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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWgbACDHK2Q
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.
Workers Now is a new slate of candidates contesting this year’s general election. James Robb and Don Franks are the people behind this initiative and they are hoping to put the spotlight on working people’s interests. Both are seasoned activists who have campaigned for workers’ rights over many decades. Here is ...
Buzz from the Beehive Politicians keen to curry favour with Māori tribal leaders have headed north for Waitangi weekend. More than a few million dollars of public funding are headed north, too. Not all of this money is being trumpeted on the Beehive website, the Government’s official website. ...
Insurers face claims of over $500 million for cars, homes and property damaged in the floods. They are already putting up premiums and pulling insurance from properties deemed at high risk of flooding. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: This week in the podcast of our weekly hoon webinar for paying subscribers, ...
Our Cranky Uncle Game can already be played in eight languages: English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. About 15 more languages are in the works at various stages of completion or have been offered to be done. To kick off the new year, we checked with how ...
The (new) Prime Minister said nobody understands what co-governance means, later modified to that there were so many varying interpretations that there was no common understanding.Co-governance cannot be derived from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It does not use the word. It refers to ‘government’ on ...
It’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kaka. Jump on this link for our chat about the week’s news with special guests Auckland Central MP Chloe Swarbrick and Auckland City Councillor Julie Fairey, including:Auckland’s catastrophic floods, which ...
In March last year, in a panic over rising petrol prices caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the government made a poor decision, "temporarily" cutting fuel excise tax by 25 cents a litre. Of course, it turned out not to be temporary at all, having been extended in May, July, ...
This month’s open thread for climate related topics. Please be constructive, polite, and succinct. The post Unforced variations: Feb 2023 first appeared on RealClimate. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two fresh press releases had been posted when we checked the Beehive website at noon, both of them posted yesterday. In one statement, in the runup to Waitangi Day, Maori Crown Relations Minister Kelvin Davis drew attention to happenings on a Northland battle site in 1845. ...
It’s that time of the week again when I’m on the site for an hour for a chat in an Ask Me Anything with paying subscribers to The Kaka. Jump in for a chat on anything, including:Auckland’s catastrophic floods, which are set to cost insurers and the Government well over ...
Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers (left) has published a 6,000 word manifesto called ‘Capitalism after the Crises’ arguing for ‘values-based capitalism’. Yet here in NZ we hear the same stale old rhetoric unchanged from the 1990s and early 2000s. Photo: Getty ImagesTLDR: The rest of the world is talking about inflation ...
A couple of weeks ago, after NCEA results came out, my son’s enrolment at Auckland Uni for this year was confirmed - he is doing a BSc majoring in Statistics. Well that is the plan now, who knows what will take his interest once he starts.I spent a bit of ...
Kia ora. What a week! We hope you’ve all come through last weekend’s extreme weather event relatively dry and safe. Header image: stormwater ponds at Hobsonville Point. Image via Twitter. The week in Greater Auckland There’s been a storm of information and debate since the worst of the flooding ...
Hi,At 4.43pm yesterday it arrived — a cease and desist letter from the guy I mentioned in my last newsletter. I’d written an article about “WEWE”, a global multi-level marketing scam making in-roads into New Zealand. MLMs are terrible for many of the same reasons megachurches are terrible, and I ...
Time To Call A Halt: Chris Hipkins knows that iwi leaders possess the means to make life very difficult for his government. Notwithstanding their objections, however, the Prime Minister’s direction of travel – already clearly signalled by his very public demotion of Nanaia Mahuta – must be confirmed by an emphatic ...
Open access notables Via PNAS, Ceylan, Anderson & Wood present a paper squarely in the center of the Skeptical Science wheelhouse: Sharing of misinformation is habitual, not just lazy or biased. The signficance statement is obvious catnip: Misinformation is a worldwide concern carrying socioeconomic and political consequences. What drives ...
Mark White from the Left free speech organisation Plebity looks at the disturbing trend of ‘book burning’ on US campuses In the abstract, people mostly agree that book banning is a bad thing. The Nazis did us the favor of being very clear about it and literally burning books, but ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has undergone a stern baptisim of fire in his first week in his new job, but it doesn’t get any easier. Next week, he has a vital meeting in Canberra with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, where he has to establish ...
As PM Chris Hipkins says, it’s a “no brainer” to extend the fuel tax cut, half price public subsidy and the cut to the road user levy until mid-year. A no braoner if the prime purpose is to ease the burden on people struggling to cope with the cost of ...
Buzz from the Beehive Cost-of-living pressures loomed large in Beehive announcements over the past 24 hours. The PM was obviously keen to announce further measures to keep those costs in check and demonstrate he means business when he talks of focusing his government on bread-and-butter issues. His statement was headed ...
Poor Mike Hosking. He has revealed himself in his most recent diatribe to be one of those public figures who is defined, not by who he is, but by who he isn’t, or at least not by what he is for, but by what he is against. Jacinda’s departure has ...
New Zealand is the second least corrupt country on earth according to the latest Corruption Perception Index published yesterday by Transparency International. But how much does this reflect reality? The problem with being continually feted for world-leading political integrity – which the Beehive and government departments love to boast about ...
TLDR: Including my pick of the news and other links in my checks around the news sites since 4am. Paying subscribers can see them all below the fold.In Aotearoa’s political economyBrown vs Fish Read more ...
TLDR: Including my pick of the news and other links in my checks around the news sites since 4am. Paying subscribers can see them all below the fold.In Aotearoa’s political economyBrown vs Fish Read more ...
In other countries, the target-rich cohorts of swinging voters are given labels such as ‘Mondeo Man’, ‘White Van Man,’ ‘Soccer Moms’ and ‘Little Aussie Battlers.’ Here, the easiest shorthand is ‘Ford Ranger Man’ – as seen here parked outside a Herne Bay restaurant, inbetween two SUVs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / ...
In other countries, the target-rich cohorts of swinging voters are given labels such as ‘Mondeo Man’, ‘White Van Man,’ ‘Soccer Moms’ and ‘Little Aussie Battlers.’ Here, the easiest shorthand is ‘Ford Ranger Man’ – as seen here parked outside a Herne Bay restaurant, inbetween two SUVs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / ...
