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.
Below is the list of gender-critical material which appeared on Redline from November 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019. Submission for rationality and science against the assaults of pre-modernism and post-modernism The left and violent misogyny Marvelly shows us how to be a feminist without feminism Georgina Beyer: We need ...
Watching National's Health spokesman, Dr Shane Reti, on TVNZ yesterday morning was instructive:In four minutes, he managed to undermine both his leader and deputy leader - refusing to twist th knife Collins had attempted to plant in Labour, by acknowledging the government was doing "the best they can" and they ...
Watching National's Health spokesman, Dr Shane Reti, on TVNZ yesterday morning was instructive:In four minutes, he managed to undermine both his leader and deputy leader - refusing to twist th knife Collins had attempted to plant in Labour, by acknowledging the government was doing "the best they can" and they ...
Vadim Chausov New Zealand needs to speak out against allegations of mass torture and brutality in Belarus following the Eastern European country’s recent elections, a Belarusian national living in New Zealand says. Last Sunday’s election – which saw strongman Alexander Lukashenko claim 80% of the vote in a result ...
The old ways of thinking about the macroeconomy have been found wanting, but the alternative is not clear. Macroeconomics – understanding how the economy as a whole works – appears to be going through a time of exceptionally great turbulence. There is always a robust debate, but today ...
by Daphna Whitmore The outbreak of Covid-19 in the community is getting people to starting to thinking about the elimination strategy. Initially the government said ‘flatten the curve’ in order to avoid hospitals being overloaded with a sudden influx of Covid-19 cases. This made sense, but there were some experts, most ...
How corrupt is Queensland? Yesterday they actually tried to ban journalists from exposing political corruption during election campaigns. Fortunately, today they changed their minds: A day after introducing laws that would ban journalists from reporting corruption allegations during elections, the State Government has withdrawn the proposal in a spectacular ...
A Heavy Burden: At times such as these, our prime minister could be forgiven for wondering whether some malign political spirit has laid a curse upon her. As if everything that she is, and everything of which she is capable, can only ever be revealed fully at moments of harm ...
Fire-Starter? The claims advanced by BillyTe Kahika are false. The matter to be determined, therefore, is whether or not they are likely to cause panic. In ordinary times, the answer would be “No.” In ordinary times, the opinions of conspiracy theorists may be safely ignored. Indeed, in ordinary times, the ...
It's In Their DNA:“The naïve, the almost childish brutality, with which the chiefs of the National Party fell upon power [in 1949] may seem quite surprising, until one remembers how famished for power they were, and with what an innocency of experience they faced the world about them.” - Dr J. C. ...
All That Remains: But, just imagine if the workers in the Hi-Viz vests refused to sink their chainsaws into the flesh of these miraculous trees and their mysterious networks of sentience. Imagine if ordinary working men and women stopped leaving all the decisions to the architects, engineers and accountants. Imagine ...
Will Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern go down in history alongside Richard Seddon and Michael Joseph Savage as a transformative prime minister? Utilising leadership theory, Josh Van Veen argues that Ardern will need to soon seize the historic moment that we are in, to make the country resilient against future disruptions. ...
As New Zealand holds its breath waiting to find out the extent of the latest cases of COVID-19 community transmission, it’s hard to avoid the growing amount of mis- and dis-information online. It’s a very natural instinct to want to debunk this misinformation, but unfortunately, science communication theory shows that ...
Campaigns suspended just as they began. Election day in doubt. And - following the 'words beginning with C' theme from last week's Caucus podcast - heated debate over conspiracies and constitutional conventions as Covid returns to the community. This week in politics is has been a disaster for Election 2020; you ...
And sooner or later, the National Party will simply have to own up to the fact that the reason she was never chosen as Leader prior to her rolling Todd Muller a little less than a month ago was for very solid ones: the display of some truly ugly behaviour ...
The Waikato Regional Council is actually enforcing the RMA for once: Three Waikato farmers have been fined a total of $116,100 for illegally discharging farm effluent. [...] Gerard Wolvers from South Waikato, who has farmed for nearly 50 years, was convicted on three charges after an unknown amount of ...
The return of COVID-19 community transmission, with Auckland back in a level 3 lockdown and the rest of New Zealand at level 2, raises real questions about New Zealand’s upcoming general election.Polling day is scheduled for September 19 but the planned election process would actually start far earlier. All candidates were to be ...
Conspiracy theorist - Gerry BrownleeWhat on earth is going on with the National Party? Now that Crusher Collins is in charge, it seems like it’s their policy to say really dumb things just to get attention. Unfortunately it’s working, with most of the mainstream media bending over backwards to provide ...
A corrupt public sector manager abuses their office to funnel public money to companies set up by himself and a friend. America? Australia? No, its New Zealand: Consultancy firm Deloitte has delivered a damning report on the New Zealand Transport Agency that says it failed to follow its own ...
The novel coronavirus mutates as it travels between people and around the world. By sequencing the genome, we can try to work out which case is linked with another. As Aotearoa confronted its first cases of Covid-19 community transmission in more than 100 days, the director general of health, Ashley ...
INT: ILAM ELECTORATE OFFICES – TUESDAY GERRY: Morning everybody. ADVISORS 1, 2, AND 3: Morning Gerry. GERRY: Now… this is a bit of a crisis meeting. Several rogue polls have come out putting the National Party on or around 40% ADVISOR 2: 26? ADVISOR 1: 12? ADVISOR 3: 29? GERRY: ...
What's National's first move under lockdown? Call for elections to be delayed: National leader Judith Collins is demanding Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern delay the September election after the discovery of Covid-19 community transmission cases in Auckland. A clearly frustrated Collins on Wednesday afternoon said she was directly asking Ardern ...
Respecting the journal editorial process Each week we scan between 450 and 650 articles for relevance to Skeptical Science's remit: communication of the science of climate change itself the many affected branches of scientific inquiry by climate change. The 100+ journals we cover encompass a galaxy of expertise we cannot ...
You may have heard that there were queues at the supermarket last night, and again this morning. This will probably carry on for a while, even though it’s clear that supermarkets and other essential outlets and services will remain open and stocked throughout Alert Level 3 (and Alert Level 4, ...
Russia are deploying a COVID-19 vaccine to its people without knowing if it works or if it is safe. They also appear to be taking advance orders for doses from other countries. It is almost hard to know where to start with why this is so wrong. Reckless, unethical, and ...
Another rural business is complaining about being unable to find staff, despite offering "high" pay. So what do they want people to do? “There’s also a perception that contractors work from sunrise to sunset but that’s not accurate, either,” Hawker said. “Health and safety is our biggest concern – ...
By Aleksandra Pawlik, Ngoni Faya, Joseph Guhlin, Megan Guidry, Tom Harrop, Dinindu SenanayakeRapid development of computational bioinformatics tools mean we can more easily push research boundaries. However, it comes at a cost. The complexity of the software chain that needs to be installed and configured to run advanced ...
