, and the pro-Israel lobby inside and outside the Labour Party in the UK. ...
The government's billion trees program is the sort of policy which could make a real difference to our emissions and the fight against climate change. But climate scientist Jim Salinger isn't convinced:The Forestry Minister Shane Jones' one billion trees won't ...
Last month the government was celebrating another surplus. Meanwhile, children are starving:One in five children are living in households where putting food on the table is a struggle, according to a new report from the Ministry of Health. It found ...
Show Me The Money! The alternative to state funding of infrastructure is, of course, to fund it by taking on massive amounts of private debt. On this issue, at least, Auckland mayoral challenger, Tamihere, has some solid points to make. ...
If we are to avoid making the earth uninhabitable, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to practically nothing over the next decade. But that will still leave us with the problem of the carbon we have already emitted, which ...
Former Waikato DHB CEO Nigel Murray allegedly misused public funds, spending more than $120,000 of public money on unjustified travel. He was forced to resign and the Serious Fraud Office began an investigation. But despite the SFO finding that the ...
Jeremy Corbyn, we are told, is being advised – not least by his deputy (as well as by some of his would-be successors) – that he must come “off the fence” on the Brexit issue if he wants to bolster ...
The End of Life bill has been read a second time and is now heading for the House for further debate. Personally, I support the proposal. I don't ever epect to take advantage of the Bill's provisions myself, but as ...
Before the substantive issue which this column is about – whether there has been a deterioration in the economic advice given to the government – a paragraph about the budget leaks.read more ...
Below is a translation of the editorial in the June 24 round of weekly workplace bulletins issued all over France by the revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvriere. Last Saturday, 8,000 people took to the streets of Belfort (eastern France) to ...
Why hasn't Parliament followed the lead set by our local authorities and declared a climate emergency? The answer is the National Party:The Prime Minister’s admission that she is open to the idea of declaring a climate change emergency is nothing ...
Back in May the government released its Zero Carbon Bill. While much of the bill was welcome, there was one big exception: it contained a secrecy clause, requiring the Climate Change Commission to maintain secrecy over practically everything it does. ...
by Phil Duncan This past week has marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Stonewall Inn riots in Christopher Street, New York, the event generally regarded as kicking off the gay liberation movement. Quite a few articles have ...
Southland - land of coal-burning dairy farmers - has become the first region in the country to explicitly vote against declaring a climate emergency. Their reason? They didn't want to "devalue" the word "emergency". Its an argument addressed powerfully in ...
New Zealand has a problem with police chases: officers going after fleeing drivers like rabid dogs, without any consideration for proportionality or public safety, often with fatal results. And according to an in-depth article in the Guardian today, the UK ...
Welcome to another heaping helping of research publications related to climate change drivers and mechanisms, the effects of climate change and how we might yet grope our way into systems approaches to dealing with the mess we're making, despite ourselves. ...
Holly Lawford-Smith is a senior lecturer in political philosophy at the University of Melbourne. She’s currently writing a book about radical feminism. This article appeared on Feminist Current Academics should be standing together in defence of universities’ fundamental values: the ...
The Otago Daily Times has an in-depth article about the future of wind energy in New Zealand, and it is looking bright:The news that wind will play the leading role in New Zealand’s energy future was put up in lights ...
If the sight of schoolkids striking for a future has been filling you with hope, good news: they want you to join them on September 27:Students will take to the streets again demanding action on climate change, and this time ...
The People's "Friend": In this masterpiece of revolutionary propaganda, the homicidal political psychopath, Jean-Paul Marat, has been transformed by Jacques-Louis David, the French Revolution's most accomplished artist, into a martyred hero of the ordinary people of Paris. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, ...
The principle of one person, one vote doesn’t apply for local elections. In fact, you don’t even need to be a person to have voting rights. Welcome to the ratepayer roll. While the ratepayer roll accounts for less than 1% ...
I have been working my way through a 47,000 document tranche of declassified US government communications related to Argentina and the “Dirty War” of 1976-83. I grew up in Argentina in the period leading up to the March 24, 1976 ...
To express concern about foreign ownership and control in New Zealand is often to invite accusations of xenophobia and economic illiteracy. It is worthwhile, therefore, to rehearse the grounds for that concern, and to explore the various forms it can ...
It must be a day ending in Y because the Guardian - remember when it used to be a good paper1 - is running another spurious story about Corbyn's leadership being threatened over anti-Semitism.The headline the Guardian runs is: "MPs tell ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Jun 23 through Sat, June 29, 2019 Editor's Pick When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious'Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and ...
A new digital platform aims to make it easier for small businesses to access services from multiple government agencies, leaving them more time to focus on their own priorities. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash ...
Million-dollar start to gun collection eventsPolice Minister Stuart Nash says a solid start has been made to the gun buyback and amnesty after the first weekend of community collection events. “Gun owners will walk away with more than ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash has praised Police and gun owners after the first firearms collection event saw a busy turnout at Riccarton Racecourse in Christchurch. “Police officers and staff have put a tremendous effort into planning and logistics for the ...
Seventy-eight new Police constables are heading out to the regions following today’s graduation of a new recruit wing from the Royal New Zealand Police College. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the record high number of new Police officers being recruited, ...
Fonterra’s use of coal has been the target of numerous grassroots campaigns in recent years. Last year 350 Aotearoa affiliated groups, Fossil Free Aoraki and 350 Nelson launched a petition dismissing the dairy giant’s initial target of no new ...
Information sessions on proposals for The Medicinal Cannabis Scheme take place in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch over the next fortnight. The sessions are open to anyone with an interest in learning more about the proposed scheme. ...
“Our children are our most vulnerable, most innocent victims and we do not want to see any more children harmed by these ‘known sex offenders’. The safety of our community must be the paramount consideration.” ...
“The announcement that Fonterra will immediately stop installing any new coal boilers or increasing capacity to burn coal is the signal that the biomass fuel supply industry welcomes” said Brian Cox, Executive Officer of the Bioenergy Association. ...
18 July 2019-- Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) today welcomed Fonterra’s commitment to build no new coal plants, a “no brainer” for the climate crisis the world faces. The group has been urging this transition for six years now and ...
The increase in demand for cage-free eggs is set to continue according to animal rights organisation SAFE, who says the egg industry should expect this and prepare. ...
Wellington, New Zealand – 350 Pacific made a formal submission to the New Zealand Government’s Environment Parliamentary Select Committee on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, led by the Pacific Climate Warriors (PCWs) based in ...
There used to be a school of thought on the centre right side of politics that the best way to neuter the Greens as a political force would be to let them have a spell in government. Then, according to ...
Today (18 July) is Nelson Mandela International Day when the United Nations highlights the importance of humane conditions of imprisonment. In New Zealand our prisons are overcrowded and understaffed. At 214 prisoners per 100,000 people, we have the fifth ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa will take legal action over the lengthy delay in implementing pay increases for teachers. Novopay announced yesterday that teachers would have to wait until 11 September to see pay increases that they won when they settled ...
EDS has filed its submission on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. The Bill sets targets for greenhouse gas reductions, provides for the government to set a series of carbon budgets, and sets up a new, independent, Climate ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has identified an absurd case of mission creep at Wellington City Council: the decision to spend $21,750 on two Consumer NZ investigations into different brands of bike lights. ...