Transport Minister and now also Minister for Auckland, Michael Wood has confirmed that the light rail project is part of the government’s policy refocus. Wood said the light rail project was under review as part of a ministerial refocus on key Government projects. “We are undertaking a stocktake about how ...
Sometime before the new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced that this year would be about “bread and butter issues”, National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis decided to move from Wellington Central and stand for Ohariu, which spreads across north Wellington from the central city to Johnsonville and Tawa. It’s an ...
They say a week is a long time in politics. For Mayor Wayne Brown, turns out 24 hours was long enough for many of us to see, quite obviously, “something isn’t right here…”. That in fact, a lot was going wrong. Very wrong indeed.Mainly because it turns ...
One of the most effective, and successful, graphics developed by Skeptical Science is the escalator. The escalator shows how global surface temperature anomalies vary with time, and illustrates how "contrarians" tend to cherry-pick short time intervals so as to argue that there has been no recent warming, while "realists" recognise ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Here’s a quick roundup of the news today for paying subscribers on a slightly frantic, very wet, and then very warm day. In Aotearoa’s political economy today Read more ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Here’s a quick roundup of the news today for paying subscribers on a slightly frantic, very wet, and then very warm day. In Aotearoa’s political economy today Read more ...
Tomorrow we have a funeral, and thank you all of you for your very kind words and thoughts — flowers, even.Our friend Michèle messaged: we never get to feel one thing at a time, us grownups, and oh boy is that ever the truth. Tomorrow we have the funeral, and ...
Lynn and I have just returned from a news conference where Hipkins, fresh from visiting a relief centre in Mangere, was repeatedly challenged to justify the extension of subsidies to create more climate emissions when the effects of climate change had just proved so disastrous. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
Lynn and I have just returned from a news conference where Hipkins, fresh from visiting a relief centre in Mangere, was repeatedly challenged to justify the extension of subsidies to create more climate emissions when the effects of climate change had just proved so disastrous. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
A new Prime Minister, a revitalised Cabinet, and possibly revised priorities – but is the political and, importantly, economic landscape much different? Certainly some within the news media were excited by the changes which Chris Hipkins announced yesterday or – before the announcement – by the prospect of changes in ...
Currently the government's strategy for reducing transport emissions hinges on boosting vehicle fuel-efficiency, via the clean car standard and clean car discount, and some improvements to public transport. The former has been hugely successful, and has clearly set us on the right path, but its also not enough, and will ...
Buzz from the Beehive Before he announced his Cabinet yesterday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced he would be flying to Australia next week to meet that country’s Prime Minister. And before Kieran McAnulty had time to say “Three Waters” after his promotion to the Local Government portfolio, he was dishing ...
The quarterly labour market statistics were released this morning, showing that unemployment has risen slightly to 3.4%. There are now 99,000 people unemployed - 24,000 fewer than when Labour took office. So, I guess the Reserve Bank's plan to throw people out of work to stop wage rises "inflation", and ...
Another night of heavy rain, flooding, damage to homes, and people worried about where the hell all this water is going to go as we enter day twenty two of rain this year.Honestly if the government can’t sell Three Waters on the back of what has happened with storm water ...
* Dr Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Chris Hipkins continues to be the new broom in Government, re-setting his Government away from its problem areas in his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, and trying to convince voters that Labour is focused on “bread and butter” issues. The ministers responsible for unpopular ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins continues to be the new broom in Government, re-setting his Government away from its problem areas in his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, and trying to convince voters that Labour is focused on “bread and butter” issues. The ministers responsible for unpopular reforms in water and DHB centralisation ...
Hi,It’s weird to me that in 2023 we still have people falling for multi-level marketing schemes (MLMs for short). There are Netflix documentaries about them, countless articles, and last year we did an Armchaired and Dangerous episode on them.Then you check a ticketing website like EventBrite and see this shit ...
Nanaia Mahuta fell the furthest in the Cabinet reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: PM Chris Hipkins unveiled a Cabinet this afternoon he hopes will show wavering voters that a refreshed Labour Government is focused on ‘bread and butter cost of living’ issues, rather than the unpopular, unwieldy and massively centralising ...
Nanaia Mahuta fell the furthest in the Cabinet reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: PM Chris Hipkins unveiled a Cabinet this afternoon he hopes will show wavering voters that a refreshed Labour Government is focused on ‘bread and butter cost of living’ issues, rather than the unpopular, unwieldy and massively centralising ...
Shortly, the absolute state of Wayne Brown. But before that, something I wrote four years ago for the council’s own media machine. It was a day-in-the-life profile of their many and varied and quite possibly unnoticed vital services. We went all over Auckland in 48 hours for the story, the ...
Completed reads for January Lilith, by George MacDonald The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Christabel (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, by Anonymous The Lay of Kraka (poem), by Anonymous 1066 and All That, by W.C. Sellar and R.J. ...
Pity the poor Brits. They just can’t catch a break. After years of reporting of lying Boris Johnson, a change to a less colourful PM in Rishi Sunak has resulted in a smooth media pivot to an end-of-empire narrative. The New York Times, no less, amplifies suggestions that Blighty ...
On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth.Genesis 6:11-12THE TORRENTIAL DOWNPOURS that dumped a record-breaking amount of rain on Auckland this anniversary weekend will reoccur with ever-increasing frequency. The planet’s atmosphere is ...
Buzz from the Beehive There has been plenty to keep the relevant Ministers busy in flood-stricken Auckland over the past day or two. But New Zealand, last time we looked, extends north of Auckland into Northland and south of the Bombay Hills all the way to the bottom of the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters When early settlers came to the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers before the California Gold Rush, Indigenous people warned them that the Sacramento Valley could become an inland sea when great winter rains came. The storytellers described water filling the ...
Wayne Brown managed a smile when meeting with Remuera residents, but he was grumpy about having to deal with “media drongos”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: In my pick of the news links found in my rounds since 4am for paying subscribers below the paywall:Wayne Brown moans about the media and ...
Wayne Brown managed a smile when meeting with Remuera residents, but he was grumpy about having to deal with “media drongos”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: In my pick of the news links found in my rounds since 4am for paying subscribers below the paywall:Wayne Brown moans about the media and ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes – Last night’s opinion polls answered the big question of whether a switch of prime minister would really be a gamechanger for election year. The 1News and Newshub polls released at 6pm gave the same response: the shift from Jacinda Ardern to Chris Hipkins ...