So, the inevitable has happened and we have Covid in the community again. So now we have to do it all again to try and get it back under control. And already the usual suspects are whining, pretending that they don't know what the plan is when really they simply ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzGeothermal electricity produces emissions but is categorised with wind and ...
Aotearoa surpassed 100 days without a case of community transmission of Covid-19. Last night that virus-free streak ended and we’re moving back up the alert levels. For months now, we’ve been intercepting cases of Covid-19 at the border. But just as has happened in many other countries, somehow the sneaky ...
Today the National Party have annouced plans to get tough on gangs. Again. We at MyThinks thought it was important to identify a list of gangs the National Party were planning on getting tough on. National have said if they are elected their new “The Gang Unit” gang unit will ...
In the musical Wicked, a re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz, the hit song Defying Gravity comes at the end of the first act and talks of how one woman (who would become the Wicked Witch of the West) breaks from what’s expected to strike off on her own path. ...
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Daisy Dunne Human-caused climate change has “intensified” patterns of extreme rainfall and drought across the globe, a new study finds. There is a detectable “human fingerprint” on decreasing rainfall over the US, central Asia and southern Africa, according to the results. It is ...
Back in June, Newsroom published a well-investigated piece about how the Department of Conservation had waived rehabilitation requirements for a mining company. Now, one of the company's directors - specifically David Wong-Tung, who just happens to be Judith Collins' husband and the director of environmental pillagers Oravida - is threatening ...
This year’s election campaign in New Zealand has attracted a number of “fringe” parties, at least some of whose supporters seem to have a fairly tenuous hold on reality and a highly flexible approach to the truth. I mean, how else could one describe some of those affiliated with the ...
Accused - Jami-Lee RossNobody would think poorly of you if you wrote former National Party MP Jami-Lee Ross off as just another crackpot! After all, now that he’s hitched his Advance NZ wagon to Billy Te Kahika’s crazy Public Party, there’s little chance of him ever redeeming himself or recovering ...
Students will be striking for the climate again on Friday, September 4: Students in Wellington are gearing up to strike from school this September 4th, to protest inaction on climate change. Their demands? That Government invests in a green COVID-19 response; that there is a just transition provided for ...
There’s no Covid on the Cook Islands. But isolation-free travel into New Zealand from the Cooks looks to be a long way off. The Prime Minister confirmed on Monday that Cabinet had considered draft text being worked on via officials which will become the basis of an agreement for quarantine-free travel ...
We should all know by now that Judith Collins, who has openly said she simply doesn’t care if wetlands are destroyed in the pursuit of swamp Kauri, isn’t exactly an environmentalist.In fact she has promised to roll back most of the small gains made by the Green Party in Government, ...
If you drive an electric car more than trivial distances between charges, you likely appreciate a state-of-charge meter (that is, what would be called a fuel-gauge in a petrol car) that is accurate. When it reports a range of 30 km, you do want to be sure it will actually ...
What to do to improve the public perception of the newly elected National party leader, when her performance so far has no doubt disappointed the expectations of her supporters? The answer is to get a National-supporting newspaper (the Herald) to organise a poll that could be guaranteed to provide an ...
Campaigns. Culture. Character. And perhaps most of all, Covid. Now the House has risen and politicians are hitting the road to pitch their woo to voters, those will be front of mind for the candidates.They were also where the new season of politics podcast Caucus began on Thursday. This year ...
There are only a few days left to make a submission on Statistics New Zealand's consultation on sex and gender identity statistical standards. This represents a really important step for recognising the very real diversity of gender, including people with no gender, and ensuring everyone has the option to see ...
Since finishing the Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change book, I’ve frequently dipped into that 176-page clip-art library, reshaping the cartoons to fit the 1920 x 1080 pixel format for Powerpoint presentations. I’ve also adapted many of the cartoons for the Cranky Uncle video series. Over the last few weeks, a few people ...
NewsHub Nation has launched a new podcast, "Supplementary Question". Their inaugural episode is about the OIA, and asks "is our most important transparency law fit for purpose?" While they interviewed Justice Minister Andrew Little and Ombudsman Peter Boshier for this, there's not actually a lot of them in there, and ...
Remember the Ruataniwha dam? The Hawke's Bay Regional Council wasted $14 million trying to push this environmental disaster through before the Supreme Court ruled that the land swap it relied on with DoC was illegal. At the end of it, they wrote off the money and sold the existing consents ...
For years we've had a housing crisis in New Zealand, driven by immigration-driven population growth and the market refusing to build enough houses (and enough of the right sort of houses) to meet it. As a result, people can't get homes, while Boomer landlords leech away their income and parasitical ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Drawdown Review 2020: How To Address Global Warming In A Responsible Manner Source: Project Drawdown Project Drawdown is a non-profit organization that relies ...
Dr Tim Chambers, Prof Nick Wilson, Jayne Richards, A/Prof Simon Hales, Dr Mike Joy, Prof Michael Baker (author affiliations*)Increasing water-related health threats, notably the waterborne campylobacter outbreak in Havelock North, have highlighted failings in NZ’s regulatory system for drinking water. In this blog we consider how the new Water ...
Yes, an election is in the offing – and we all know that elections can be polarising, as parties of the left and right square off against each other. But we should not allow our party and political allegiances to obscure the fact that, in a properly functioning democracy like ...
Dr Sommer Kapitan, Auckland University of Technology, and Dr Patrick van Esch, Auckland University of TechnologyThe Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill will limit vape sales at dairies and service stations to only three flavours, and make vaping illegal in smokefree areas. Vaping laws will be more ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Aug 2, 2020 through Sat, Aug 8, 2020Editor's ChoiceFive Years After Speaking Out on Climate Change, Pope Francis Sounds an Urgent AlarmThe encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ motivated many people ...
From some quarters, incessant scaremongering. From others, it’s a full-on tilt into touching the alarmist buttons a little too readily (uncertain times make for very captive audiences with this angle of attack). The (so-called) Opposition (and merely regarding them as that seems to be a far looser term now ...
National Party leader - Judith CollinsElections often bring out the best and worst in politicians. Some rise to the occasion and provide us with a clear vision for the future. While others wallow in resentment and controversy, over-relying on attack politics to try to attain the interest of voters.That’s been ...
The attempts to sabotage Corbyn's leadership seems likely to do more damage than Corbyn supposedly ever could have done, even if all the stories about him were true:I was reluctant to say anything but this is too important, the full story needs to be told.Don’t let anyone ever tell ...
Good day to everyone. I’ve been asked by Mr Thinks to come here and talk to you all about my concerns regarding the government response to Covid-19. We’ve been living through this pandemic for, what seems like, years. Years and years and years. Why else would the National Party have ...
‘Good Economics for Hard Times’ should be on your reading list. New Zealand does not have a Minister of Labour. It has Ministers of Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety but there is no minister with responsibility for the labour market. That responsibility was abolished in 2012 when ...
