“…These industries have successfully stalled public health policies for far too long in this country because they have deep pockets, powerful lobbying influence over government and very few scruples. I hope that uncovering these connections between big money, underhand PR and defamatory blogs is a wake-up call and we can begin to see better public health policies from Government.”
In the struggle between the team of 5 million and the team of 500 over public health who will win?
If the latest outbreak has not been proven to be contained;
Will the government be able to resist the 'deep pockets', 'powerful lobbying influence' over government and 'very few scruples' of the team of 500 and lift the lockdown before the incubation period is over?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
We woke up in Rotorua, the house shook for a minute or so. And who cares about Simon, the poor boy would have gotten a tsunami warning/evac order with all the others living in that area.
Now an undisclosed boarder at one of the residences involved in the current outbreak, no wonder Jacinda and the rest of Government is seething. I really don’t want hear about anymore sympathy for the cohort involved in this, there has been too many lies and deflections and bullshit and deliberately putting large numbers of others at risk simply because of arseholery.
And don’t pull the “ language difficulties” deflection either, I’m pretty sure you can’t study at MIT or work at Macs orKFC if you only understand Elvish or Klingon !
Despite them being requested to not play the blame game off they go regardless of the impact this could have on those concerned.
Cue the 'public interest' line from the MSM which's total BS.
I'd imagine those involved will be coping it for sometime to come from those around them without our celebrity clickbait bachlorette boats on foils MSM weighing in.
Yes, the country demands a sacrifice, a human one……so lets burn this Family.
where would you like that to be – middle of Aotea Square? Or Maybe somewhere in South Auckland?
And the Tamaki Grifters, would you want them to be sacrificed too for breaching Level 3 lockd down orders?
And that Aucklander that flew to Queenstown just to be taken straight to a hospital with flue like symptoms? Should he to be burned?
And overcrowding and not fully admitting to it lest you lose a rental or a Winz benefit in the area of NO AFFORDABLE Housing and political bullshittery around that is something that is to be expected. Cause we know that couch surfing, sleeping and living in Garages etc is fairly common in lower income areas. \
Seriously, this demand for blood is getting tiresome.
And overcrowding and not fully admitting to it lest you lose a rental or a Winz benefit in the area of NO AFFORDABLE Housing and political bullshittery around that is something that is to be expected. Cause we know that couch surfing, sleeping and living in Garages etc is fairly common in lower income areas. \
Yes this is known and appreciated. It does not excuse in any way the apparent non disclosure of the fact that he was boarding with the family.
i don't excuse it, but in saying that, the government knows about overcrowding, so should also include this in their 'what if ' scenarios.
And if they don't then this will repeat itself again and again and again, until the polite society of this country understand that low class income areas don't behave like the well to do society of Parnell or Ponsonby or various Government quaters in Wellington.
So while the family is not to be excused, as i said yesterday, the government also needs to pull its head in and start admitting that their one size fits all does not fit all.
If NZ will have to go into total lockdown, with catastrophic economic consequences affecting the very same poor you seem to defend for their stupidity and their "up yours" attitude, the majority of these "we need to understand and give them some space, be kind" brigade will change their mind very quickly. Because another lockdown could well mean that this is managed with food rationing, firmer quarantine etc. The rich will just charter a plane to a remote Island but he average kiwi will be angry because we were so "understanding".
Yeah government – pull yer heid in. Now I feel better (Tui).
While the NZ government is short on time and resources to fix overcrowding, their supposed "one size fits all" response to this global pandemic has been a spectacular success, at least when compared to most other countries.
Tales of how our government has and continues to egregiously fail NZ citizens will ramp up – the MSM, and some Kiwis simply can't admit/believe that for a small country with limited resources, NZ has navigated the COVID threat very well, so far.
And there’s always room for improvement, of course.
We are one year in this Covid mess, not at the beginning.
As i have said last year, the easiest part was going into lockdown 4 – paid an all – as people were scared of the shitshows overseas etc.
The hardest thing is coming out of it, and maintaining the status quo. And that would be now.
So yes, blame is to be put on the individuals who for what ever reason did not do the right thing, and blame is to be put on the Government to not have included overcrowding, fear of losing income'/benefit, literacy issues, and good old anti government stances of those that live these lives. Fear of government when one depends on Winz, is actually a thing. Fear of losing a benefit or a rental also.
The shoe that worked last year is now well and truly worn out and we need to update our processes, procedures and so on.
And we can honestly admit that the govenrment does not fail all citizens, but it does and for the longest time has failed those that live poor and overcrowded or in cars. And that we have ample of proof and write ups for.