Hipkins’ aim this year will be to present a ‘low target’ for those seeking to attack Labour’s policies and spending. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: Anyone dealing with Government departments and councils who wants some sort of big or long-term decision out of officials or politicians this year should brace for ...
Hipkins’ aim this year will be to present a ‘low target’ for those seeking to attack Labour’s policies and spending. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: Anyone dealing with Government departments and councils who wants some sort of big or long-term decision out of officials or politicians this year should brace for ...
Last night’s opinion polls answered the big question of whether a switch of prime minister would really be a gamechanger for election year. The 1News and Newshub polls released at 6pm gave the same response: the shift from Jacinda Ardern to Chris Hipkins has changed everything, and Labour is back ...
Over the last few years, it’s seemed like city after city around the world has become subject to extreme flooding events that have been made worse by impacts from climate change. We’ve highlighted many of them in our Weekly Roundup series. Sadly, over the last few days it’s been Auckland’s ...
And so the first month of the year draws to a close. It rained in Auckland on 21 out of the 31 days in January. Feels like summer never really happened this year. It’s actually hard to believe there were 10 days that it didn’t rain. Was it any better where ...
A ‘small target’ strategy is not going to cut it anymore if National want to win the upcoming election. The game has changed and the game plan needs to change as well. Jacinda Ardern’s abrupt departure from the 9th floor has the potential to derail what looked to be an ...
When Grant Robertson talks about how the economy might change post-covid, one of the things he talks about is what he calls an unsung but interesting white paper on science. “It’s really important,” he says. The Minister in charge of the White Paper — Te Ara Paerangi, Future Pathways ...
The clean up has begun but more rain is on the way. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: Auckland’s floods over the last three days are turning into a macroeconomic event, with losses from Aotearoa’s biggest-ever climate event estimated at around $500 million and Auckland’s schools all closed for a week until ...
The clean up has begun but more rain is on the way. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: Auckland’s floods over the last three days are turning into a macroeconomic event, with losses from Aotearoa’s biggest-ever climate event estimated at around $500 million and Auckland’s schools all closed for a week until ...
The news media were at one ceremony by the looks of things. The Governor-General, the Prime Minister and his deputy were at another. The news media were at a swearing-in ceremony. The country’s leaders were at an appointment ceremony. The New Zealand Gazette record of what transpired says: Appointment of ...
I n some alternative universe, Auckland mayor Efeso Collins readily grasped the scale of Friday’s deluge, and quickly made the emergency declaration that enabled central government to immediately throw its resources behind the rescue and remediation effort. As Friday evening became night, Mayor Collins seemed to be everywhere: talking with ...
They called it an “atmospheric river”, the weather bombardment which hit NZ’s northern region at the weekend. It exacted a terrible toll on metropolitan Auckland and the rest of the region. Few living there may have noted a statement from electricity generator Mercury Energy labelled “WET, WET, WET!” This was ...
I know, that is a pretty corny title but given the circumstances here in the Auckland region, I just had to say it. The more oblique reference embedded in the title is to the leadership failures exhibited by Mayor Wayne Brown and his so-called leadership team when confronted by the ...
How much confidence should the public have in authorities managing natural disasters? Not much, judging by the farcical way in which the civil defence emergence in Auckland has played out. The way authorities dealt with Auckland’s extreme weather on Friday illustrated how hit-and-miss our civil defence emergency system is. In ...
TLDR: Here’s the key news links and useful longer reads I’ve spotted since 4 am this morning, including:calls for a more ‘spongey’ urban infrastructure after Auckland’s floods;demands for an inquiry into Auckland Council’s communications failure;the latest on Chris Hipkins’ plans for Three Waters; inside the PR trainwreck that is Wayne ...
TLDR: Here’s the key news links and useful longer reads I’ve spotted since 4 am this morning, including:calls for a more ‘spongey’ urban infrastructure after Auckland’s floods;demands for an inquiry into Auckland Council’s communications failure;the latest on Chris Hipkins’ plans for Three Waters; inside the PR trainwreck that is Wayne ...
Mayor Wayne Brown, under fire for his communication failures, quietly visited the scene of the fatal Remuera slip on Sunday, with his staff taking photos for social media updates. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: The cleanup and the post-mortem have begun, even though the rain just keeps falling in Auckland after ...
We’ve just announced a massive infrastructure investment to kick-start new housing developments across New Zealand. Through our Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, we’re making sure that critical infrastructure - like pipes, roads and wastewater connections - is in place, so thousands more homes can be built. ...
The Green Party is joining more than 20 community organisations to call for an immediate rent freeze in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, after reports of landlords intending to hike rents after flooding. ...
When Chris Hipkins took on the job of Prime Minister, he said bread and butter issues like the cost of living would be the Government’s top priority – and this week, we’ve set out extra support for families and businesses. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to provide direct support to low-income households and to stop subsidising fossil fuels during a climate crisis. ...
The tools exist to help families with surging costs – and as costs continue to rise it is more urgent than ever that we use them, the Green Party says. ...
Over $10 million infrastructure funding to unlock housing in Whangārei The purchase of a 3.279 hectare site in Kerikeri to enable 56 new homes Northland becomes eligible for $100 million scheme for affordable rentals Multiple Northland communities will benefit from multiple Government housing investments, delivering thousands of new homes for ...
A memorial event at a key battle site in the New Zealand land wars is an important event to mark the progress in relations between Māori and the Crown as we head towards Waitangi Day, Minister for Te Arawhiti Kelvin Davis said. The Battle of Ohaeawai in June 1845 saw ...
More Police officers are being deployed to the frontline with the graduation of 54 new constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. The graduation ceremony for Recruit Wing 362 at Te Rauparaha Arena in Porirua was the first official event for Stuart Nash since his reappointment as Police ...
The Government is unlocking an additional $700,000 in support for regions that have been badly hit by the recent flooding and storm damage in the upper North Island. “We’re supporting the response and recovery of Auckland, Waikato, Coromandel, Northland, and Bay of Plenty regions, through activating Enhanced Taskforce Green to ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has welcomed the announcement that Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, will visit New Zealand this month. “Princess Anne is travelling to Aotearoa at the request of the NZ Army’s Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals, of which she is Colonel in Chief, to ...