Back in the Kyoto era, the international climate change regime included a Clean Development Mechanism to fund emissions reduction projects in developing nations. Essentially someone would certify that a project - e.g. building a windfarm, or installing energy-efficient lightbulbs - would reduce emissions over and above "business-as-usual". The project would ...
Claire Breen, University of WaikatoWith COVID-19 vaccine developers reporting promising results, it is probable we will one day face a major public health question: can the government compel New Zealanders to be vaccinated? Just as inevitably, some people will refuse a vaccine. As we have seen overseas with debates ...
As the classic MMP cartoon goes, just look at who is against it. Yesterday, the Hamilton City Council voted to use STV for its next two local body elections. The move was initially opposed by deputy mayor Geoff Taylor. The reason? Because a voting system which provided accurate representation and ...
On Wednesday evening (which in Parliament’s weird world technically was still Tuesday because urgency had been taken and so time stood still), MPs united to remove a pretty terrible piece of law from our statute books. No real fanfare or fireworks accompanied this action. Indeed, I didn’t even know about it ...
By Geoffrey Miller Prominent refugee advocate Murdoch Stephens says he is disappointed by Judith Collins’ reaction to Immigration New Zealand’s decision to grant refugee status to Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani. Judith Collins told media last month that “there’s a lot of concern in New Zealand about what they see as ...
Hello all. Judith here to talk about how National are going to take the election in September. The National Party prides itself its unity and cohesion. We are working together to deliver for New Zealanders. First of all, ee are a strong team. We are a very strong team. Our ...
Parliament has just begun the adjournment debate, signalling the effective end of this Parliament. So it seems like an appropriate time to assess Labour's term in office. Unfortunately, its a pretty dismal assessment. Labour campaigned on one thing: change. Not just a change in who got the top jobs and ...
Our climate change policies are insufficient to achieve our goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, according to independent assessor Climate Action Tracker: New Zealand won’t be carbon neutral by 2050 without much stronger policies, says an independent analysis by Climate Action Tracker. The non-profit highlighted a lack of active ...
That was clearly a huge explosion. Just after the explosion, we see a cloud of ‘fog’ moving outwards at high speed. This is a shockwave, rather similar to that which causes a sonic boom. The ‘fog’ is caused by water condensing from the atmosphere in areas of intense low pressure ...
Government has decided in-principle to extend the wage subsidy scheme. We have also agreed in-principle to extend the mortgage deferral scheme, and to modify the COVID-19 Sick Leave Scheme to make it more accessible. Details will be finalised over the weekend and announced on Monday. ...
The Auckland region will remain at Alert Level 3, and the rest of New Zealand will remain at Alert Level 2, until 11.59pm Wednesday 26 August.Cabinet will meet again on the 21st of August to reassess these alert levels. ...
Green Party Co-leader James Shaw is awaiting the result of a precautionary COVID-19 test after travelling to the South Auckland area over the weekend. ...
The Auckland region moved to Alert Level 3 on 12 noon on Wednesday 12 August. The rest of New Zealand moved to Alert Level 2. Visit covid19.govt.nz for the latest information on alert levels, including an overview of restrictions in your area. ...
It's campaign time! The official countdown to Election Day is underway, with Labour supporters crowding into Auckland's Town Hall for our 2020 Campaign Launch. We recap some of the highlights below ...
It's campaign time! The official countdown to Election Day is underway, with Labour supporters crowding into Auckland's Town Hall for our 2020 Campaign Launch. We recap some of the highlights below ...
We've announced that we will expand the Flexi-wage programme to support up to 40,000 more people into work, or to help them start their own business. It's yet another way we're helping keep our economy moving by getting people into work and training. Read on to find out more ...
Business subsidy of on average $7500, and up to $22,000, to hire unemployed New ZealandersUp to 40,000 jobs to be supported by $311 million investment in keeping New Zealanders off the unemployment benefitRing-fenced fund to help unemployed start their own business ...
This week was the last of the 52nd Parliament: a major milestone for our Government and a great opportunity to look back at all the progress we've made for New Zealanders. This week, we increased support for businesses to take on apprentices, improved access to hospital care in Northland, and ...
Kia orana and kia ora koutou katoa. It is a privilege to be able to speak in this adjournment debate and to mark and acknowledge the fact that we are now two years and 10 months into the conclusion of a parliamentary term that has been extraordinary in so many ...
On 1 August, we marked the anniversary of Jacinda Ardern becoming the Leader of the Labour Party. On that day in 2017, Leader Andrew Little nominated Jacinda Ardern to succeed him and lead the party to victory.Now, three years on, we look back at some of the key moments ...
With the June 2020 quarter showing underemployment increasing, the Green Party is calling for a Guaranteed Minimum Income and an increase to the abatement threshold to ensure everyone has a dignified income. ...
We went hard and we went early in our health response to COVID-19, and we did everything we could to cushion the economic impact too. In fact, we can fill every letter of the alphabet with the steps we took to fight COVID-19 and ensure we were in a position ...
Investing in our people, backing businesses, and upgrading infrastructure and housing throughout the country - it's been another week of progress for New Zealanders as we deliver our plan to recover and rebuild. ...
July was another busy month, packed with key investments aimed at progressing our economic recovery as we rebuild New Zealand. We extended support for businesses, helped create jobs through local infrastructure projects, and kept working to clean up our waterways so Kiwis can access safe clean water. Check out the ...
The Green Party is calling for the Defence Force Chiefs in place between 2010-2017 to front up and explain how dishonesty, process and policy failures within the Defence Force led to ‘a series of incorrect statements in briefings to ministers and public releases’ regarding alleged breaches of international torture prevention ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
The Government is stepping up action to deal with environmentally harmful products – including plastic packaging, tyres and e-waste – before they become waste. ...
The Green Party are ensuring that New Zealanders who were overseas when COVID-19 hit will not be charged for the cost of isolation or quarantine if they return home to live. ...
In-principle decision to extend wage subsidy to support businesses and protect jobs Support will be nationwide in recognition of Auckland’s position in NZ economy and the impact of Level 2 Mortgage deferral scheme to be extended to support households The Government is taking action to support businesses and protect jobs ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters today called for National Party and Opposition leader Judith Collins to stop undermining democracy. “New Zealanders are sadly being fed a steady stream of misinformation about the pre-election period from the National Party,” said Mr Peters. “Its effect is to sow doubt about the legitimacy ...
Graduation of Wing 340 2pm, 13 August 2020, The Royal New Zealand Police College [CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY] Introduction Ladies and gentlemen, it is a privilege to be here today to celebrate the graduation of Wing 340. Let us begin by acknowledging the presence of Coalition Government colleague, Police Minister the ...