The Motor Trade Association is welcoming the release of the Government’s new draft road safety strategy. MTA Chief Executive Craig Pomare says the association is pleased to see vehicle safety has been made a priority in the Road to Zero ...
The Department of Conservation continue to repeat the same old story about attacks on staff and how it is affecting their role in protecting our precious wildlife. NZ herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12249704 ...
The government's silence on the fact that the country's second-largest milk processor is on the brink of becoming 25% Chinese Government owned has been deafening. ...
School Strike 4 Climate NZ welcomes the coalition Government’s endeavour to take action on reducing agricultural emissions but is disappointed at the weak stance that the Government has taken on the issue. ...
The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) has issued a formal warning under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (AML/CFT Act) to seven reporting entities within the Regus Management Limited (RNZML) designated business ...
The Northland Regional Council (NRC) has voted to exclude all GM/GE precautionary provisions in its regional plan, despite years of community engagement showing support for such protection. There is a sense of betrayal following the way the NRC Chairman ...
New Zealand’s ‘mission-driven’ charities working in international aid are showing early signs of changing the way they work, in particular prioritising building the capacity and resilience of local communities to do their own development. ...
Teachers will have to wait until 11 September for pay increases won as part of their collective agreement negotiations settled in June, according to an update sent to schools today from Novopay. ...
July 16 (BusinessDesk) - Energy Minister Megan Woods says the government “won’t die in a ditch” if its goal of 100 percent renewable electricity generation isn't reached by 2035. ...
The Electricity Networks Association (ENA) is welcoming the Government’s response to the Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) Report released today. Graeme Peters, chief executive of the ENA, said one of the key recommendations, endorsed by the ...
An article* published this month in the Journal of Health Organization and Management raises questions over the way health board members are elected and whether the boards are even needed. ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa's kindergarten teacher members will vote on a proposed settlement to their collective agreement after four days of negotiations with the Ministry of Education and kindergarten employers. ...
Vector has today welcomed the ICCC’s report on Accelerated Electrification . Vector agrees that accelerating the electrification of transport and process heat will play a major role in reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Initiatives to ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling on the Porirua City Council to cancel its underwriting of a proposed Canadian-led privately owned adventure park slated for public land after a similar project created a huge liability for Christchurch ...
Youth climate change campaigners Generation Zero welcome the Interim Climate Change Committee’s (ICCC’s) reports: Accelerated Electrification and Action on agricultural emissions ; which were finally released by the Government today, almost three months ...
Fish & Game New Zealand notes the announcement today that the Government and the intensive agriculture leadership have reached a ‘historic consensus’ and are exploring using a formal sector-government agreement instead of bringing agriculture ...
The independent Interim Climate Change Committee’s report on Accelerated Electrification was released today by the Minister for Energy and Resources, Hon Dr Megan Woods. ...
The independent Interim Climate Change Committee’s report Action on agricultural emissions was released today by the Minister for Climate Change, Hon James Shaw and the Minister of Agriculture, Hon Damien O’Connor. ...
Please find attached embargoed copies of two media statements from the Interim Climate Change Committee http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1907/Embargoed_Interim_Climate_Change_Committee_Accelerated_electrification_MEDIA_STATEMENT.pdf ...
Greenpeace Executive Director, Dr Russel Norman, has reacted with disbelief that the Government’s latest climate proposal includes an option for dairy to voluntarily deal with their emissions over the next six years. ...
This week’s “Youth Parliament” is an expensive waste of time that promotes taxpayer-funded junketeering, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . “We shouldn’t be training kids on the joys of the trough,” says Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones admitted on Q+A tonight that the state of New Zealand’s infrastructure planning is “dismal” and the government needs to get on with building “rather than writing more reports about it.” ...
DairyNZ has released its submission on the Zero Carbon Bill and is calling on the Government to revise the methane target in the Bill to one that does not put at risk New Zealand’s world-leading dairy sector. Farm profit could ...
July 15 (BusinessDesk) - Foreign Minister Winston Peters will have bi-lateral meetings with two of US president Donald Trump's most hawkish defence and security advisers in a five day trip to Washington D.C. ...
Youth climate change campaigners Generation Zero are calling for Members of Parliament to show political courage as the Zero Carbon Bill goes through the crucial Select Committee process. ...
Annual net migration was provisionally estimated at 50,200 (± 800) in the year ended December 2018 compared with 52,600 in the previous year, Stats NZ said today. ...
New Zealanders have the opportunity to contribute to the government’s Review of Retirement Income Policies, including questions around Superannuation and KiwiSaver. Submissions are now open for the Review, being run by the Commission for Financial ...
Yesterday at Mataatua Marae the Tamaki Makaurau Electorate of the Māori party congratulated Rangi Mclean who was appointed to the Vice president Tāne role of the party nation-wide executive. ...
The funding crisis facing the disability sector has become more urgent following the disturbing news that the Ministry of Health will not increase contract prices for providers this year, the New Zealand Disability Support Network said today. ...
The growing number of working poor is an alarming indicator that the regulatory Minimum Wage does not cut it said Closing the Gap spokesperson Peter Malcolm. ...
Historic hui gives overwhelming agreement for a Māori Inquiry The inquiry into state run Oranga Tamariki will be led by whanau, kaimahi and Māori leaders. ...
Drug infiltration into our maximum security prisons is putting prisoners and staff at unnecessary risk, and one tool that would be of huge benefit is a full body scanner. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University Australia’s relations with China will be further complicated by the news that Australian citizen Yang Hengjun is set to be charged with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Kyne, Senior Research Fellow in conservation biology, Charles Darwin University More than 28,000 species around the world are threatened, according to the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics, Centre For Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics (CAPPE), Charles Sturt University Two Australian universities, University of Technology Sydney and Curtin University, are conducting internal reviews of ...
The dairy and red meat sectors are playing games and employing delaying tactics rather than facing up to the climate change challenge, says Rod Oram. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne The next US presidential election will be held on November 3, 2020. Incumbent president Donald Trump will almost certainly be ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has doubled down on her criticism of Australia's deportation policy as "corrosive", ahead of her meeting with counterpart Scott Morrison. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Larkin, Senior Lecturer in Musicology, University of Sydney Review: Whiteley, Opera Australia, Sydney. Opera Australia’s newest production, Whiteley, brings together three Australian icons. Elena Kats-Chernin, the doyenne of Australian composers, has ...
By RNZ Pacific The United Nations in Papua New Guinea is boosting its presence in the Highlands as it works with the government to improve access to justice for tribal communities. The acting resident coordinator said the massacre of ...
A children’s television presenter, New Zealand’s first supermodel, and bloody Cocksy! Jordan Hamel pays tribute to the Kiwi icons that helped get him through his life.Adolescence was not a great time for me. Depression, anxiety, sexuality, awkward social interactions, emotional ...
The House - The Youth Parliament has beat the real thing to the punch by declaring a climate change emergency this week. Youth Press Gallery member Sophie Dixon reports. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rona Macniven, Research Fellow, University of Sydney Indigenous Australians have a long and proud heritage in both traditional sports and games, and in modern sport through the achievements of people like Johnathan ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alice Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University It’s 50 years since the two Apollo 11 astronauts – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin – spent 22 hours collecting samples, ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.It’s a wacky, wacky week on The Real Pod this week. But is it wackier than the fact that Gilda Kirkpatrick saw a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neal Hughes, Senior Economist, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Water prices in the southern Murray-Darling Basin have reached their highest levels since the worst of the Millennium ...