A new Government and industry strategy launched today has its sights on growing the value of New Zealand’s horticultural production to $12 billion by 2035, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said. “Our food and fibre exports are vital to New Zealand’s economic security. We’re focussed on long-term strategies that build on ...
25 cents per litre petrol excise duty cut extended to 30 June 2023 – reducing an average 60 litre tank of petrol by $17.25 Road User Charge discount will be re-introduced and continue through until 30 June Half price public transport fares extended to the end of June 2023 saving ...
The strong economy has attracted more people into the workforce, with a record number of New Zealanders in paid work and wages rising to help with cost of living pressures. “The Government’s economic plan is delivering on more better-paid jobs, growing wages and creating more opportunities for more New Zealanders,” ...
The Government is providing a further $1 million to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced today. “Cabinet today agreed that, given the severity of the event, a further $1 million contribution be made. Cabinet wishes to be proactive ...
The new Cabinet will be focused on core bread and butter issues like the cost of living, education, health, housing and keeping communities and businesses safe, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has announced. “We need a greater focus on what’s in front of New Zealanders right now. The new Cabinet line ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will travel to Canberra next week for an in person meeting with Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. “The trans-Tasman relationship is New Zealand’s closest and most important, and it was crucial to me that my first overseas trip as Prime Minister was to Australia,” Chris Hipkins ...
The Government is providing establishment funding of $100,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced. “We moved quickly to make available this funding to support Aucklanders while the full extent of the damage is being assessed,” Kieran McAnulty ...
As the Mayor of Auckland has announced a state of emergency, the Government, through NEMA, is able to step up support for those affected by flooding in Auckland. “I’d urge people to follow the advice of authorities and check Auckland Emergency Management for the latest information. As always, the Government ...
Ka papā te whatitiri, Hikohiko ana te uira, wāhi rua mai ana rā runga mai o Huruiki maunga Kua hinga te māreikura o te Nota, a Titewhai Harawira Nā reira, e te kahurangi, takoto, e moe Ka mōwai koa a Whakapara, kua uhia te Tai Tokerau e te kapua pōuri ...
Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Social Development and Employment, has activated Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG) in response to flooding and damaged caused by Cyclone Hale in the Tairāwhiti region. Up to $500,000 will be made available to employ job seekers to support the clean-up. We are still investigating whether other parts ...
The 2023 General Election will be held on Saturday 14 October 2023, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “Announcing the election date early in the year provides New Zealanders with certainty and has become the practice of this Government and the previous one, and I believe is best practice,” Jacinda ...
Jacinda Ardern has announced she will step down as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. Her resignation will take effect on the appointment of a new Prime Minister. A caucus vote to elect a new Party Leader will occur in 3 days’ time on Sunday the 22nd of ...
The Government is maintaining its strong trade focus in 2023 with Trade and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor visiting Europe this week to discuss the role of agricultural trade in climate change and food security, WTO reform and New Zealand agricultural innovation. Damien O’Connor will travel tomorrow to Switzerland to attend the ...
The Government has extended its medium-scale classification of Cyclone Hale to the Wairarapa after assessing storm damage to the eastern coastline of the region. “We’re making up to $80,000 available to the East Coast Rural Support Trust to help farmers and growers recover from the significant damage in the region,” ...
By Jamie Tahana, RNZ News Te Ao Māori journalist at Waitangi, and Russell Palmer, digital political journalist Iwi leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand have accused opposition parties National and ACT of “fanning the flames of racism”, urging the prime minister to be brave and not walk away from partnership on Three ...
By Phoebe Gwangilo in Port Moresby Higher Education Minister Don Polye has condemned a decision by the administration of the University of Papua New Guinea to treat a PNG-born and bred grade 12 school leaver as an “international” student. Roselyn Alog, 19, whose parents are Filipinos, was born and raised ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s former Elections Supervisor Mohammed Saneem is under investigation by the country’s anti-corruption agency for alleged abuse of office and has been stopped from fleeing the country. The Fijian Elections Office (FEO) said Saneem was alleged to have “on numerous occasions . . . unlawfully authorised payments of ...
Labour's position has alternated over the past few days: first Prime Minister Chris Hipkins would speak, then he wouldn't, and then he would again. ...
Te Pāti Māori Co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer are announcing a transformative defence and foreign affairs policy which asserts the Mana Māori Motuhake and Tino Rangatiratanga of tangata whenua in Aotearoa at their Party’s ...
The Prime Minister will no longer speak at Waitangi commemorations after the organising trust moved the political leaders to a panel away from the main event The Waitangi National Trust wrote to political parties last month saying they didn’t want political leaders to speak at the pōwhiri held on the eve ...
The Prime Minister once again has a speaking slot at the pōwhiri in Waitangi after earlier on Saturday saying he would respect the wishes of the trust organisers by not doing so The Waitangi National Trust has given the green light for Chris Hipkins and other political leaders to speak ...
It’s been exactly a decade since Seven Sharp first appeared on our screens. Remember the first episode? We’ve unearthed the tapes. On this day in 2013, a bombshell was thrown into the New Zealand television landscape. “Time for us to make way, because you’re here to see what everyone’s talking ...
MetService meteorologist Lewis Ferris has fronted endless media requests and live crosses this week. Is he getting it right? Lewis Ferris is trying to find his weather map. “This week’s been so insane” he mutters as he closes multiple tabs on the three screens across his Wellington desk. He’s ...
After four years, executive director Max Tweedie has stepped down from Auckland Pride. He tells Sam Brooks about shepherding the festival through a tumultuous few years, and where he’s going from here.This year’s Auckland Pride Festival is set to be the biggest one yet. Over the course of more ...
A flailing mayor was only the public face of a multifaceted flooding communications failure. Duncan Greive examines the mess, and asks what can be done to improve it.It’s a chilling timeline. Stuff’s Kelly Dennett catalogued, beat-by-beat, the 12 hours in which Auckland was pummelled by a catastrophic deluge, interspersing ...
The Dunedin branch of the Green Party has selected Francisco Hernandez as its candidate for the Dunedin electorate in this year’s general election. Francisco Hernandez was the Otago University Students Association President in 2013. He has held a number ...
Waitangi organisers are trying to push political leaders to the side at Sunday's pōwhiri, but Labour's deputy leader says it's not for them to decide who speaks. Te Tai Tokerau MP and Labour’s deputy leader, Kelvin Davis, says the Prime Minister will speak at Sunday’s pōwhiri at Waitangi, in defiance of local ...