South Auckland was always going to be a worry for all the issues. And that is something that can not be washed away with outcrys of outrage at some poor sobs while we don't seem to have the same sense of outrage at those that leave town to go to the batches, or like Tamaki go on collection tour up and down NZ, or those that escape a plague hotel to get beersies and pies.
Poverty, fear of government, poor rentals, overcrowding, low education standards, poor reasoning etc make for a potentially dangerous mix.
And yet, we still don't know how the first person of that cluster got infected, and where.
The current surfeit of "outcrys of outrage" is cause for concern – it's easy to see how a sense of outrage might fuel an already "potentially dangerous mix", so it behoves us all to keep calm and try to calm things down, imho.
But no news cases of COVID today, either in the community or in managed isolation, so that’s good news.
Hindsight allows us to look at a situation or an event after it has happened.
The positive cases have all come from within the high school. Had the high school students and teachers gone into a 14 day bubble with everyone in their household the situation would have been different.
It was always going to be confusing and a greater risk to the community for one member of the household to be a casual plus contact and the other members to go about their daily routine. Not having a bubble for 14 days and then splitting a classification in a household has come back hard.
Compliance with testing in the first round of testing is one thing. Containing further community outbreak is another. The high school remained shut for a week and retesting was required think prior to current level 3 lockdown.
Unknown source for case A and all sources of infection in a household had a school contact.
Responsibility was taken by all who got tested twice. A great effort.
The school was not the problem. It was the actions of a couple of individuals. You claim a 14 day bubble would have made a difference. I beg to differ. You want to penalise the large majority that complied by the rules for the actions of a few. That’s just silly and will backfire in the long run.
It is not about penalising those who did the first round of Covid tests or the second round of Covid tests. It is what the science said about the first round of tests.
If the first round of Covid tests were enough the second round of Covid tests for the casual plus classifications would not have been required.
Even if there was no breach under the first level 3 lockdown I do not think there was enough certainty that the first round of Covid tests could eliminate a positive case turning up before day 14.
As it is the high school has had disruption of education for 3 weeks.
Maybe making sure students have an internet connection is the productive way to go when the situation is not clear.
Found it but my computer playing up and cannot link. While the family did not disclose his existence he himself advised his employer, Chorus, who notified the authorities. He is self isolating at the place he boards. He is a door to door salesperson for Chorus. One negative test so far and hopefully another will follow. Mind boggling if the person had been positive.
There were three total earthquakes, and there is now a full evacuation order for downtown Whangarai, and the East coast from Matata to Tologa Bay, and Great Barrier Island.
All of this can be found on the NZ Herald Live blog.
Thanks (I think!) Ad – brilliantly written and enormously sobering. He ends encouragingly (?) but he certainly turns up the temperature on the issue. What a film that would make!
The language difficulties for some in south Auckland are understandable to a degree but given people have to organise a bank account and operate it, organise a power supplier and pay the bill, go to a job, and deal with all sorts of other day to day necessities, language surely can't be an insurmountable issue. If in doubt, ask someone be it a neighbour, friend, relative.
If there is a God then she has a wicked sense of humour, where do those poor Covid refugees from Auckland go to now that their beach houses are uninhabitable.
you mean people that intentionally break Lockdown 3 rules, rather then 'refugees'?
That word implies that they must leave town because ……not that they are running away from not being able to eat out, go to the gym and have standard normal fun?
Where I live, there are bouts of 3G-indigestion with the occasional sharp stabbing 4G-migraine. I’ll die of old age before 5G-cancer kills me. JLR can stick those pills up his arms.
TBH, I had not read the link and still don’t intend to.
Yes, that commenter rings a bell. Turns out I banned him permanently in June last year for falsely claiming that Jacinda Ardern was (going to) pursue a “Forced Vaccination Agenda”. The ban was subsequently challenged in the back-end because it was seen as stifling debate on vaccination, which is an important topic; it was never followed up though. Looking back at it now, I’m happy I let the ban stand 🙂
Kelly's efforts here certainly appeared to be more of an attempt to set the stage for a sales effort than any kind of good faith attempt to debate.
The stuff link is really only entertainment value, for those that get amused by reading about what fantasies get spun by hucksters trying to fleece the gullible.
And will Des Gorman pop up and claim that the tsunami is a 'border failure' of stupendous proportions, the government has been 'caught with its pants down' and there should have been a plan to stop it?
I haven't seen comment on National's idea of paying people directly for covid lock down subsidies. Has it been discussed on The Standard or elsewhere? I can see horrendous setup problems at a time when the public sector is working very hard on other covid issues, and the opportunity for a lot of individual mistakes, and ultimately the government being painted as seeking personal information for other (nefarious) purposes. Like most ideas from Collins, it deserves what it appears to have received – not even much media coverage.