It seems inevitable that New Zealand will soon officially be in a state of emergency over climate change, with a declaration likely to be passed in Parliament. Is this a good thing? The debate over moving into official emergency status ...
The newsreader turned talkback host Peter Williams (not Peter Williams) is furious about the mainstream refusal to acknowledge the cheesiness of the moon.I’m sorry but my head still hurts.Yesterday I blew to smithereens the so-called “consensus” on the “science” around ...
Every fish on the iconic New Zealand Commercial Fish Species poster, ranked. There are a few staples of the quintessential fish and chip shop: sticky plastic curtains, soggy paper tickets with a little red number, tin pottles of Wattie’s tomato sauce, ...
Eligible home owners will be able to claim grants for energy-efficient heaters this winter as part of the government's Warmer Kiwi Homes programme. ...
MediaRoom this week: the Media Council backs reporters asking questions, urges caution linking a group to the Christchurch attacks, muses on news vs advertising and wants corrections published faster. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Even though we can see the Moon shining brightly in the night sky – and sometimes in daylight – it’s hard to put into ...
By Pacific Media Centre NewsdeskIndonesian President Joko Widodo’s threat to pursue anyone who impedes investment is worrying environmental activists who claim that such actions could criminalise those fighting for the environment, reports CNN Indonesia.Jokowi made the threat ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monica Barratt, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University A NSW Coronial Inquest investigating a series of drug-related deaths at Australian music festivals has heard evidence of ...
The Netball World Cup grand final is tie-proof and won't end in any kind of super over. RNZ's netball reporter Ravinder Hunia who's in Liverpool explains why. ...
Party Line is a new audio work by Evangeline Riddiford Graham that reinvestigates the Cartwright Inquiry, medical mispractice and misogyny through the lens of the #metoo era. In a red room six handsets dangle from the ceiling on their spiral cords. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neil R Jordan, Lecturer, UNSW Humans and dogs go way back. From wolf totems to the big bad wolf of fact and fairy tale, through sheepdogs, lap dogs, and labradoodles, our relationships ...
For Auckland is a new Spinoff podcast of civic conversations with people working to create and sustain a better Auckland for all. In episode three, host Timothy Giles speaks to Grace Stratton about accessibility, in fashion and in Auckland.She’s launched ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentForeign affairs and trade Peter Dunne (Newsroom): Beware, nice ...
Human rights activists and refugees are calling on the PM to use her international profile to speak out against China’s persecution of religious groups. ...
Instead of buying a cuppa in exchange for a place to work, Coffee Supreme is flipping the script.For the last 25 years, Coffee Supreme has stuck to what it does best, which is sourcing, roasting, brewing and selling some seriously ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Blaskovich, Senior Research Officer, The University of Queensland Artistic depictions of several chemical elements feature in a new exhibition from today as part of Australia’s celebrations for the International Year of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Hopkins, Senior Lecturer, Australian National University In 2017, a small group of male prisoners participated in an eight-week yoga program at the Alexander Maconochie Centre(AMC), which houses all adult prisoners in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ramon Zenel Shaban, Clinical Chair and Professor of Infection Prevention and Disease Control at the University of Sydney, University of Sydney “Travel safe, travel far, travel wide, and travel often,” saysNomadic ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Bone, Lecturer, Massey University A majority of academic staff at some of Australia’s top universities work in casual or fixed-term positions. This reflects a trend towards casualisation in academia, and other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Smith, Professor of Archaeology, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in south-west Victoria is the first Indigenous Australian landscape to be gazetted on ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will touch down in Melbourne this afternoon, four months after her planned visit to the city was called off due to the Christchurch terror attack. ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Union to take legal action against Novopay, building site sediment damaging waterways, and the govt’s road safety strategy explained.Teachers are taking legal action against Novopay, amidst the news their payrise ...
The lawyer representing bankrupt blogger Cameron Slater in a defamation case has been trying since February to withdraw from the case, but a judge keeps declining. Tim Murphy reports. ...
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The young Kiwi sprinters who won relay bronze at the World University Games - setting a new NZ record - can still go much faster on the world stage. ...
Open mike 04/12/2014 
Open mike is your post.
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No money for poverty.
No money for food in schools.
And why would our government, as Key has noted there are hardly any kids needing food in the schools he visits?
Will the government have some spare for some millionaires and billionaires needing a handout?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11368472
No doubt another shameful aspect of NZ that the sociopaths like pr will defend.
No no no Paul you have got it wrong, think of all the jobs it will bring to NZ if the cup comes back to NZ. All those additional waiters and servants required on zero hours contracts.
sarc/
What about all the boat builders up and down the country.
Jobs well paid high skilled well paid jobs.
The boat building industry has grown from $120 million a year to $2 billion a year on the back of New technology and high quality workmanship.
After all the investment New Zealand has made in this high value industry it would be very foolish to throw it all away!
I have studied economics for a long time now,One big growth trend is making money out of wealthy people.
Its one Area in manfacturing that we are World leaders we can not afford to loose our edge.
7 Out of 10 America,s cup boats were built right here in New Zealand the GST payments off just this section of the boat building industry.
We also build super yatchs having our industry on show in Bermuda!
Its time we took the bull by the horns and looked for other niche manufacturing industries which New Zealand is good at and target the uber rich they have deep pockets and pay well.
Taxing them doesn,t work that well as they buy goverment or move their money to where they Don,t pay any tax!
Targeting products they buy and suppling the wealthy with high value high quality products is much smarter long term!
How many boat builders were able to employ more people at good wages after the 8 straight losses at the last exhibition of obscene wealth being blown around by the wind? Possibly less than we would have had without the stupid race.
Oh why not turn our entire economy into one designed to serve the 0.1%?
Won’t that be fun and fulfilling for everyone else?
At the end of the day however, such an economy doesn’t add up. Building McYachts, McMansions and selling McSUVs won’t form the backbone of any worthwhile civilisation.
CR
You are so right. While we wait for the situation to be redeemed maybe we should try to keep some industry afloat in NZ, something that’s in water and not milk.
Yeas of course.
Trickledown has worked so well for the past 30 years.
How much money would have to come into the country in boat building revenue to get 34million in tax off it . have to say I loved watching those big boats fly.
they build whether we win or lose. we have had world. lass designers and builders used by the world since the 70s
Yeah, so have I. The problem is that you’re not talking economics there but finances which is a completely different kettle of fish.
Economics is about managing limited resources, specifically, minimising their use. If the economics you champion results in ever greater use of those resources then it is uneconomic.
Where did you study economics, Draco?
I haven’t visited Auckland much, but I was there for a week recently. Two images have stuck in my mind: a yacht crew carrying their gear through the viaduct, emblazoned with brands and wearing sunglasses that cost more than I earn in a week, and the guys sleeping the the doorways of the city mission, next to the YMCA where I was staying.
Sadly, i think KDC should have saved his money for the yachties. It might well have had more impact on his position.
Would be OK if we actually won the damn thing, which to do you much actually be in front of the other boat when you cross the finish line. Despite what people might think, you cannot win the America’s Cup just by turning up to the race.
We have all moved on from 1995 and Peter Blake’s red socks.
The whole thing’s become a circus anyway. It used to be, that it you wanted to host an America’s Cup regatta, you had a win the thing. Now you can just write a cheque out and you get it anyway.
Peter Blake’s money raising red socks – buy and donate to the NZ challenging the big boys cause – not made in NZ red socks.