Every weekday, The Detail makes sense of the big news stories. This week, we spoke to an aid worker who had made the trip to the war zone in Ukraine, looked at why Carmel Sepuloni was picked to be the new deputy prime minister, visited the flood-torn streets of Titirangi in West ...
Schools play an integral but often unrecognised and unacknowledged role in helping communities respond to and recover from disastersOpinion: Schools in Auckland and other flood-affected areas are about to re-open after a delayed start to the new school year. Students will return to school having experienced wide-ranging impacts. While some ...
A very short story for Waitangi weekend The pā is a lonely place nowadays. Gorse has marched on it like the British troops of old, consuming the hills and leaving the marae looking a bald patch on the head of the earth mother herself. Even the roads have worn thin, ...
This is The Detail's Long Read - one in-depth story read by us every weekend. This week, it's The School Away From School written by Bill Morris and published in NZ Geographic's January/February 2023 issue. You can find the entire article, with photos from Lottie Hedley, on the NZ Geographic website. One hundred years since its ...
COMMENTARY:By Kayt Davies in Perth I wasn’t good at French in my final year of high school. My classmates had five years of language studies behind them. I had three. As a result of my woeful grip on the language, I wrote a terribly bad essay in my final ...
RNZ Pacific Journalist Victor Mambor, who is the chief editor of the West Papuan newspaper and websiteJubi, has received the Oktovianus Pogau Award from the Indonesian-based Pantau Foundation for courage in journalism. The foundation’s Andreas Harsono said Mambor’s decision to return to his father’s homeland and defend the rights ...
RNZ News Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick is brushing off concerns a temporary rent freeze in flood-hit Auckland would just see landlords hike rents even more when the controls were lifted — arguing they should stay permanently. More than 20 organisations have signed a letter urging Minister for Auckland Michael ...
Iwi leaders have accused National and ACT of "fanning the flames of racism", urging the prime minister to be brave and not walk away from partnership on three waters. ...
About this time last week it had become apparent that Auckland was in for a bit more than just a wet Friday. While the state of emergency remains in place for another seven days, it appears the worst should now be behind us. Last night, Niwa shared a fascinating thread ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabrielle Appleby, Professor, UNSW Law School, UNSW Sydney Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed that sometime between August and November this year, the Australian people will go to a referendum for the first time since 1999. We’ll be asked whether we support ...
Viewers across the United States were today shown a slice of New Zealand, with a reporter for Good Morning America broadcasting live from Rotorua. Robin Roberts, a co-anchor for the popular morning TV show, has been touring the country this week. During her visit to Rotorua’s Te Puia centre, she ...
They can be environmentally unsound and are a symbol used to shame millennials, but everyone still loves an avo. I love avocados, always have, always will. The buttery golden-green flesh from a perfectly ripe avocado is a culinary blessing. Today I’d love to simply wax poetic about twisting open a ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (Penguin Press, $50) The beautiful ...
A new poem by Robin Peace. To the kahikatea I see from my bed Thinking inside the square, the ellipse, the round of what life is, I only see the trees. Not only as if that were the only thing I see, but only as if the tree matters more. ...
A week ago, Elton John’s first Auckland show was called off at the last minute. What was it like getting there, being there, and trying to return home afterwards?Elton John has long been a blessing for our ears, but in recent years his Auckland shows have been cursed. His ...
For Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, sorry seems to be the hardest word to say The mayoral chains must have been heavy this week for Auckland’s Wayne Brown, as his response to last week’s flood garnered its own veritable torrent of scandals and media scrutiny. Almost exactly one week on from ...
For Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, sorry seems to be the hardest word to say The mayoral chains must have been heavy this week for Auckland’s Wayne Brown, as his response to last week’s flood garnered its own veritable torrent of scandals and media scrutiny. Almost exactly one week on from ...
Ours Not Mines is cautiously excited about reporting that the Government is drafting legislation to ban new mines on conservation land. The anti-mining group's spokesperson, Morgan Donoghue says: "The Government has been promising us some action for ...
People who enjoy the outdoors for recreation, fishing and hunting will lose rights under the Natural and Built Environments Bill. Fish & Game New Zealand chief executive Corina Jordan says the proposed replacement for the Resource Management ...
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown has conceded he “dropped the ball” during last Friday’s major flooding event. The state of emergency in the super city has today been extended for a further seven days, though Brown said he expects it will be lifted early. After a week of defensiveness over his ...
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Proposed pay equity claim settlements for school librarians and science technicians have been reached between the Ministry of Education and NZEI Te Riu Roa, Secretary for Education, Iona Holsted and NZEI Te Riu Roa president, Mark Potter, announced ...
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Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has been asked to intervene following confirmation today that the Government plans to implement a ban on all extractive sector activities on the conservation estate. Wayne Scott, CEO of the Aggregate and Quarry Association, ...
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Less than a year ago, co-governance had a future, at least as potentially accepted terminology. Now some iwi leaders want the label removed and replaced, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
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No money for poverty.
No money for food in schools.
And why would our government, as Key has noted there are hardly any kids needing food in the schools he visits?
Will the government have some spare for some millionaires and billionaires needing a handout?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11368472
No doubt another shameful aspect of NZ that the sociopaths like pr will defend.
No no no Paul you have got it wrong, think of all the jobs it will bring to NZ if the cup comes back to NZ. All those additional waiters and servants required on zero hours contracts.
sarc/
What about all the boat builders up and down the country.
Jobs well paid high skilled well paid jobs.
The boat building industry has grown from $120 million a year to $2 billion a year on the back of New technology and high quality workmanship.
After all the investment New Zealand has made in this high value industry it would be very foolish to throw it all away!
I have studied economics for a long time now,One big growth trend is making money out of wealthy people.
Its one Area in manfacturing that we are World leaders we can not afford to loose our edge.
7 Out of 10 America,s cup boats were built right here in New Zealand the GST payments off just this section of the boat building industry.
We also build super yatchs having our industry on show in Bermuda!
Its time we took the bull by the horns and looked for other niche manufacturing industries which New Zealand is good at and target the uber rich they have deep pockets and pay well.
Taxing them doesn,t work that well as they buy goverment or move their money to where they Don,t pay any tax!
Targeting products they buy and suppling the wealthy with high value high quality products is much smarter long term!