Interesting Guardian article on a a UBI experiment in Stockton, California. It's not a large study (125 below-median wage people) and the unconditional payment was not large (USD$500/month). But the results predictably confound a couple of the standard objections to UBI: full-time employment among the target group actually went up, not down; and the money was spent on food, transport and utility bills – not booze. Even more predictably, debt was repaid, mental health improved and stress reduced.
I know there are legitimate 'left' criticisms of UBI – such as Tory-proofing it (as Weka says) so that it's not pegged back to subsistence levels and actually disadvantages groups with additional needs. Plus the larger issue of it being potentially disempowering and isolating. But it's an interesting result all the same.
Yes, i linked to it on the Daily Review. It would do those that live below the poverty line a world of good if they could get a payment of 500 a month without strings. Yet, we have strings attached to people who have lost their jobs. Go figure. We know that cash payments help. We just don't want to do it. We = society = parliament
edit: we can’t ‘tory’ proof anything really unless we make it so. I.e. the heating payment is one of these things. Once the tories get in, i can see this payment being axed as one of the first actions. Hence the argument to increase the base benefits substantially so that people might not need these seasonal and Tory unproof top ups.
Too many vested interests, but there is no veto on 16 billion of which quite a few companies and their shareholders should have but did not pay the money back. If nothing else, this alone must be a warning where the powers to be sitting morally.
I am all for the UBI given that automation and concentration of industries about to hit the labor market hard. Since any economic setting is a construct and not a natural phenomenon it can be changed. Wishful thinking but I feel that the money horders are amoral to the core and this idea will stay a pipe dream.
I know there are legitimate 'left' criticisms of UBI – such as Tory-proofing it (as Weka says) so that it's not pegged back to subsistence levels and actually disadvantages groups with additional needs.
We already have a 'Tory-proof' UBI – NZ Super for everyone over 65. Once a UBI was in place it would, like all other govt concerns be subject to the usual push and pull of the political landscape. There is nothing unusual in this – but over the past 3 decades we've seen successive govts hold conventional benefits too low for several simple 'non-political' reasons – that if they increased them too much the gap between minimum wage incomes and benefits would become too small, and the marginal tax abatement rates necessary would become even more onerous. (There is a whole lot more to be said on this, but that's the short version.)
Because however we've known nothing else but the the conventional benefit system, we tend to discount it's numerous built-in downsides.
Plus the larger issue of it being potentially disempowering and isolating.
Honestly I'm puzzled by this. In my view a UBI, by eradicating the inevitable social stigmas associated with conventional welfare, would have the exact opposite effect.
As for the report itself – absolutely non-surprising. I’ve been reading about similar positive outcomes wherever a UBI type scheme is implemented for over a decade now. Why the hell the left just can’t unite behind this baffles me.
Well then, ask the right why they don't go for it, if it is the failure of the left to deliver this.
And again, i would like to remind you that our moderate conservative kind of progressive PM has ruled out benefit increases. Unless you want to call JA, RG and the other suits – radical left. Oh, and htey have a majority so they don't even need any support from radicals or non radicals.
Or is blaming a fictional 'radical left' easier then asking the government to do what is the right thing to do?
Yes I agree with you, the left has been way too timid on this. To be fair a UBI would be a dramatic reform and any govt would consume a great deal of political capital getting it over the line. And until this past few post-COVD months there has never been a Labour govt in a strong enough position to do this.
But the ground has shifted – it's my sense that NZ right now would be more receptive to the idea than at any time in my life.
Perhaps the most pernicious effect of our conventional targeted benefit welfare (and the one that personally first clued me into the whole idea of a UBI over 20 yrs ago) is what happens when you try to transition off a benefit. The higher benefits are set, the more aggressively the system must abate them.
This creates very high marginal tax rates (often >80%) and is a huge disincentive. It's a large component of what's usually called the poverty trap.
One of the most important considerations in studying the poverty trap is the amount of government aid necessary to lift a family out of their present conditions. Consider the case of a family of four, parents and two children who are below legal working age. The family has an annual income of $24,000. The parents work in jobs that pay $10 per hour. According to the latest federal poverty guidelines, a family of four is considered to be poor if its income is less than $26,200.3
In a simple case, let us assume that the government begins handing out aid amounting to $1,000 per month. This raises the family's annual income to $36,000. While it is capped at $1,000, the government aid decreases in proportion to increases in the family's income. For example, if the family's earnings increase by $500 to $2500 per month, then government aid reduces by $500. The parents would have to work an extra 50 hours in order to make up for the shortfall.