That is so common now it is a cliche. Even the RSA got their red poppies to remember the NZ fallen sourced from overseas – I think from Aussies who probably ordered them from Asia. e&oe This is conjecture though.
edited
Hope they do as it reinforces the govt priorities of the wealthy elite first…..another brick in the wall of arrogance muddle nz need to wake up to given such issues as you’ve highlighted Paul.
It used to be about boat racing, now it’s about the size of billionaires dicks or wannabes like JK.
john keys’ political bucket-list:..a report card..the top three..
number one:..asset-strip anything worth selling…done..!..(just some mopping up of state houses to attend to..)
number two:…long-war on poor/workers’-rights…underway..!..inequality rules..!
number three:..(finally!) get to go to actual war in iraq:..nearly done..nearly there..!
4. Degrade education so more charter schools can be set up ready for privatisation of education.
5. Degrade Health system so more private institutions and insurance can be set up ready for privatisation of health.
If you want to see our future under Key, just look at New Orleans in the U.S. , where shock doctrine was applied after Katrina to privatise education.
As for Health, watch Michael Moore’s Sicko to get a feel for the health policy Key and his cronies are prepared to deliver for their banking and corporate masters.
Hey, give Judith a break. She is obviously distressed with someone shoving a camera in her face. Have you heard of ‘noblesse oblige`’ ?
Even misguided conservatives should be treated with some respect.
My french is a bit rusty so if someone can correct it, please go ahead.
@ wairua..
..no she isn’t..she’s thinking about what she wd like to do to nicky hager..
..(she’s having a ‘crusher’-moment..)
That is a picture of Judith meditating.
It is actually a picture of her hitting a drum really hard with sticks …
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3AUUxZWMEpw/T39HcCb21dI/AAAAAAAAAV4/t9Yafhkrf9o/s1600/IMG_3756.jpg
“..hitting really hard with sticks ‘
like i said..what she wants to do to nicky hager..
Apologies to all concerned, including Judith. She is into her rhythm .. good to see musical talent in the cabinet. The cropped image gave a different impression.
Whose face was painted on the drum??
LOL! Odgers, Slater, Key fit the bill!
Surely you mean ‘mediating’, felix?
She is well-known for her gentle, mild and co-operative, inclusive manner.
I’ve just finished, as in five minutes ago, reading “Dirty Politics”. Sarcasm is the gentlest form of response to Judith Collins and her style of politics that I can muster.
@felix. Is that what you call it? 🙄
Nicky Hager didn’t do anything for her to lose her cabinet position. She was brought down by the members of her own DP side, people like Slater, Odgers and Key, remember?
@ clem..
“..remember?..”
i’m sure she does…
..the thing to remember with national..is those two warring factions..who hate each other almost more than they hate everyone else..
..there is the boag-faction..and for want of a better name..the slater-faction..
..and for onlookers/non-believers..it’s like choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea..
..hard to tell which is worse..
..and you kinda hope they will just fall upon and eat each other..
Above all, she brought herself down!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/63799601/NZ-no-longer-least-corrupt
Now we are only the second least corrupt country on Earth, by a sliver.
I’m surprised no one posted this already.
you know what the word perceived means right?
I believe so…but if there is a point to that question I don’t get it?
*perception* does not always mesh with *reality*
maybe you should look at the image top left on your link
Picture of Judith – Poor Judith – a difficult moment in the smallest room in the backbenchers’ lobby looks to me. A concerted attempt to negate the resonating charge – “You’re full of it Jude !”
For those of you who think that spying was only a problem in East European countries and it was them damn Russkies who where so evil that they killed millions of their own for merely speaking truth to power, here is a nice history of the elite spying on their own people in the Western world. All 5000 years of it:
5,000 Years of History Shows that Mass Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent
Bugger, Lost link. Here it is: 5,000 Years of History Shows that Mass Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent
The other thing that concerns me is the fact that there is an incentive for groups like the GCSB, the SIS and the Police to favour right wing governments because RW govts will increase powers of surveillance. The actions or inactions on the Hager/Slater and Jon Stephenson reinforce my view that these groups are becoming more active in discouraging any dissent, almost as if they are sending out a warning to dissenters to intimidate them. How can environmentalists be regarded as “terrorists”? There was a good interview of Jason N Parkinson on Nine to Noon on the UK surveillance of journalists.
Those interested in the surveillance state expansion would be interested in thes interview with a Brit journalist this morning on Radio NZ. I heard part of it and remember him saying that he is a journalist who regularly covers protests and exposes behaviours on the left or right that are outside correct and lawful practices.
He commented that he had applied to see his secret service file and finally got it by knowing the small print and file No. to ask for and found how much stuff was on him. Exhaustive contents. Also environmental protests were noted and his work and contacts on those, yet one he did on some right wing outfit that started in 2009 and was revealed to be plotting events, with one Brit solder making nail bombs in his bedroom on his days off, was not mentioned.
It sounds as if the police are paranoid and definitely harrassed him as a registered journalist going about his lawful business. I think he said that in 2007 it seemed to be hotting up and in that year he was stopped, I think, 23 times and questioned while on his way to report some left-wing type of event.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20159785
British journalists spied on by state, put on extremist list ( 24′ 12″ )
09:20 Jason N Parkinson is a freelance video journalist, who covers subjects ranging from environmental disaster to conflict. He was nominated for the Rory Peck News Award for his work during the Egyptian revolution and in London during the riots.
Jason is one of six members of the British National Union of Journalists who are asking the English High Court for a judicial review of the collection and retention of surveillance data about them. He says he and other journalists were subject to wide-ranging surveillance and put on a domestic extremist list, simply for doing their jobs.
When will the media stop presenting Transtasman as an impartial source?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/63807057/Key-head-and-shoulders-above-rest
Are they going to quote Farrar’s ratings as well?
What a ridiculous list. Maybe Farrar sent it off to them. Who the hell are Transtasman?
What alot of crap ! – “…..and his party romped home in its third election, the third time in a row it has added extra seats as well.”
Third time in a row ? Sorry ? It’s sort of normal I think that on winning one’s first term one normally wins additional seats. Sort of definitional.
So it’s actually the second time in a row.
That’s the sort of rubbish that happens when a know-nothing writer sets out to gush predisposed superlatives.
From the way they have been operating in the past few years I have often wondered that myself.
Just when you thought the media could not be more biased, they publish the view of a bunch of right wing journos.
FFS.
does Gerry Brownlee think hes …Hermann Goering!
nah..!..he is a reincarnated ‘colonel blimp’..that brownlee..
Chris Christie?
The US middle class spending crash
Most interesting in this Zero Hedge article are the comments – people scrimping and saving, unable or unwilling to spend money in restaurants and bars any more, going to home brew instead of buying a beer.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-02/middle-class-spending-crash-explained
Meanwhile in April this year, NYC apartment prices hit record highs of US$970K. Sounds very much like a tale of two cities eh. For the 1%, and that for everyone else.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-02/35-surge-sales-smashes-new-york-apartment-prices-record-high
The same is happening here in AKL. I have a small shop, hand made chocolates and the likes, and I can tell you from daily experience that people are counting the pennies, and then then turn them over a few times before spending them.
I am still doing well enough to keep myself and the two shop girls busy, but it should not get any worse.
But I guess you are not going to see an article in the NZ Herald about peeps not buying boats and big SUV on the paper value of their not yet paid off houses.