More Police are being deployed to the frontline to help manage the COVID response, after the graduation today of 56 new officers. “The ceremonies for the graduation of Wing 340 at the Royal New Zealand Police College were trimmed to take account of new Alert Level 2 restrictions in Wellington,” ...
Transitional housing provides much needed support for Taumarunui whānau New emergency and transitional homes will help ease a housing shortage in Taumarunui and provide whānau with much needed support, say Māori Development Minister, Nanaia Mahuta and Whānau Ora Minister, Peeni Henare. The Ministers officially opened five two-bedroom units ...
Following the success of the phase out of single-use plastic shopping bags, the Government now has plans to phase out more single-use and problem plastics to reduce waste and protect the environment announced Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage. The proposals are to phase-out: some hard-to-recycle PVC and polystyrene ...
A commercial and industrial site in Thames-Coromandel will receive $8.2 million to revamp its marine-servicing infrastructure and create new economic development opportunities, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. This project is being supported from the $3 billion ‘shovel ready’ fund set aside in Budget 2020 to kick-start the post COVID-19 ...
After 102 days we have our first cases of Covid-19 outside of a Managed Isolation or Quarantine facility in New Zealand. Shortly I will ask Dr Bloomfield to set out the details of the case. While we have all worked incredibly hard to prevent this scenario, we have also planned ...
An iwi-Crown approach programme to restore the Raukūmara forest on the East Coast of the North Island and boost employment opportunities for whānau, particularly rangatahi/young people, will receive $34 million funding, Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage has announced. “Raukūmara Pae Maunga is a partnership with Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Porou, and ...
Government agencies and partners are working closer together to provide more Māori Housing through the Te MAIHI o te Whare Māori – the Māori and Iwi Housing Innovation Framework for Action (MAIHI). MAIHI is a kaupapa Māori approach that drives a system change to give effect and impact on Māori ...
Site work is soon to begin on Te Ahu a Turanga: Manawatū Tararua Highway, the project to replace the former SH3 route through the Manawatū Gorge, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Phil Twyford was today in Woodville at the signing of a formal agreement by members of the Alliance ...
The Pacific Islands Forum Economic Ministers Meeting (FEMM) begins today and will focus on the major economic and social impacts of COVID-19 on the Pacific. FEMM is an important congregation of Economic Ministers and senior officials from around the region, and for the first time, the annual meeting will be ...
Cabinet has approved a formal apology and ex gratia payment to former soldier George Nepata, announced Defence Minister Ron Mark. This payment is to recognise the New Zealand Defence Force’s failure to provide Mr Nepata with a safe system of work in April 1989 when, as a result of an ...
A report undertaken by Ministerial Services into Iain Lees-Galloway’s ministerial expenditure has found no evidence of any inappropriate transactions or spending. Ministerial Services undertook a line by line review of all his expenditure, including staff and spouse expenses for the period 1 January 2019 to 30 June 2020. “I commissioned ...
Managed isolation charges for returnees will come into force from 12.01am Tuesday 11th August, after they passed their last cabinet milestone today, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. “The new charging system balances the rights of New Zealanders to return home and helps reduce pressure on the managed isolation and quarantine ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Henry Puna have welcomed the completion of phase one in the establishment of a travel bubble between New Zealand and the Cook Island. Negotiations on the text of an ‘Arrangement to Facilitate Quarantine-Free Travel ...
The Government has launched a new online, phone and onsite service to help New Zealanders connect to a range of employment support and products for workers and businesses affected by COVID-19, announced Minister of Education Chris Hipkins and Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. Connected.govt.nz is a one-stop-shop for jobseekers, ...
Security guards contracted to the Ministry of Social Development will be paid at least the Living Wage from next month supporting the Government’s commitment towards fair pay and employment conditions, announced Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. “MSD was among the first government agencies to pay its employees the living ...
The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today launched Te Mana o te Taiao, the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy - a way forward that envisions Aotearoa New Zealand as a place where ecosystems are healthy and resilient, and people embrace the natural world. “Many of New Zealand’s plants and wildlife species ...
“Pacific languages, cultures and identity are essential to the health, wellbeing and lifetime success of our Pacific peoples and their communities in Aotearoa. The strength and resilience of Pacific Aotearoa is not only vital to their own prosperity but integral to the prosperity of all New Zealanders, and is particularly ...
· $38 million to help schools cover unexpected costs related to COVID-19 · $69 million upgrade for online learning · $107 million contingency funding to support school construction suppliers facing additional costs due to the lockdown. The Government is releasing $214 million from the COVID-19 response and recovery fund to ...
Despite the Government installing safety upgrades around the country, people should still take care around rail crossings, said Transport Minister Phil Twyford launching Rail Safety Week. Phil Twyford said installing safety infrastructure is crucial, but we are encouraging people to be more careful around trains too. “We’re making good progress ...
The Government is providing a cash injection to help Palmerston North City Council complete a programme to provide 78 social housing units for vulnerable tenants. The $4.7 million to build 28 units in the Papaioea Place redevelopment comes from the $3 billion set aside for infrastructure in the Government’s COVID-19 ...
A pest free Banks Peninsula/Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū is one step closer with a $5.11 million boost to accelerate this project and create jobs, announced Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage in Canterbury today. “This is a game changer for this ambitious project to restore the native wildlife and plants on Ōtautahi/Christchurch’s doorstep ...
A Government grant of $6.4 million will expand the Pettigrew Arena in Taradale with new indoor courts of national standard. “The project is likely to take 18 months with approximately 300 people employed through the process,” Grant Robertson said. “The expansion will increase the indoor court space up to 11 ...
The Far North tourist destination of Mangonui is to receive Government funding to improve waterfront infrastructure, open up access to the harbour and improve water quality, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. A total of $6.5 million from the $3 billion set aside in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund ...
The Government has re-affirmed its commitment to supporting the hosting of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, which the ICC has delayed from 2021 to 2022. “This is obviously a disappointing decision for cricket players and fans around the world and for the White Ferns and their supporters here at ...
Cyclists and walkers will now have a safer way to get around Taupō, Tūrangi, and between Hamilton and Cambridge, with funding for shared paths and Te Awa River Ride, Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. “The Te Awa River Ride is the latest part of massive growth ...
Six major cycle routes will be completed in Christchurch thanks to funding from the Government’s investment in shovel-ready infrastructure as part of the COVID-19 recovery Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced today. $125 million will be invested to kick-start construction and fund the completion of the following cycleway ...
Plans are underway for a brand new state-of-the-art hub for Whanganui’s justice and social agencies, following confirmation the ageing Whanganui Central Police Station is to be replaced. Police Minister Stuart Nash has announced $25 million in new infrastructure spending to improve facilities for the wider community, and for staff who ...