How many boat builders were able to employ more people at good wages after the 8 straight losses at the last exhibition of obscene wealth being blown around by the wind? Possibly less than we would have had without the stupid race.
Oh why not turn our entire economy into one designed to serve the 0.1%?
Won’t that be fun and fulfilling for everyone else?
At the end of the day however, such an economy doesn’t add up. Building McYachts, McMansions and selling McSUVs won’t form the backbone of any worthwhile civilisation.
CR
You are so right. While we wait for the situation to be redeemed maybe we should try to keep some industry afloat in NZ, something that’s in water and not milk.
Yeas of course.
Trickledown has worked so well for the past 30 years.
How much money would have to come into the country in boat building revenue to get 34million in tax off it . have to say I loved watching those big boats fly.
they build whether we win or lose. we have had world. lass designers and builders used by the world since the 70s
Yeah, so have I. The problem is that you’re not talking economics there but finances which is a completely different kettle of fish.
Economics is about managing limited resources, specifically, minimising their use. If the economics you champion results in ever greater use of those resources then it is uneconomic.
Where did you study economics, Draco?
I haven’t visited Auckland much, but I was there for a week recently. Two images have stuck in my mind: a yacht crew carrying their gear through the viaduct, emblazoned with brands and wearing sunglasses that cost more than I earn in a week, and the guys sleeping the the doorways of the city mission, next to the YMCA where I was staying.
Sadly, i think KDC should have saved his money for the yachties. It might well have had more impact on his position.
Would be OK if we actually won the damn thing, which to do you much actually be in front of the other boat when you cross the finish line. Despite what people might think, you cannot win the America’s Cup just by turning up to the race.
We have all moved on from 1995 and Peter Blake’s red socks.
The whole thing’s become a circus anyway. It used to be, that it you wanted to host an America’s Cup regatta, you had a win the thing. Now you can just write a cheque out and you get it anyway.
Peter Blake’s money raising red socks – buy and donate to the NZ challenging the big boys cause – not made in NZ red socks.
That is so common now it is a cliche. Even the RSA got their red poppies to remember the NZ fallen sourced from overseas – I think from Aussies who probably ordered them from Asia. e&oe This is conjecture though.
edited
Hope they do as it reinforces the govt priorities of the wealthy elite first…..another brick in the wall of arrogance muddle nz need to wake up to given such issues as you’ve highlighted Paul.
It used to be about boat racing, now it’s about the size of billionaires dicks or wannabes like JK.
john keys’ political bucket-list:..a report card..the top three..
number one:..asset-strip anything worth selling…done..!..(just some mopping up of state houses to attend to..)
number two:…long-war on poor/workers’-rights…underway..!..inequality rules..!
number three:..(finally!) get to go to actual war in iraq:..nearly done..nearly there..!
4. Degrade education so more charter schools can be set up ready for privatisation of education.
5. Degrade Health system so more private institutions and insurance can be set up ready for privatisation of health.
If you want to see our future under Key, just look at New Orleans in the U.S. , where shock doctrine was applied after Katrina to privatise education.
As for Health, watch Michael Moore’s Sicko to get a feel for the health policy Key and his cronies are prepared to deliver for their banking and corporate masters.
Hey, give Judith a break. She is obviously distressed with someone shoving a camera in her face. Have you heard of ‘noblesse oblige`’ ?
Even misguided conservatives should be treated with some respect.
My french is a bit rusty so if someone can correct it, please go ahead.
@ wairua..
..no she isn’t..she’s thinking about what she wd like to do to nicky hager..
..(she’s having a ‘crusher’-moment..)
That is a picture of Judith meditating.
It is actually a picture of her hitting a drum really hard with sticks …
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3AUUxZWMEpw/T39HcCb21dI/AAAAAAAAAV4/t9Yafhkrf9o/s1600/IMG_3756.jpg
“..hitting really hard with sticks ‘
like i said..what she wants to do to nicky hager..
Apologies to all concerned, including Judith. She is into her rhythm .. good to see musical talent in the cabinet. The cropped image gave a different impression.
Whose face was painted on the drum??
LOL! Odgers, Slater, Key fit the bill!
Surely you mean ‘mediating’, felix?
She is well-known for her gentle, mild and co-operative, inclusive manner.
I’ve just finished, as in five minutes ago, reading “Dirty Politics”. Sarcasm is the gentlest form of response to Judith Collins and her style of politics that I can muster.
@felix. Is that what you call it? 🙄
Nicky Hager didn’t do anything for her to lose her cabinet position. She was brought down by the members of her own DP side, people like Slater, Odgers and Key, remember?
@ clem..
“..remember?..”
i’m sure she does…
..the thing to remember with national..is those two warring factions..who hate each other almost more than they hate everyone else..
..there is the boag-faction..and for want of a better name..the slater-faction..
..and for onlookers/non-believers..it’s like choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea..
..hard to tell which is worse..
..and you kinda hope they will just fall upon and eat each other..
Above all, she brought herself down!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/63799601/NZ-no-longer-least-corrupt
Now we are only the second least corrupt country on Earth, by a sliver.
I’m surprised no one posted this already.
you know what the word perceived means right?
I believe so…but if there is a point to that question I don’t get it?
*perception* does not always mesh with *reality*
maybe you should look at the image top left on your link
Picture of Judith – Poor Judith – a difficult moment in the smallest room in the backbenchers’ lobby looks to me. A concerted attempt to negate the resonating charge – “You’re full of it Jude !”
For those of you who think that spying was only a problem in East European countries and it was them damn Russkies who where so evil that they killed millions of their own for merely speaking truth to power, here is a nice history of the elite spying on their own people in the Western world. All 5000 years of it:
5,000 Years of History Shows that Mass Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent
Bugger, Lost link. Here it is: 5,000 Years of History Shows that Mass Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent
The other thing that concerns me is the fact that there is an incentive for groups like the GCSB, the SIS and the Police to favour right wing governments because RW govts will increase powers of surveillance. The actions or inactions on the Hager/Slater and Jon Stephenson reinforce my view that these groups are becoming more active in discouraging any dissent, almost as if they are sending out a warning to dissenters to intimidate them. How can environmentalists be regarded as “terrorists”? There was a good interview of Jason N Parkinson on Nine to Noon on the UK surveillance of journalists.