It is not a tale of two cities, it is a tale of a hand full of very rich against the rest of the country.
Well, retail and the service sector in Dunedin are definitely struggling at the moment (although as always there are stronger sectors and weaker ones). And looking around what should be the centre of town there are far too many empty commercial lots, many of them large, and a number of which have been untenanted for 6 months or more.
What no one is looking forward to is the flow on effect of lower milk prices…
Meanwhile the capitalists rub their hands and praise the prospect of doing business with the burgeoning middle class in China and India. The old middle class in USA has been decimated (into deciles) by their country’s business corporate machinations with their politicians. That is, the western capitalists have fouled their own nest but no matter, find a new nest to foul overseas and leave the chicks to rot in the old one.
“..6 Things You Should Know When Buying and Consuming Legal Marijuana..”
..Whether you haven’t toked since the 70′s –
– or you’re entirely new to the experience –
– here’s the starting place..”
(cont..)
(ed:..i’m having a ‘we can but dream’-moment..)
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/6-things-you-should-know-when-buying-and-consuming-legal-marijuana
I’m most impressed with David Parker who has regrouped after losing the leadership contest, and come out swinging strongly from the back benches, well done chap. Parker is absolutely correct that PC Plod are dragging their heels over investigating some of Hager’s claims.
The Fuzz are playing favourites, and I would like to know who is pulling their strings and why?
“Now I can’t name either of those sources and I can’t prove those allegations to be true and they are both hearsay allegations to me, but these allegations must be investigated.”
Littles doing well but he doesn’t need chumps like Parker dragging him down
I disagree, Little was doing well, till he supported the terror legislation. That just reminds me, as it should remind others – Labour are nothing but a bunch of corporate elects.
Well I think he showed pragmatism on that, its fine to be all tub thumping to appeal to your core but when you get the information you then have to do the right thing by your country and if hes elected leader then hes the leader of the whole of NZ not just the anti-war left
So on this its no negative feedback for Little
Anti-war, misdirection and diversion? I’m not anti-war – I just don’t see the point in fighting wars for other countries/corporations. This piece of legislation is an attack on civil liberties, I’d have thought the right wing were fan’s of freedom. As I get older, I’m finding they are not.
So let me be the voice of freedom – I don’t want my freedoms stomped on because your a little scaredy cat – who jumps at your own shadow. I’m over wimps on the right, who feel they are justified to feed their paranoia and fear to the general population.
The big bad terrorist ,is a lie – bit like the big bad communist lie. Just change the rhetoric from the 1950’s to now.
Well I respect your opinion but i think ISIS is something that needs to be combatted and it needs to be done by multiple countries
However Little must have something he wasn’t expecting to change his mind
Bollix
However Little must have seen something he wasn’t expecting to change his mind
Keep working on that comment, chris. It’s getting better every time.
?
Sure.
ISIS is falling apart, if we strangle off the money coming from the Saudi Arabia and others. Their days would be severely numbered. Good old economic terrorism that the west is good at. Why do we need to put troops on the ground? We don’t.
How can I be so confident ISIS is fubar? They have completely wiped out the middle classes, either in a physical sense or in the fact most of the professional classes are running away from them. How long do you think they will be able to operate a modern society, without a professional class? And failing that, how long do you think they will be able to contain a youthful population look at the luxury and lifestyle modernism has to offer? ISIS is a pitiful joke, and only nut jobs who want to send our young men and women off to die, seem to be under the illusion that this whacked out army of boy jihadists aren’t going to eat themselves – if we do the right thing, and cut the money off.
You are assuming they want a modern society which I doubt they want to go back to the dark ages were believing in mythical being’s are used to control the youthful population.
ISIS is something that needs to be stopped but they need to be stopped by the people who live there. If they’re stopped by those from outside then they’ll just arise again in a probably worse form.
We also need to work out why young men from all over Europe (the world?) are joining up to fight for groups for ISIS. It seems to me we are have thrown a whole generation of young people on the scrap heap, called them lazy and useless, and then wonder why they are starting to like what the bloke down at the local mosque has to say.
Great point millsy.
The anti-youth rhetoric has amped up of late.
We have thrown our young to the wolves. It sickens me. Neo-liberalism is a beast which eats our mokopuna.
+100 Draco. Could not agree more. But lets help the people there, by stopping ISIS getting the money from supporters around the region, and lets stop pretending Saudi Arabia is an ally of ours.
thanks for your concern /sarc
Hello c73
i dunno skinny..parker is still number one on my list of mp’s ‘most likely to go postal’..
..there is much grindingly-unfufilled there..anger both seethes and drips from him..it has even made his face all puffy/blotchy..and his voice has changed..all dangerous signs..)
..(in other recent moves on that list..brownlee has jumped to number two..and tho’ he is minister of defence..i wd advise he be kept well clear of any actual weapons..
..and of course.kennedy graham..with his death-ray eyes/gaze is always somewhere in the top five..
..and foss-the-hapless often seems to be barely hanging on..so is also there..)
@Skinny – I think DP is Shadow Attorney General?
Yes, he’s doing well with this call. “Go David.”
Ngati poaka don’t need their strings pulled. They know instinctively where their loyalties lie. In that respect, they’re a lot like journalists. What they both need is continuous pressure to do their jobs properly.
Is there anyone here, artist/cartoonist, that can draw a caricature of Key, with the Pinocchio’s long nose, with his pants on fire, hands raised high up in the air like Nixon’s and a speech bubble coming out of his bum with the words, “Awkchully, honestly speaking, at the end of the day, I don’t lie!”
or..referring to slater..
“i did not have proactive-relations with that man”..
You seen this:
“John Key has been given what could be the first in a string of politician-of-the-year awards, with the annual Trans Tasman roll call putting him “head and shoulders” above the rest”.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/63807057/Key-head-and-shoulders-above-rest
Yuck.
Yes Trans Tasman do seem to have been getting steadily dafter and right over the years. Their analysis used to be pretty good with a known slant.
But everything I have seen in recent years can be characterized as being written by a wingnut and one with a similar political and economic skill level to Mike Hoskings – ie more characterized by bigotry than analysis.
and of course all of the above over-qualifies him to be on ‘the panel’ of sages..on nat-rad..
..so he is..
At a superficial glance, he does seem preferable to idiots like Abbott and Bjelke-Newman. However, with a second glance you see that the only difference is in the presentation. They’re all as thick, dishonest, and arrogant as each other.
On the Trans Tasman basis it would be a straight forward choice to give Putin international politician of the year then.
The single most significant task facing Aotearoa –
IMO it is identifying exactly how much and which areas of our land are now in foreign ownership, or longterm leasehold. When the land is gone, what do have? Who are we? Do we even exist as a nation? There is an urgent need for a comprehensive audit of this, with publication of the results, as well as the basic register of foreign owners.
The housing shortage is only one part of the problem: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11368465
Will be a useless register while folks can fly in from China for a weekend on a visa given because of their gold credit card status and buy as much property as they wish to purchase, tax-free with money borrowed at 0.5% in China and easy to get into NZ due to direct currency trading now of Chinese renmimbi to NZ dollars. (Thanks JK.)
I’m not xenophobic, but reporting facts. One Chinese ‘tourist’ man can be identified as now owning 50 houses in Auckland by doing exactly as I have written above.
Where to begin to correct this ? Well said, Manuka AOR –beyond urgent, isn’t it.