An adjustment payment has been made to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu under the relativity mechanisms in their 1995 and 1997 Treaty of Waitangi settlements, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The latest payments to Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu are $2,700,000 and $2,600,000 respectively to ensure the ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off the start of the Auckland NZ Upgrade Programme rail projects which will support over 400 jobs and help unlock our biggest city. Both ministers marked the start of enabling works on the third main rail line project ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $3.78 million in Wairoa will create much needed economic stimulus and jobs, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. PGF projects announced today include: $200,000 loan to Nuhaka Kiwifruit Holdings Ltd (operated by Pine Valley Orchard Ltd) to increase the productivity ...
Tenants in public and Māori housing may be benefiting from their own affordable renewable energy in future – a fund to trial renewable energy technology for public and Māori housing has today been announced by Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods and Associate Minister for Housing (Māori Housing) Nanaia Mahuta. ...
Hokianga will receive $2.7 million to redevelop four of its wharves and upgrade its water supply, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Far North District Council will receive $1.8 million from the Provincial Growth Fund for the work on the wharves. “The work will include the construction of ...
A $350 million Residential Development Response Fund is being established to support the residential construction sector and to minimise the economic impact from COVID-19, the Housing Minister Dr Megan Woods has announced. “The Residential Development Response Fund will help to progress stalled or at-risk developments that support our broader housing ...
As part of a broader plan to divert waste from landfill, the Government today announced $10.67 million for new infrastructure as part of the Resource Recovery Network across the Auckland region. “This key investment in Auckland’s community recycling network is part of the Government’s Infrastructure Reference Group ‘shovel ready’ projects ...
The Government is investing $45 million in the first stage of an ambitious urban development project for Tauranga that will employ up to 250 people and help the region grow, Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says the funding has been allocated out of the $3 billion ...
The Government is investing more than $1.6 million from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) for a wide range of community and environmental projects in Hawke’s Bay, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. These announcements today are part of the Government’s commitment to supporting regional economies in the ...
Getting low-emission trucks on the road is a step closer with investment in infrastructure to support hydrogen vehicles, the Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods has announced. The Infrastructure Reference Group has provisionally approved $20 million for New Plymouth company Hiringa Energy to establish a nationwide network of hydrogen-fuelling stations. ...
By Sri Krishnamurthi, reporting for the Pacific Media Centre“Climate change may be slower but its momentum is enormous.” – Stuart Chape, Acting Director-General, South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP). Does anyone remember Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish environmentalist who caused a worldwide climate change stir – particularly among ...
An adventure story that splits the difference between action-packed intrigue and touching melancholy, Sam Brooks reviews Lizard’s Tale, which has just won the Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction. When you think of settings for a children’s novel, the dawn before the dusk of the Second World War ...
New Zealand reports seven new positive cases of Covid-19 but all are likely to be linked to an existing cluster, giving officials confidence of containment. Health Minister Chris Hipkins says the 37 current Covid-19 cases represent just 0.07 percent of people tested, and point towards this being a 'contained outbreak'. Today's seven ...
Latest from the Beehive Yes, we all now know Auckland must spend another fortnight at level 3 lockdown while the rest of New Zealand continues under level-2 restrictions. Until 11:59pm on August 26 Aucklanders are expected to stay home in a bid to stamp out what has been identified as ...
The current pandemic will be a brand new experience for most, but others have been here before. Kevin Hague explains what we can learn from the LGBTQ+ community’s experience of the HIV/AIDS outbreak from decades past.If there’s one group in our country who really knows about beating pandemics, it’s surely ...
By RNZ News A person who arrived in Japan from New Zealand with covid-19 visited Wairakei Terraces and Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland in Rotorua and Taupō shortly before their departure, health authorities have revealed. As a precaution, Toi Te Ora Public Health have alerted the public there was a “small possibility” ...
“Over 17,000 Kiwis signed a Parliamentary petition on vaping, which was then completely ignored until five days after the vaping bill was passed. It’s so disappointing and shows what a sham the whole process has been from beginning to end,” says Nancy ...
Some of the best shows on Neon will take between a day and weeks to get through. Here’s a guide to the classics you’ve been holding off on, how long they take to watch, and why you should watch them.It’s a scientific fact that there’s too much TV and nobody ...
In the first of a weekly election diary, Labour MP Deborah Russell explains how you campaign when the campaign is on hold. Tomorrow is National's Chris Bishop. This is now a campaign diary of not campaigning. Parliament finished up on Thursday last week, and in the way that Covid-time goes, that ...
From the trusty old blue disposable medical face mask to a bandana made out of a pair of gruts, New Zealand’s TV news and current affairs shows have been a veritable parade of PPE this week. José Barbosa has compiled all the best examples here:The news that Auckland was moving ...
It’s Amazon Prime Video’s new show about the most extreme adventure race in the world, and host Bear Grylls wants us to enjoy it from the comfort of our couch. I tried to kill Bear Grylls in You Vs Wild, really I did. I made him swim with crocodiles, I ...
By Cook Islands News Former Cook Islands prime minister Dr Joe Williams, 82, a distinguished medical practitioner in Auckland, has been admitted to hospital with covid-19. His medical practice was near the Americold cold store at the centre of the new community-transmission virus cluster in New Zealand. The practice is ...
She’s engaged, so why is the prime minister regularly appearing on a dating app? Zara Beauchamp investigates the strange case of Jacinda Ardern’s cameos on Tinder.I have recently gone back on dating apps. Since I was last in this murky, selfie-filled world of flirtation and despair, several things have changed ...
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage By Arturo López-LevyFrom Oakland, California Throughout the Democratic Party primary for the 2020 elections, for the first time all the candidates proposed a policy towards Cuba in line with the course of dialogue and exchange led by President Barack Obama in his ...
After 102 days without community transmission, New Zealand is once again grappling with increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases. The return to level 3 lockdown for Auckland is estimated to cost the city $150 million dollars. But what price are New Zealanders ...
Newshub’s bombshell story about a Newstalk ZB caller named Merv rocked New Zealand’s political landscape. Roger Bridge, who stands accused of also being Merv, yesterday resigned from the National Party board. But he is far from the first political figure to don a fake name and ring a talkback station. ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 15, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact us at info@thespinoff.co.nz.7.45am: Cook Islands ...
"One day, shifting him between grazing paddocks, they had to take the pony along the State Highway": a short story by Auckland writer Isabel Haarhaus. Melissa and her mother had moved into a garage. It was under the house of a friend of Tash’s. There they made a makeshift ...
Broadcaster Ryan Bridge will write a weekly column for Newsroom during the election campaign. Today, is the Prime Minister's lockdown strategy worth the price? The team of five million is splintering and there are early signs Jacinda Ardern’s campaign that wasn’t a campaign for re-election is wobbling. It’s becoming abundantly clear the Prime ...
The simple rules for wearing face masks during levels two and three – and how they can effectively limit the spread of Covid-19Lots of people might be wondering why we’re now being asked to wear face masks when we didn’t use them the first time we were stamping out Covid-19 ...