Those interested in the surveillance state expansion would be interested in thes interview with a Brit journalist this morning on Radio NZ. I heard part of it and remember him saying that he is a journalist who regularly covers protests and exposes behaviours on the left or right that are outside correct and lawful practices.
He commented that he had applied to see his secret service file and finally got it by knowing the small print and file No. to ask for and found how much stuff was on him. Exhaustive contents. Also environmental protests were noted and his work and contacts on those, yet one he did on some right wing outfit that started in 2009 and was revealed to be plotting events, with one Brit solder making nail bombs in his bedroom on his days off, was not mentioned.
It sounds as if the police are paranoid and definitely harrassed him as a registered journalist going about his lawful business. I think he said that in 2007 it seemed to be hotting up and in that year he was stopped, I think, 23 times and questioned while on his way to report some left-wing type of event.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/20159785
British journalists spied on by state, put on extremist list ( 24′ 12″ )
09:20 Jason N Parkinson is a freelance video journalist, who covers subjects ranging from environmental disaster to conflict. He was nominated for the Rory Peck News Award for his work during the Egyptian revolution and in London during the riots.
Jason is one of six members of the British National Union of Journalists who are asking the English High Court for a judicial review of the collection and retention of surveillance data about them. He says he and other journalists were subject to wide-ranging surveillance and put on a domestic extremist list, simply for doing their jobs.
When will the media stop presenting Transtasman as an impartial source?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/63807057/Key-head-and-shoulders-above-rest
Are they going to quote Farrar’s ratings as well?
What a ridiculous list. Maybe Farrar sent it off to them. Who the hell are Transtasman?
What alot of crap ! – “…..and his party romped home in its third election, the third time in a row it has added extra seats as well.”
Third time in a row ? Sorry ? It’s sort of normal I think that on winning one’s first term one normally wins additional seats. Sort of definitional.
So it’s actually the second time in a row.
That’s the sort of rubbish that happens when a know-nothing writer sets out to gush predisposed superlatives.
From the way they have been operating in the past few years I have often wondered that myself.
Just when you thought the media could not be more biased, they publish the view of a bunch of right wing journos.
FFS.
does Gerry Brownlee think hes …Hermann Goering!
nah..!..he is a reincarnated ‘colonel blimp’..that brownlee..
Chris Christie?
The US middle class spending crash
Most interesting in this Zero Hedge article are the comments – people scrimping and saving, unable or unwilling to spend money in restaurants and bars any more, going to home brew instead of buying a beer.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-02/middle-class-spending-crash-explained
Meanwhile in April this year, NYC apartment prices hit record highs of US$970K. Sounds very much like a tale of two cities eh. For the 1%, and that for everyone else.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-02/35-surge-sales-smashes-new-york-apartment-prices-record-high
The same is happening here in AKL. I have a small shop, hand made chocolates and the likes, and I can tell you from daily experience that people are counting the pennies, and then then turn them over a few times before spending them.
I am still doing well enough to keep myself and the two shop girls busy, but it should not get any worse.
But I guess you are not going to see an article in the NZ Herald about peeps not buying boats and big SUV on the paper value of their not yet paid off houses.
It is not a tale of two cities, it is a tale of a hand full of very rich against the rest of the country.
Well, retail and the service sector in Dunedin are definitely struggling at the moment (although as always there are stronger sectors and weaker ones). And looking around what should be the centre of town there are far too many empty commercial lots, many of them large, and a number of which have been untenanted for 6 months or more.
What no one is looking forward to is the flow on effect of lower milk prices…
Meanwhile the capitalists rub their hands and praise the prospect of doing business with the burgeoning middle class in China and India. The old middle class in USA has been decimated (into deciles) by their country’s business corporate machinations with their politicians. That is, the western capitalists have fouled their own nest but no matter, find a new nest to foul overseas and leave the chicks to rot in the old one.
“..6 Things You Should Know When Buying and Consuming Legal Marijuana..”
..Whether you haven’t toked since the 70′s –
– or you’re entirely new to the experience –
– here’s the starting place..”
(cont..)
(ed:..i’m having a ‘we can but dream’-moment..)
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/6-things-you-should-know-when-buying-and-consuming-legal-marijuana
I’m most impressed with David Parker who has regrouped after losing the leadership contest, and come out swinging strongly from the back benches, well done chap. Parker is absolutely correct that PC Plod are dragging their heels over investigating some of Hager’s claims.
The Fuzz are playing favourites, and I would like to know who is pulling their strings and why?
“Now I can’t name either of those sources and I can’t prove those allegations to be true and they are both hearsay allegations to me, but these allegations must be investigated.”
Littles doing well but he doesn’t need chumps like Parker dragging him down
I disagree, Little was doing well, till he supported the terror legislation. That just reminds me, as it should remind others – Labour are nothing but a bunch of corporate elects.
Well I think he showed pragmatism on that, its fine to be all tub thumping to appeal to your core but when you get the information you then have to do the right thing by your country and if hes elected leader then hes the leader of the whole of NZ not just the anti-war left
So on this its no negative feedback for Little
Anti-war, misdirection and diversion? I’m not anti-war – I just don’t see the point in fighting wars for other countries/corporations. This piece of legislation is an attack on civil liberties, I’d have thought the right wing were fan’s of freedom. As I get older, I’m finding they are not.
So let me be the voice of freedom – I don’t want my freedoms stomped on because your a little scaredy cat – who jumps at your own shadow. I’m over wimps on the right, who feel they are justified to feed their paranoia and fear to the general population.
The big bad terrorist ,is a lie – bit like the big bad communist lie. Just change the rhetoric from the 1950’s to now.
Well I respect your opinion but i think ISIS is something that needs to be combatted and it needs to be done by multiple countries
However Little must have something he wasn’t expecting to change his mind
Bollix
However Little must have seen something he wasn’t expecting to change his mind
Keep working on that comment, chris. It’s getting better every time.
?
Sure.
ISIS is falling apart, if we strangle off the money coming from the Saudi Arabia and others. Their days would be severely numbered. Good old economic terrorism that the west is good at. Why do we need to put troops on the ground? We don’t.