Why are we just letting it go on? It’s a kind of insanity, imo.
This is our LAND! This is our Nation. This is what and who we are.
The Gallipoli Centenary is approaching and they are making much of it. Our ancestors fought there so that we could have this land. Several of mine were there and not all returned. They in turn lost sons during WW II for the same reason – that we could have a country that was ours, that was free.
We are throwing this all away!!
I don’t begin to comprehend it.
It is not just Auckland, and it is not just John Key.
Anecdotally, there are many ‘banked’ properties reported in Sydney and Melbourne
– see ‘www.catherinecashmore.com.au’ who has just published
“SPECULATIVE VACANCIES 7” which I think can be downloaded from that link.
One has to be careful due to echoes of the ‘White Australia’ policy but there is also evidence that the China boom has peaked in many markets and there are cities of unsold apartments in China itself.
A global bubble is playing out – and given levels of unsustainable debt in some quarters most rational observers are hoping for a soft landing.
Whether that will happen is another story, but Aotearoa is a very small player in all this.
However, despite our size we can choose to go our own way.
The end result of mass utilisation of housing as investment vehicles while at the same time divesting social and state housing – can be seen in The Great British Property Scandal series, and in this 2014 Guardian article: Scandal of Europe’s 11m empty homes
@ Wairua
There are reports of empty apartments that have replaced old housing which was being lived in. The new is of course too dear for the previous dwellers to rent. I remember reading about it. Also there has been much money spent on infrastructure and city building as in the empty apartments.
It seems to me a deliberate policy to turn earnings and profits into tangible assets, as the future of the financial system is uncertain. Profits left sitting can be undermined by inflation, and deliberate crashing of the financial system which would wipe out the previous Chinese accumulated credits.
I think the Chinese are being canny and converting the paper money into bricks and steel. Perhaps the message of the Yip Harburg song about Al the hard worker, now beggar, of the USA in Buddy Can You Spare a Dime has been received loud and clear by the Chinese. They don’t want to be the Als, with a lot of useless money. This version is probably the best you’ll hear and see and uses the word Buddy rather than Brother which seems less authentic.
Yes, but what they’ve done is turn housing into yet another speculative financial asset. Collateral which is hypothecated then rehypothecated, leveraged then overleveraged, then securitised and sold on to unsuspecting investors. Certainly an apartment block is more “concrete” than $10M of numbers in an electronic account which can be “vapourised” at a key stroke, but the way it is being treated now – like dairy farms which will soon never be able to pay back their mortagages – makes them worth little more than unaffordable McMansion junk.
And that’s assuming all these units which have been built with nothing more than profit in mind, don’t leak.
CR
That’s a good point. Just thinking of the reality of leaky buildings which we found here. Leave them for a while and they can be full of deadly fungus that gets up people’s noses, literally. And nearly possible to eradicate. In apartment buildings they would have to spray individual apartments then possibly gas them as well and leave them closed for a time to penetrate and kill the organisms. Then leave them open for a week, then probably have to turn fans on as some of the gas might be heavier than air or something.
One of the problems with rented buildings in NZ is people don’t open their windows to let fresh air in. Perhaps because of fear of burglars, or they aren’t used to the concept of airing rooms and having fresh air and sunshine coming in. Leaving the windows closed all the time leads to a build-up of mould, which is preventable if the rooms are aired daily with a flow from one side of the house to the other. I haven’t heard this mentioned when damp, unhealthy houses are mentioned, but some people have to be educated apparently as to such good and necessary practice. They should fit their own burglar and child proof attachments to one window in every room if the landlord won’t do it.
We are tenants in our own country.
And we have an international bankster facilitating the transfer of wealth to his bosses.
NEWSFLASH!
Some athletes have a conscience
Sportspeople, past and present, are generally brainless, conformist halfwits—New Zealanders will be all too familiar with such unedifying and depressing examples as Israel Dagg, Corey Jane, that dopey mustachioed rower who barracked for John Key, Dick Quax, Paul Quinn… the list is too long and depressing to finish, but you get the picture.
But there ARE genuinely thoughtful, decent people involved in sports. Here are just a few of them…..
1.) In 2005, French goalkeeper Fabien Barthez refused to play against an Israeli team, as a protest against Israel’s depradations in the Occupied Territories….
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3062948,00.html
2.) In 2011, Irish rugby stars Trevor Hogan, Gordon D’Arcy, Eoin Reddan and John Fogarty spoke out in favour of the Gaza peace flotilla…..
http://www.joe.ie/uncategorized/video-irish-rugby-stars-back-gaza-flotilla/25039
3.) Some New Zealand and Australian rugby stars from as long ago as 1960 were protesting against touring, or even playing against, South Africa.
4.) Just last week, Wallabies star David Pocock was arrested for taking part in an anti-mining protest.
5.) St Louis Rams players making a statement about police brutality. The only shame here is that there seem to be no white players supporting them…..
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/01/missouri-police-st-louis-gesture-nfl-michael-brown?CMP=twt_gu
“Sportspeople, past and present, are generally brainless, conformist halfwits”
Yeah thats not a generalization or nothing
Yeah he really should have made it clear he was generalising, maybe by saying “generally” or something 🙄 🙄 🙄
Not that you’d have noticed, it’s not like you read anything before you type 🙄 🙄 🙄
Even though it was in the sentence you quoted 🙄 🙄 🙄
Can we get some new trools please? This is just the same one that got banned yesterday and it’s fecking useless.
Sorry should have added massive generalization and incredibly petty and small minded judging an extremely large group of people by a very small group of drop kicks
I love the way sportspeople at times cry “… keep politics out of sport …” ….
… then in the very next breath ask politicians to pay for their work premises (stadiums) …. the hypocrisy ….
I agree, I wouldn’t pay a cent towards Team NZ (as another example)
Yep. And how about the cries here in Chch from rich professional sports business people for elderly ratepayers to pay for a new stadium with a roof to keep their heads dry and warm when they can’t even fill the current stadium?? And when we are struggling to pay for replacement sewers and roads and libraries and swimming pools for the kids??
Quite astounding.
Funny though that most of those rich sports business people have realised their folly and gone quiet in embarassment. They no longer ask for the poor and elderly ratepayers to pay for their work premises.
Yes but lets not lump all sportspeople in with the people running said sports
Nothing wrong with the occasional generalisation – there is generally something in said generalisations..
And it aint just people running such sports (cycling types are always calling for the elderly to pay for their velodromes too) who make this call, it is too often the players and participants themselves. It is heard all the time amongst general sports talk.
Cricket has just been given such largesse in Chch with new Hagley Park grounds.
It is a classic race to the bottom – best example being the Olympics. Olympics plays off cities against one another to see who can do the best deal. End result being that all host cities end up chronically in debt with pretty much no benefit whatsoever.
Sport has been riding this game for a while now – be interesting to see how much longer it lasts. Personally, I think cities should call the bluff of the rugby unions, the Olympics committees, the velodrome nutters, the Americas cup bludgers, the V8 racers, and give them zip. If they don’t come then so f%$king what? Net result is a win for the cities as these events always cost – there is never a net benefit.
I agree with this however you can make a profit from the Olympics but its very hit and mess
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games
The net benefit is to the egos of politicians and their mates in the very select business niches that do profit from such events.
Yeah, in the same way beneficiaries and the parents of poor children are depicted when tories claim that the parents waste any money on booze, drugs, and cigarettes.