In Christchurch there’s a tiny shop with a big mantra - buy New Zealand made. Frank Film meets the passionate retailer and the clever Kiwis she’s helping. In Tessa Peach’s tightly crammed shop, you’ll find everything from drill bits and garden spades, to preserved fruits, frying pans, shoes and shoe ...
For now, New Zealand seems to have dodged a Covid-shaped bullet - but there are plenty of hard questions to be asked in the coming weeks, Sam Sachdeva writes You could almost hear five million sets of lungs exhaling in unison. A week ago, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement that Auckland ...
In this week's Extra Time, Barry Guy speaks to New Zealand canoe sprinter Alice Hoskin on the heart problem that threatened her career, and her life. Gisborne paddler Alicia Hoskin would have expected to have competed in her first-ever Olympics by now, but she isn't too concerned. She doesn't get upset ...
Tasked with scrutinising the agencies of state, Peter Boshier says being chief ombudsman is all about fairness and empathy. Michelle Langstone finds outf how life has prepared him for the role.Portraits by Edith Amituanai.Peter Boshier was robbed at knifepoint in a home invasion in Suva in 2002, had his eye ...
Jacinda Ardern and her cabinet yesterday chose the middle and least bad option. The next week will be critical in assessing whether the right choice was made, writes Justin Giovannetti from parliament.The sense of relief in the basement of the Beehive was unspoken but plain yesterday as Jacinda Ardern and ...
By RNZ News Auckland will remain in alert level three for a full two weeks, with the New Zealand government announcing that the country will remain at current covid-19 alert levels for 12 more days. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield have announced the decision ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The inquiry commissioned by the Berejiklian government into the Ruby Princess COVID-19 disaster has laid blame on NSW health officials, who made “inexcusable” and “inexplicable” mistakes. It also exonerated the Australian Border Force. In the ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson says he's looking at every support scheme on the Government's books to help cushion the blow of extended Level 3 restrictions in Auckland Wage subsidies will be extended nationwide as the effects of Auckland's Level 3 restrictions ripple across the country. However, questions are being asked ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Today’s chart compares this week’s Covid-19 outbreak in New Zealand with the latest case-data from other comparable countries. Note that the data plots new daily cases, smoothed using seven-day averages. However, the ‘black square’ represents New Zealand’s most recent daily total of new cases, at 260 ...
Safer Future trustees, from left, Richard Martin, Henoch Kloosterboer and Gael Goulter The Covid-19 extended restrictions will limit public discussion and education about the important issues involved in the End of Life Choice Act referendum. For that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janak Rogers, Associate Lecturer, Broadcast Journalism, RMIT University A Johannes Leak cartoon published in The Australian today, in which US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is depicted calling his vice-presidential running mate Kamala Harris a “little brown girl”, has drawn widespread condemnation. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics, University of South Australia Security guards at Melbourne’s quarantine hotels have been widely blamed for Victoria’s current outbreak of COVID-19. Reports have suggested they mixed inappropriately with people under quarantine, and did not properly follow instructions around ...
This Sunday on Q+A with Jack Tame Can New Zealand beat COVID-19 again? On Sunday, Jack interviews Health Minister Chris Hipkins and National leader Judith Collins. The Australian state of Victoria has been battling its own second wave. Melbourne ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University The normalisation of diplomatic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates has variously been described as a “breakthrough” and an important staging moment towards a comprehensive Middle East peace. These conclusions ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced Auckland will remain at Level 3 and the rest of New Zealand at Level 2 for 12 days Auckland's lockdown will continue until 11.59pm on Wednesday August 26. Cabinet has come to a decision on the next steps for managing a cluster of community ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Hooker, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator, Health and Medical Humanities, University of Sydney It could be a brother or sister. It could be a neighbour. It could be a person you work with. We probably all know someone who doesn’t wear a ...
The Save the Maitai campaigners have postponed their address to the Nelson City Council this week due to Covid 19 restrictions. About 100 people were to attend Council’s Thursday meeting to support their representatives due to advise the Council that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Graham, Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology At midday on August 12 2020, the hashtag #DanLiedPeopleDied started trending on Twitter. By evening it had attracted over 10,000 tweets. The hashtag appeared to reflect widespread public distrust in Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Doctor of Botany, University of Melbourne With massive fronds creating a luxuriously green canopy in the understory of Australian forests, tree ferns are a familiar sight on many long drives or bushwalks. But how much do you really know about ...
Government minister James Shaw is in the clear after being tested for coronavirus as a precaution Green Party co-leader James Shaw has tested negative for Covid-19 after undergoing a precautionary test following a campaign trip to South Auckland last weekend. Shaw announced on Thursday he was self-isolating at home and awaiting ...
The Government is scrambling to ramp up the testing of border workers and the Health Minister has conceded he would have liked to have seen more of it earlier Health Minister Chris Hipkins is about to sign an order making it compulsory to test staff working at the border and in managed ...
The Public Service Association is strongly in favour of border control, managed isolation and quarantine workers getting a Covid-19 test as soon as possible, and supports the tests being mandatory and regular. PSA members from multiple government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon discuss the week in politics. This week Michelle and Paddy discuss the week of hearings before the Royal ...
A senior National party figure accused of attempting to derail a candidate for the Auckland Central seat with a late-night call to talkback radio has stood down. ...
We waste $1.6b in food in NZ every year. With more people struggling to put food on the table thanks to Covid-19, Two Cents' Worth looks at what we can do to change our habits. ...
Theatre owners are up in arms that potential blockbuster Mulan – filmed in New Zealand and directed by hometown hero Niki Caro – is to be premiered not in cinemas, but on Disney’s streaming platform, Disney+.On an office wall somewhere hangs a picture of Disney CEO Bob Chapek – target ...
A Wellington restaurateur was told by health officials that one of his venues had been visited by a Covid-positive person. So why did the health minister and director general of health not know anything? Stewart Sowman-Lund reports.You’d think the possibility that Covid-19 was in capital would be big news. Big ...
Whatever new arrangements may be put in place in response to Covid 19 for the General Election 2020, the Electoral Commission have been questioned as to what changes they have made to ensure the multiple problems experienced by Māori voters in the last ...
The Covid resurgence cluster is now at 29 confirmed cases, with one further unlinked case. Chris McDowall presents the latest information in visual form.With thanks to the Science Media Centre.Information about the resurgence of confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand is changing rapidly. These posts collate the ...
Analysis - Judith Collins pushes for the election to be delayed due to the Covid-19 outbreak and Gerry Brownlee is accused of undermining efforts to control the virus. ...
Senior doctors at the Canterbury DHB are calling on the Board to front up to staff and to the people of Canterbury. More than 100 members of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists and the Canterbury Hospitals’ Medical Staff Association met ...
By RNZ News New Zealand has announced there are 12 new cases and one probable case of covid-19 in Auckland and Waikato today. Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield revealed at today’s daily briefing there were now a total of 48 active cases, with 30 linked to the community outbreak. ...