How can I be so confident ISIS is fubar? They have completely wiped out the middle classes, either in a physical sense or in the fact most of the professional classes are running away from them. How long do you think they will be able to operate a modern society, without a professional class? And failing that, how long do you think they will be able to contain a youthful population look at the luxury and lifestyle modernism has to offer? ISIS is a pitiful joke, and only nut jobs who want to send our young men and women off to die, seem to be under the illusion that this whacked out army of boy jihadists aren’t going to eat themselves – if we do the right thing, and cut the money off.
You are assuming they want a modern society which I doubt they want to go back to the dark ages were believing in mythical being’s are used to control the youthful population.
ISIS is something that needs to be stopped but they need to be stopped by the people who live there. If they’re stopped by those from outside then they’ll just arise again in a probably worse form.
We also need to work out why young men from all over Europe (the world?) are joining up to fight for groups for ISIS. It seems to me we are have thrown a whole generation of young people on the scrap heap, called them lazy and useless, and then wonder why they are starting to like what the bloke down at the local mosque has to say.
Great point millsy.
The anti-youth rhetoric has amped up of late.
We have thrown our young to the wolves. It sickens me. Neo-liberalism is a beast which eats our mokopuna.
+100 Draco. Could not agree more. But lets help the people there, by stopping ISIS getting the money from supporters around the region, and lets stop pretending Saudi Arabia is an ally of ours.
thanks for your concern /sarc
Hello c73
i dunno skinny..parker is still number one on my list of mp’s ‘most likely to go postal’..
..there is much grindingly-unfufilled there..anger both seethes and drips from him..it has even made his face all puffy/blotchy..and his voice has changed..all dangerous signs..)
..(in other recent moves on that list..brownlee has jumped to number two..and tho’ he is minister of defence..i wd advise he be kept well clear of any actual weapons..
..and of course.kennedy graham..with his death-ray eyes/gaze is always somewhere in the top five..
..and foss-the-hapless often seems to be barely hanging on..so is also there..)
@Skinny – I think DP is Shadow Attorney General?
Yes, he’s doing well with this call. “Go David.”
Ngati poaka don’t need their strings pulled. They know instinctively where their loyalties lie. In that respect, they’re a lot like journalists. What they both need is continuous pressure to do their jobs properly.
Is there anyone here, artist/cartoonist, that can draw a caricature of Key, with the Pinocchio’s long nose, with his pants on fire, hands raised high up in the air like Nixon’s and a speech bubble coming out of his bum with the words, “Awkchully, honestly speaking, at the end of the day, I don’t lie!”
or..referring to slater..
“i did not have proactive-relations with that man”..
You seen this:
“John Key has been given what could be the first in a string of politician-of-the-year awards, with the annual Trans Tasman roll call putting him “head and shoulders” above the rest”.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/63807057/Key-head-and-shoulders-above-rest
Yuck.
Yes Trans Tasman do seem to have been getting steadily dafter and right over the years. Their analysis used to be pretty good with a known slant.
But everything I have seen in recent years can be characterized as being written by a wingnut and one with a similar political and economic skill level to Mike Hoskings – ie more characterized by bigotry than analysis.
and of course all of the above over-qualifies him to be on ‘the panel’ of sages..on nat-rad..
..so he is..
At a superficial glance, he does seem preferable to idiots like Abbott and Bjelke-Newman. However, with a second glance you see that the only difference is in the presentation. They’re all as thick, dishonest, and arrogant as each other.
On the Trans Tasman basis it would be a straight forward choice to give Putin international politician of the year then.
The single most significant task facing Aotearoa –
IMO it is identifying exactly how much and which areas of our land are now in foreign ownership, or longterm leasehold. When the land is gone, what do have? Who are we? Do we even exist as a nation? There is an urgent need for a comprehensive audit of this, with publication of the results, as well as the basic register of foreign owners.
The housing shortage is only one part of the problem: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11368465
Will be a useless register while folks can fly in from China for a weekend on a visa given because of their gold credit card status and buy as much property as they wish to purchase, tax-free with money borrowed at 0.5% in China and easy to get into NZ due to direct currency trading now of Chinese renmimbi to NZ dollars. (Thanks JK.)
I’m not xenophobic, but reporting facts. One Chinese ‘tourist’ man can be identified as now owning 50 houses in Auckland by doing exactly as I have written above.
Where to begin to correct this ? Well said, Manuka AOR –beyond urgent, isn’t it.
Why are we just letting it go on? It’s a kind of insanity, imo.
This is our LAND! This is our Nation. This is what and who we are.
The Gallipoli Centenary is approaching and they are making much of it. Our ancestors fought there so that we could have this land. Several of mine were there and not all returned. They in turn lost sons during WW II for the same reason – that we could have a country that was ours, that was free.
We are throwing this all away!!
I don’t begin to comprehend it.
It is not just Auckland, and it is not just John Key.
Anecdotally, there are many ‘banked’ properties reported in Sydney and Melbourne
– see ‘www.catherinecashmore.com.au’ who has just published
“SPECULATIVE VACANCIES 7” which I think can be downloaded from that link.
One has to be careful due to echoes of the ‘White Australia’ policy but there is also evidence that the China boom has peaked in many markets and there are cities of unsold apartments in China itself.
A global bubble is playing out – and given levels of unsustainable debt in some quarters most rational observers are hoping for a soft landing.
Whether that will happen is another story, but Aotearoa is a very small player in all this.
However, despite our size we can choose to go our own way.
The end result of mass utilisation of housing as investment vehicles while at the same time divesting social and state housing – can be seen in The Great British Property Scandal series, and in this 2014 Guardian article: Scandal of Europe’s 11m empty homes
@ Wairua
There are reports of empty apartments that have replaced old housing which was being lived in. The new is of course too dear for the previous dwellers to rent. I remember reading about it. Also there has been much money spent on infrastructure and city building as in the empty apartments.
It seems to me a deliberate policy to turn earnings and profits into tangible assets, as the future of the financial system is uncertain. Profits left sitting can be undermined by inflation, and deliberate crashing of the financial system which would wipe out the previous Chinese accumulated credits.
I think the Chinese are being canny and converting the paper money into bricks and steel. Perhaps the message of the Yip Harburg song about Al the hard worker, now beggar, of the USA in Buddy Can You Spare a Dime has been received loud and clear by the Chinese. They don’t want to be the Als, with a lot of useless money. This version is probably the best you’ll hear and see and uses the word Buddy rather than Brother which seems less authentic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWgbACDHK2Q
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.