Well sports is one of the areas where left and right wingers can and do interact
The rugby club used to be a microcosm of NZ society (not always in a good way i grant you) where blue collar and white collar got on and discussed the importanct issues of the day (well probably not)
Just thinking that lumping the majority of sportspeople who play for the love of the game in with the administrators of tha games (which is where the problems usually begin) is a quite short sighted
I can’t be the only one who thinks its a great sight going past (or when i get roped in myself) touch fields filled with all kinds of people playing simply because its enjoyable
and yes I’m wearing rose-tinted glasses
Poor parents from all sides of the political and socio-economic spectra interact at play groups.
Lumping all beneficiaries and working poor in together is short-sighted, too.
I’m sure they do however I have zero experience of play groups and extensive experience of sports clubs
Surely you must still pass them on occasion, and think it’s a great sight that parents and kids of all backgrounds can get together for the simple joy of social interaction?
So we are all agreed then.
Crude generalization of what are in fact complex groupings of real people is just bigotry, and to prove the superior moral tone of the left, there will be no more of it on this blog.
The exception being when the generalisation is based on a characterisation by which the groupings are delineated – calling tories “fuckwits”, for example, is merely a description that emphasises one of the characteristics that makes a tory a tory.
That kind of hypocrisy puts you on the same moral and intellectual plane as a tory fuckwit.
nope, I’m nothing like you.
True that.
For a start I have a life outside of left wing blogs.
And I pride myself on taking any point head on and trying to grapple with it, rather than attempting to lead the discussion up a side road every time I strike a sharp retort.
yup, and I see all people as genuine and real and worthy of respect, in all their endless variation of political opinion, as opposed to a simplistic division into 2 camps of saints and fuckwits…
But I’m probably eating up your band width here, so back to you.
I don’t need to trool opposing blogsites to provoke negative reactions that I can then use to pretend that my life has any level of meaning or significance in the universe and reinflate my delusional sense of adequacy. That’s all you.
There’s that unfounded false equivalence we know and love.
You really sound like c73
acually is dolan.
Morrissey
Good one, Morrissey. Had no idea about Barthez’s protest against Israel’s brutality back in 05. It’s pretty rare for me to praise a former Man Utd player (or, indeed, anyone or anything to do with that particular club) but good on him.
1960 AB Tour of Apartheid South Africa. Certainly the great George Nepia protested. By the early 70s, Ken Gray and Chris Laidlaw had moved in the same direction and, of course, by 81 AB Captain Graham Mourie and Centre, Bruce Robertson.
Incidentally, Frank Bunce (from memory) was the main (possibly only ?) Celebrity endorser for the Alliance in the 1996 (or was it 99 ?) election campaign. Starkly contrasting with the Michael Jones, Paul Quinns and Tuigamalas of this world.
Overall, though, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that professional sportspeople do indeed tend to be as Thick as Mince.
Overall, though, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that sportspeople do indeed tend to be as Thick as Mince.
– no thats quite unreasonable when you look at the number of people who play sport vs the drop kicks who bring the game into disrepute
As an example theres a little over 145 000 registered rugby players, 140 000 approx registered Netball players NZ and around 22 000 registered league players in NZ
Yeah, I immediately edited in professional just to add a little more clarity and precision (presumably while you were in the middle of composing your reply).
Personally, I played football (ie soccer) from age 8 to 39 (competitively on Saturday, socially on Sunday, and the Indoor variety during the week).
Hey Paul, look how it does quotes and responses. lolz.
And Israel Dagg…
Didn’t he tweet for the elite on Election Day?
He tweeted for the scum, actually. Pub must have been closed.
Rugby’s association with alcohol has had many negative consequences for many New Zealand citizens.
Its were I polished my drinking skills as a teenager hopefully rugby clubs are more responsible now
“1960 AB Tour of Apartheid South Africa. Certainly the great George Nepia protested. By the early 70s, Ken Gray and Chris Laidlaw had moved in the same direction and, of course, by 81 AB Captain Graham Mourie and Centre, Bruce Robertson.”
I have noticed that the men who you mentioned seem to have had their talents largely unutilized by the NZRFU after their careers came to an end, apart from a breif stint coaching the Hurricanes/Lions in Mourie’s case. while those that went on the 1986 rebel Cavaliers tour ended up enjoying large amounts of oppurtunities in administration and coaching long after their playing careers ended.
Of course, it could be purely co-incidental. and talking to any administrator from around that era would come up with a truck load of denials. But it does seem fishy, that those who stood up against NZ Rugby’s contact with SA seemed to find their rugby careers curtailed.
Morrissey, do you have any idea why Graham Bell is invited on the Panel?
I don’t understand why his boorish ill educated views are sought after.
Morrissey, do you have any idea why Graham Bell is invited on the Panel?
He’s a celebrity, and he expresses himself forcefully. That works well on radio.
I don’t understand why his boorish ill educated views are sought after.
I agree with you that he often sounds boorish, and I have often cringed—or raged—at some of the things he has said. Today, for instance, he tried to argue that the arrest of a top cop in Northland for selling drugs showed how incorruptible the New Zealand Police are. Disappointingly, neither the host Simon Mercep nor Selwyn Manning decided to challenge him on that point. Bell also made a crazed attack on Nicky Hager; Mercep and Manning let that pass as well.
On the other hand, Graham Bell does have an enlightened and tolerant side; he was relatively civilized and intelligent when he commented on the need to respect Maori protocols and language a few years ago.
Thanks.
Always appreciate your insights.
‘
6.) World-renowned Kiwi netball champion, Irene Van Dyk, has given her backing to the #BeCrueltyFree New Zealand campaign for a ban on cruel and outdated animal testing for cosmetics such as mascara, shampoo and anti-wrinkle cream.
That’s good to hear. However, I have heard her on several occasions ranting about how dangerous South Africa is “now”, implying it wasn’t dangerous before the blacks took over. Talk to a white South African, and there’s a high probability that kind of lazy racist rhetoric will spill forth eventually.
During the apartheid years, the primary violence (I think) was the institutional injustice and violence from the white government and the powerful white landowners against the blacks. Now the violence is primarily due to economic, drug, gang reasons I think. I am not sure as I am not familiar with the actual situation there apart from reading about car jackings, burglary,rapes and heaps of murders. Not sure if it is racially motivated. Is it?
White South Africans raving about how dangerous South Africa has become in the last twenty years is racist.
I am not sure if it is that simplistic. She may be meaning the reality, the common violence (not the apartheid violence) on the streets now which ‘probably’ did not exist previously. I do not know. Would be interesting to hear factual views of the situation there now of any South African readers. It is difficult for people to express honest views if they are then defined/characterised/judged by others as being racist.
No I don’t think Irene Van Dyk is some kind of Paul Holmes or John Ansell. She seems to be a pleasant person. I don’t think she’s nasty or overtly racist; but the idea that South Africa has gone to the pack since Mandela was released is a racist trope that is often recycled by white South Africans.
South Africa certainly hasn’t gone to the pack since Mandela was released, but the ANC is far more ruthlessly market-oriented that the old white Nationalist Party was. The transition in South Africa is interesting in a horrible kind of way because the ruling class managed successfully (and it was an impressive achievement) to de-couple apartheid and capitalism, with the former being abolished and the latter being strengthened at the same time.