Some Cook Islanders are expressing anger at the failure to implement stronger border control public health measures in response to 17 new community-transmitted covid-19 cases in New Zealand – and a further 13 today. Social media is abuzz with comments from some concerned locals. The island’s 10 volunteer puna cannot ...
New Zealanders are being encouraged to look at nature through new eyes during Conservation Week 2020, which this year is from 15 to 23 August. Conservation Week is an annual event led by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and this year’s focus is on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adele Marum, PhD Candidate in English, University of Melbourne Review: Little Birds, Sky Atlantic, released on Stan August 5 2020Little Birds adapts a 1979 collection of French-born diarist Anaïs Nin’s unsettling erotic short stories published two years after her death. Nin ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lorraine Finlay, Lecturer in Law, Murdoch University The events of the past few days in Western Australia have been extraordinary as the protracted conflict between the government and mining billionaire Clive Palmer reached a fever pitch. Premier Mark McGowan declared the state ...
How is New Zealand faring during the Covid-19 pandemic? Newsroom is taking a weekly look at the latest numbers related to the virus and the impact on the economy.Excess deaths Overseas the death toll in some countries has risen sharply, with ...
Responding to National Party Leader Judith Collins's comments this morning , the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union is criticising the National Party for softening its stance on reducing debt. Spokesperson Islay Aitchison says, "Reducing public ...
New Zealand's first cluster of community cases of Covid-19 in months has now spread to the Waikato, Marc Daalder reports Two new cases of Covid-19 associated with the community transmission cases identified on Tuesday have been found in the Waikato, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said on Friday. Previously, all active ...
'Go hard, go early' has undoubtedly been a successful medical strategy. However, unpredictable, on-again off-again stringent lockdowns may produce so much uncertainty that other outcomes start to deteriorate, writes Robert MacCulloch. New Zealand's approach to keeping Coronavirus away from our shores, or at least stuck in our quarantine facilities, has been ...
Before we get to the top 10s, a note from the good folk at Unity Auckland: Wednesday, first thing, we found people knocking on the shop door before we had a chance to flick the lights on. This time around folk were not going to be without their reading materials. There ...
By Barbara Dreaver, 1 NEWS Pacific correspondent Pasifika family or just an Auckland family? There has been much debate over whether it was wrong to identify the family at the centre of New Zealand’s covid-cluster as a “Pasifika family”. As Pacific correspondent let me make this clear – it would ...
A new poem from Christchurch poet and environmental activist E Wen Wong.passport to the seasonsleaves f a l l crisp like coconut husks, fraying threads of winter’s snow. the hairs of the pōhutukawa stand on their necks doused in a chilli seeds they hang ...
Māori must move to Level 4 Lockdown and the borders must be closed for the next 14 days - even to overseas whānau wanting to return home – to ensure proper border control. That’s the call from the Māori Party who are calling on Māori to unite ...
Opinion: Why is JK Rowling so mad about periods, and why are so many people mad at JK Rowling? Alice Snedden waded into the volatile waters of Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism for the latest episode of Bad News.After the horrible year we’ve had, the last thing anybody needed was for ...
By RNZ News The lack of testing of staff at New Zealand’s border is extraordinary, a prominent epidemiologist says. Health officials are frantically trying to trace the origin of the covid-19 cluster in Auckland, which could have come from the border. Otago University professor Sir David Skegg told RNZ Morning ...
Federated Farmers says the government needs to reconsider and let small business fresh food sellers stay open under level 3 and, if necessary, at level 4. "Let the little guys stay open, and sell fresh food, because it’s safer, fairer and ...
Latest from the Beehive Cabinet’s preoccupation with the re-emergence of Covid-19 in the community – we suppose – explains why there has been a lack of pronouncements from the Beehive over the past day or two. We found only three new posts on the Beehive website since we last reported. ...
Auckland is at alert level three, and the rest of the country level two, until midnight tonight. At 5.30pm this evening, we’ll find out what happens next. These are the factors cabinet is likely to consider in making the decision.During the first wave, the announcement we were moving into lockdown ...
Open mike 04/12/2014 
Open mike is your post.
Below is the list of gender-critical material which appeared on Redline from November 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019. Submission for rationality and science against the assaults of pre-modernism and post-modernism The left and violent misogyny Marvelly shows us how to be a feminist without feminism Georgina Beyer: We need ...9 hours ago
Watching National's Health spokesman, Dr Shane Reti, on TVNZ yesterday morning was instructive:In four minutes, he managed to undermine both his leader and deputy leader - refusing to twist th knife Collins had attempted to plant in Labour, by acknowledging the government was doing "the best they can" and they ...13 hours ago
The old ways of thinking about the macroeconomy have been found wanting, but the alternative is not clear. Macroeconomics – understanding how the economy as a whole works – appears to be going through a time of exceptionally great turbulence. There is always a robust debate, but today ...1 day ago
by Daphna Whitmore The outbreak of Covid-19 in the community is getting people to starting to thinking about the elimination strategy. Initially the government said ‘flatten the curve’ in order to avoid hospitals being overloaded with a sudden influx of Covid-19 cases. This made sense, but there were some experts, most ...1 day ago
How corrupt is Queensland? Yesterday they actually tried to ban journalists from exposing political corruption during election campaigns. Fortunately, today they changed their minds: A day after introducing laws that would ban journalists from reporting corruption allegations during elections, the State Government has withdrawn the proposal in a spectacular ...1 day ago
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As New Zealand holds its breath waiting to find out the extent of the latest cases of COVID-19 community transmission, it’s hard to avoid the growing amount of mis- and dis-information online. It’s a very natural instinct to want to debunk this misinformation, but unfortunately, science communication theory shows that ...2 days ago
Campaigns suspended just as they began. Election day in doubt. And - following the 'words beginning with C' theme from last week's Caucus podcast - heated debate over conspiracies and constitutional conventions as Covid returns to the community. This week in politics is has been a disaster for Election 2020; you ...2 days ago
And sooner or later, the National Party will simply have to own up to the fact that the reason she was never chosen as Leader prior to her rolling Todd Muller a little less than a month ago was for very solid ones: the display of some truly ugly behaviour ...2 days ago
Conspiracy theorist - Gerry BrownleeWhat on earth is going on with the National Party? Now that Crusher Collins is in charge, it seems like it’s their policy to say really dumb things just to get attention. Unfortunately it’s working, with most of the mainstream media bending over backwards to provide ...3 days ago
INT: ILAM ELECTORATE OFFICES – TUESDAY GERRY: Morning everybody. ADVISORS 1, 2, AND 3: Morning Gerry. GERRY: Now… this is a bit of a crisis meeting. Several rogue polls have come out putting the National Party on or around 40% ADVISOR 2: 26? ADVISOR 1: 12? ADVISOR 3: 29? GERRY: ...3 days ago