The increase in working hours comes at an opportunity and leisure cost to the parents. For example, they might end up spending less time with their children or may have to hire babysitters for the time that they are out of the home. The extra hours also means that the parents will not have the leisure to upgrade their skill-sets for a better paying job.
The aid amount also does not take into account living conditions for the family. Because they are poor, the family lives in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city and do not have access to proper healthcare facilities. In turn, crime or susceptibility to disease could drive up their average monthly spending, making an increase in their income effectively useless.
By contrast a UBI system typically has flat (or close to flat) marginal tax rates – which means that the extra hours a family in this example worked would be of direct value to them, creating the opportunity to move out of the relative poverty and stress they're often in.
At present the system we have in NZ does the exact opposite – trapping families into an abusive cycle of precarious, casualised short term work, typically with periods on and off benefits. And very quickly they realise that whether they're working this week or not, it makes very little difference to them in the long run.
I don't think this quote makes the actual case you confer from it.
From the example, say a policy is adoped where $12000 anually is paid as a UBI (per household). Say also the mode of household income is initially $36000 p.a This shifts the whole income distribution up by that amount, which still leaves them at $36000 vs the new $48000 mode after every household receives the UBI. This makes the impacts a question of how the cost of living adjusts to this new income level, if that makes the household better, similarly or worse off. They are still relatively $12,000 poorer than the modal income however.
In contrast a $12000 targeted income boost does reduce this households relative poverty. It also creates what is described as a welfare trap where because of abatement rates there is little extra income earned for additional hours of work.
I think that makes it a question of what is the worse harm, relative poverty or welfare traps. It can also be considered what abatement rates should be applied.
Of course contrasting a UBI to 90s welfare reforms they work in different directions of income adjustment. Maybe a case can be made that boosting rather than cutting is more socially responsible policy reform. But in terms of effects I think the 90s reforms lack of payoff highlighted that welfare traps are not very harmful. That also seems to align with the study showing people were not disincentivised (were more likely to end up in work) to work by an income boost.
You've missed the important role that effective marginal tax rates are having here.
With a targeted benefit very high marginal tax rates are hard to avoid unless you keep the benefits low compared to minimum wages; whereas it's trivial to design a UBI/Flat Tax that has a constant flat marginal rate across the entire income band if that's what you want.
My understanding is that benefits and wage income are taxed at the same rates?
That doesn't seem to imply high benefit rates need be coupled with high marginal tax rates in any way. The UK seems to have an untaxed £10K band and I see no reason NZ could not do this as an separate policy change too.
While I understand, a negative income tax band coupled with a flat tax band, can be described as a progressive income tax regime. I would still say its significantly less progressive than our present 4/5 band income tax regime.
Your last paragraph is what I've always advocated for, a UBI that can be best thought of as a negative tax band combined with a flat PAYE tax. The numbers I've often used in the past were a UBI of $10kpa and a flat tax rate of 33%.
There is however no particular reason why these numbers should be used, I only chose them because they made giving examples at various income levels easy. Updating to 2021 I'd probably advocate for a UBI of $15kpa and say 3 tax bands ranging from 25% up to 45%.
Plus a CCT/Asset tax and a FTT.
The important point is that a UBI cannot be properly described without understanding the wider tax system that it is innately part of. Yet for all of these interesting technical ins an outs, it's the universal nature of a UBI that I firmly believe is it's most fundamental social virtue.
All well and good, however I don't see how that impacts what I said in 11.2.1.1.1 in any way. I was at the time thinking of all figures in after tax terms actually. I don't understand how giving everybody $12,000 p.a UBI reduces relative poverty. While targeting the income to those in relative poverty does this.
Have just finished watching Minister Kiritapu Allan presenting the press conference on the after effects of the earthquakes. An impressive performance with a very good ability to grasp and present the issues at hand.
Yes we all commented here on how well she spoke and that all 3 fronting interacted and performed as a team.
Perhaps the next cabinet reshuffle, those that are performing as min Kiritapu Allen will be recognised and those that have been found out are placed in positions that better suit their current abilities and performances.
Kudos to the police for how they handled this. I know that we understand the utility of being kind right now – hope that Granny Herald understands too.
"Choose your side, buddy. Freedom or communism,"
Police said from 6am Sunday to 6pm Wednesday, 917 notifications of possible alert level 3 restriction breaches in Auckland were received.
Despite earlier widespread doubts that a COVID-19 vaccine would even be possible, it's MAGA-type viruses (Destiny, Plan B, etc.) that will prove most difficult to treat.
The damned entitlement of jerks who think that the cops have to show you the specific law they will arrest you for before they put the cuffs on you. Worse that she likely would still have gotten away with it even if she weren't hiding behind her kids.