See:
South Africa’s non-revolution:
http://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/south-africas-non-revolution/
Nelson Mandela and the travesty of liberation: http://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/nelson-mandela/
Mandela and New Zealand – our ‘Diana Moment’?: http://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/12/10/mandela-and-new-zealand-our-diana-moment/
Phil
I always ask a South African when they left the country.
Many seemed happy to stay under apartheid, but left when the whites lost political ascendancy.
Of course, as Naomi Klein and others have highlighted, the white establishment maintained its economic stranglehold over the country.
Sounds like you’re bullshitting again, moz. But as you’ve heard these rants many times, you’ll have no problem backing up your claim, eh.
Sounds like you’re bullshitting again, moz.
Okay, have it your way. In Te Ao Te Reo, white South African “exiles” never reflexively parrot racist tropes, just as your good self has never reflexively parroted black propaganda—-that means lies, by the way, not propaganda by black people—-against journalists and truth-tellers.
But as you’ve heard these rants many times, you’ll have no problem backing up your claim, eh.
I heard her interviewed several times by Murray (AKA “Deaks”, AKA “The Screaming Skull”, AKA The Most Dismal Sports Commentator Ever) Deaker and she almost always talked about how dangerous South Africa had become.
As I say, back it up. I’m sure a quick search will find copies of those interviews. Otherwise you are just attributing to an individual a trope you believe applies to all white South Africans. That’s kinda like racism, eh?
btw, I have a good friend who is in his mid fifties and who left SA a few years ago and who says the place is definitely more dangerous post apartheid. Is he racist, too? He’ll be surprised to hear it, being the lovely, liberal and man that he is.
As an aside, while SA is still astonishingly dangerous, the violent crime rate is actually dropping. Not by enough, but dropping all the same. I have a sneaking suspicion that it always was violent, but prior to the democratic changes only crimes against the dominant community were recorded in any detail, making the joint seem a lot safer than it really was.
I have a good friend who is in his mid fifties and who left SA a few years ago and who says the place is definitely more dangerous post apartheid.
He certainly sounds it. Decades ago The Specials had some spot-on advice for people like you….
I’ll be sure to let him know you think he’s a racist, Moz. As someone with a south Asian family heritage and classified as ‘Indian’ under apartheid, he knows a thing or two about the matter.
Some of the stupidest, most racist comments you’ll hear in this country are made by the likes of Willy Jackson, Tau Henare and Winston Peters. They should know a thing or two about racism as well, but it doesn’t stop them saying the most incendiary things.
So if your friend is saying that South Africa becoming a democratic state is a bad thing, then his ethnicity should not immunize him against criticism, surely?
A simple ‘well played, Sir’ would have been a better response, Moz 😉
Great to hear. All those are Labour party policies as you can see below and in the link:
Care for animals
* Banning cruel shark finning
* No cosmetics sold in New Zealand tested on animals
* No synthetic highs tested on animals
* Protecting Animals’ Rights
See more info here:
http://campaign.labour.org.nz/caring_for_animals
(questiontime in parliament today..)
(excerpt:..
(shudder..!..collins is in shot..and at first she pastes on that grimace pretending to be a smile she uses..but then she falls into repose..
..and i gotta say..it’s a grim screenshot..that one…
..one to make babies cry/dogs howl..and plants to wilt..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/new-zealand-parliament-list-of-questions-for-oral-answer-thursday-4-december-2014/
Selwyn Manning on the Panel.
Brilliant.
Already putting the spokesperson for the Hospitality industry under pressure.
Simon Mercep doing the Panel a lot better than Mora by simply letting the Panel talk.
Spying under Labour gives a hint at why they’re happy to vote for extended powers:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0411/S00272.htm
Jesus Murray Rawshark, I wished I had seen that Scoop article in November 2005.
Be assured the surveillance of ordinary NZers has been occurring on and off for decades, and it didn’t just apply to Maori activists. Neither was it just the SIS. The police were also up to their eyeballs in clandestine political surveillance.
I still don’t know whether it was the SIS or the police who targeted me in the late 70s/80s and early 90s. Some of the incidents were witnessed by others and a former boss of mine was known to be a SIS informant. With the benefit of hindsight I have long since realised that… as a public servant who was also active in the Labour Party, I was a sitting target. There was also a political associate (a woman) who went to extraordinary lengths to befriend me and who – years later – I discovered had been ‘informing’ on me.
I spent years trying to get to the bottom of it all, but came up against a brick wall every time. But along the way, I learnt a lot about the NZ establishment and how it sometimes operated. Not a pretty sight!
Edit: I don’t believe successive Labour leaders – up to and possibly including Helen Clark – had any knowledge of these particular spying activities. It would have been going on behind their backs.
@ Anne
Who would have been driving the surveillance? Who would have benefited from it and what was the cultural imperative for it?
Who would have been driving the surveillance?
Back in the 1960s/70s and at least part of the 80s, I think it was, in the main, a police unit of right wing thugs – the sort who find themselves with a bit of power and it goes to their heads. We’ve seen quite a few public instances of their conduct over the years, the most prominent being police brutality during the Springbok tour protests in the mid 1970s and early 80s. However there have been many documented examples of politicians and ordinary individuals having also been targeted for highly spurious reasons – the most famous being Colin Moyle.
Who would have benefited from it?
The various National governments of the day starting with Keith Holyoake followed by Marshall and eventually Muldoon – especially Muldoon.
What was the cultural imperative for it?
In a nut-shell it was obsessive Cold War paranoia on the part of Western establishments around the world. NZ was not immune from the condition. It meant that anyone to the left of Genghis Khan (slight exaggeration) was suspected of being a Communist subversive. There is no question the police (and no doubt the SIS) had infiltrators inside the Labour Party and that probably included the particular electorate to which I was attached. I was far from the only Labour activist who reported strange ‘going ons’ throughout that time. In my case there was an added consideration (too complex to explain here) that meant I was targeted – and my father before me – in an even more insidious way.
It still occurs of course but in more subtle ways. I think lprent’s niece, Rocky is a good example in more recent times.
There was a poaka intelligence unit set up in the late 70s to keep an eye on potential threats. I met a couple of them who worked openly, but there were plenty who worked secretly as well. They targeted groups including outlaw biker clubs, Mongrel Mob and Black Power, Polynesian youth groups, and hippies on Coromandel communes, that I know of.
If they know that the squirrels do stuff behind their backs and still vote them extra powers, I consider that even worse.
Article in stuff buy simon day about dirty politics effect on public health .
It’s here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/63816549/Scientists-are-undermined-by-attack-campaigns-expert
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/63846480/China-orders-further-crackdown-on-media
Didn’t John, Bronagh, and Max Key just meet this guy, and give him Buck Shelford’s jersey?
John Key must be very impressed by Xi Ping’s ability to shut down dissenting media.
Former Guantanamo chief prosecutor writes about torture.
The bigger question will be what now? The U.S. led the effort to enact the Convention Against Torture (CAT), a treaty that has been ratified by nearly every country in the world, including the United States. When President Ronald Reagan sent the CAT to the Senate for ratification in 1988 he said it clearly expressed “United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice,” and noted that it “required (a signatory) either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.” The CAT also requires us to provide alleged victims of torture a legal avenue to pursue compensation.
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20141203152106-71898210-in-advance-of-the-senate-torture-report
Do Colin Craig and the Conservatives hibernate until election year.He actually had some sound policy to deal with rampant property prices.