Respecting the journal editorial process Each week we scan between 450 and 650 articles for relevance to Skeptical Science's remit: communication of the science of climate change itself the many affected branches of scientific inquiry by climate change. The 100+ journals we cover encompass a galaxy of expertise we cannot ...3 days ago
What to do to improve the public perception of the newly elected National party leader, when her performance so far has no doubt disappointed the expectations of her supporters? The answer is to get a National-supporting newspaper (the Herald) to organise a poll that could be guaranteed to provide an ...5 days ago
There are only a few days left to make a submission on Statistics New Zealand's consultation on sex and gender identity statistical standards. This represents a really important step for recognising the very real diversity of gender, including people with no gender, and ensuring everyone has the option to see ...5 days ago
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From some quarters, incessant scaremongering. From others, it’s a full-on tilt into touching the alarmist buttons a little too readily (uncertain times make for very captive audiences with this angle of attack). The (so-called) Opposition (and merely regarding them as that seems to be a far looser term now ...1 week ago
Government has decided in-principle to extend the wage subsidy scheme. We have also agreed in-principle to extend the mortgage deferral scheme, and to modify the COVID-19 Sick Leave Scheme to make it more accessible. Details will be finalised over the weekend and announced on Monday. ...8 hours ago
Green Party Co-leader James Shaw is awaiting the result of a precautionary COVID-19 test after travelling to the South Auckland area over the weekend. ...3 days ago
In-principle decision to extend wage subsidy to support businesses and protect jobs Support will be nationwide in recognition of Auckland’s position in NZ economy and the impact of Level 2 Mortgage deferral scheme to be extended to support households The Government is taking action to support businesses and protect jobs ...1 day ago
By Sri Krishnamurthi, reporting for the Pacific Media Centre “Climate change may be slower but its momentum is enormous.” – Stuart Chape, Acting Director-General, South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP). Does anyone remember Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish environmentalist who caused a worldwide climate change stir – particularly among ...5 hours ago
An adventure story that splits the difference between action-packed intrigue and touching melancholy, Sam Brooks reviews Lizard’s Tale, which has just won the Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction. When you think of settings for a children’s novel, the dawn before the dusk of the Second World War ...8 hours ago
New Zealand reports seven new positive cases of Covid-19 but all are likely to be linked to an existing cluster, giving officials confidence of containment. Health Minister Chris Hipkins says the 37 current Covid-19 cases represent just 0.07 percent of people tested, and point towards this being a 'contained outbreak'. Today's seven ...9 hours ago
Latest from the Beehive Yes, we all now know Auckland must spend another fortnight at level 3 lockdown while the rest of New Zealand continues under level-2 restrictions. Until 11:59pm on August 26 Aucklanders are expected to stay home in a bid to stamp out what has been identified as ...11 hours ago
“Over 17,000 Kiwis signed a Parliamentary petition on vaping, which was then completely ignored until five days after the vaping bill was passed. It’s so disappointing and shows what a sham the whole process has been from beginning to end,” says Nancy ...12 hours ago
In the first of a weekly election diary, Labour MP Deborah Russell explains how you campaign when the campaign is on hold. Tomorrow is National's Chris Bishop. This is now a campaign diary of not campaigning. Parliament finished up on Thursday last week, and in the way that Covid-time goes, that ...12 hours ago
"One day, shifting him between grazing paddocks, they had to take the pony along the State Highway": a short story by Auckland writer Isabel Haarhaus. Melissa and her mother had moved into a garage. It was under the house of a friend of Tash’s. There they made a makeshift ...17 hours ago
Broadcaster Ryan Bridge will write a weekly column for Newsroom during the election campaign. Today, is the Prime Minister's lockdown strategy worth the price? The team of five million is splintering and there are early signs Jacinda Ardern’s campaign that wasn’t a campaign for re-election is wobbling. It’s becoming abundantly clear the Prime ...17 hours ago
In Christchurch there’s a tiny shop with a big mantra - buy New Zealand made. Frank Film meets the passionate retailer and the clever Kiwis she’s helping. In Tessa Peach’s tightly crammed shop, you’ll find everything from drill bits and garden spades, to preserved fruits, frying pans, shoes and shoe ...18 hours ago
For now, New Zealand seems to have dodged a Covid-shaped bullet - but there are plenty of hard questions to be asked in the coming weeks, Sam Sachdeva writes You could almost hear five million sets of lungs exhaling in unison. A week ago, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement that Auckland ...18 hours ago
In this week's Extra Time, Barry Guy speaks to New Zealand canoe sprinter Alice Hoskin on the heart problem that threatened her career, and her life. Gisborne paddler Alicia Hoskin would have expected to have competed in her first-ever Olympics by now, but she isn't too concerned. She doesn't get upset ...18 hours ago
Finance Minister Grant Robertson says he's looking at every support scheme on the Government's books to help cushion the blow of extended Level 3 restrictions in Auckland Wage subsidies will be extended nationwide as the effects of Auckland's Level 3 restrictions ripple across the country. However, questions are being asked ...1 day ago
Green Party co-leader James Shaw has tested negative for Covid-19 following a trip to Auckland. ...1 day ago
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced Auckland will remain at Level 3 and the rest of New Zealand at Level 2 for 12 days Auckland's lockdown will continue until 11.59pm on Wednesday August 26. Cabinet has come to a decision on the next steps for managing a cluster of community ...1 day ago
Government minister James Shaw is in the clear after being tested for coronavirus as a precaution Green Party co-leader James Shaw has tested negative for Covid-19 after undergoing a precautionary test following a campaign trip to South Auckland last weekend. Shaw announced on Thursday he was self-isolating at home and awaiting ...1 day ago
The Government is scrambling to ramp up the testing of border workers and the Health Minister has conceded he would have liked to have seen more of it earlier Health Minister Chris Hipkins is about to sign an order making it compulsory to test staff working at the border and in managed ...1 day ago
We waste $1.6b in food in NZ every year. With more people struggling to put food on the table thanks to Covid-19, Two Cents' Worth looks at what we can do to change our habits. ...1 day ago
How is New Zealand faring during the Covid-19 pandemic? Newsroom is taking a weekly look at the latest numbers related to the virus and the impact on the economy. Excess deaths Overseas the death toll in some countries has risen sharply, with ...1 day ago
New Zealand's first cluster of community cases of Covid-19 in months has now spread to the Waikato, Marc Daalder reports Two new cases of Covid-19 associated with the community transmission cases identified on Tuesday have been found in the Waikato, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said on Friday. Previously, all active ...1 day ago
'Go hard, go early' has undoubtedly been a successful medical strategy. However, unpredictable, on-again off-again stringent lockdowns may produce so much uncertainty that other outcomes start to deteriorate, writes Robert MacCulloch. New Zealand's approach to keeping Coronavirus away from our shores, or at least stuck in our quarantine facilities, has been ...1 day ago
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.