Cutting the tape is wilful damage, and she had failure to give details in the clip.
Dunno, I think being able to ask the cops to explain themselves is a reasonable principle in a society where cops have bent the rules over time and this has disadvantaged certain parts of society. Despite her being a dick about covid.
I also think the whole intimidation thing from cops, while useful in some situations is a problem in others.
There's a difference between explaining oneself and basically being called a liar unless you provide documentary evidence of the legislation one is acting under.
One is fair. The other is simply a tactic to delay and an attempt to intimidate a person just doing their job. And it also seemed to only ever be used by privileged folk caught redhanded so they go on the indignation offensive. I don't recall ever dealing with a normal student who wanted me to supply exact chapter and verse for what I was doing. And no, not a cop, but I still had the legal authority to take one or two folk to the ground until the cops did arrive (and I didn't need to quote it to the fools).
I reckon they were seriously considering arresting her – that "details" question is a preamble I've seen used by cops a couple of times. Failure to provide details is a clear grounds for arrest, much easier to bother with than a debate about what was actually going on.
But that's beside the point of this covidiot. If she's unaware why the playground is closed after a year of this shit, cops won't convince her otherwise no matter how patient they are.
They need to prosecute her. She was the one doing the intimidating. She ripped down the security tape around the playground and encouraged her kids to play there. She's a nutbar but that does not exempt her from paying a price for breaking the law and smartarse responses to a couple of police officers whose approach was exemplary.
This is good news – apparently the machine of ICE family detention is being rolled back:
The Biden administration is preparing to convert its immigrant family detention centers in South Texas into Ellis-Island-style rapid-processing hubs that will screen migrant parents and children with a goal of releasing them into the United States within 72 hours, according to Department of Homeland Security draft plans obtained by The Washington Post.
Obviously getting pushback from the "migrant caravan" brigade now the plan is out.
Anyone entering the US is going into a plague zone, not out of one.
You seem to be under the impression that immigrants need to be detained while they go through the application process, and that this policy involves greencards being handed out after the most cursory background check. I suggest you ease off on the fox news.
Either way, you turn up at the border and claim entry status for whatever reason. You get held while your ID is verified, and there's an initial check to see if you're a very bad person who should be arrested or deported. If you're cool at first glance, you go to the next bit.
Then your grounds for entry are examined, e.g. refugee status or work visa. You might be denied entry and referred to proper centres to apply for entry on those grounds, at which point you are deported.
Alternatively, you could be given a court date and released into the US. Failure to appear at court makes you liable for deportation.
OK so I'll send the kids on ahead and join them later after applying for a work visa … good plan.
Given this was one of the key issues that got Unca Donald elected in the first place, pumping new life back into it, at a point in time when the US is struggling with both a pandemic and high unemployment, borders not so much with Mexico, but with insanity.
As for the children – using them as a queue jumping ticket is of course absolutely and completely the responsibility of the adults who exploit them in this manner.
Your comment is perfectly reasonable because opposing this is woke-ism gone mad.
It's not "queue jumping" put give accused criminals bail, and asylum seekers aren't even accused criminals. They turn up at the border in order to go through the regular process.
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TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
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<blockquote>
“…These industries have successfully stalled public health policies for far too long in this country because they have deep pockets, powerful lobbying influence over government and very few scruples. I hope that uncovering these connections between big money, underhand PR and defamatory blogs is a wake-up call and we can begin to see better public health policies from Government.”
Professor Swinburn
https://www.healthcoalition.org.nz/dirty-pr-exposed-in-whale-oil-defamation-trial/
</blockquote>
Today is the day
The incubation period for Covid-19 is 14 days
In the struggle between the team of 5 million and the team of 500 over public health who will win?
If the latest outbreak has not been proven to be contained;
Will the government be able to resist the 'deep pockets', 'powerful lobbying influence' over government and 'very few scruples' of the team of 500 and lift the lockdown before the incubation period is over?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Hang in there East Cape.
Waiting for a press release from Simon Bridges complaining there were too many woke people in Gisborne at 2.30am.
We woke up in Rotorua, the house shook for a minute or so. And who cares about Simon, the poor boy would have gotten a tsunami warning/evac order with all the others living in that area.
Or that evacuating towns is bad for 'the economy'?
Very good, I am going to use that today.
Now an undisclosed boarder at one of the residences involved in the current outbreak, no wonder Jacinda and the rest of Government is seething. I really don’t want hear about anymore sympathy for the cohort involved in this, there has been too many lies and deflections and bullshit and deliberately putting large numbers of others at risk simply because of arseholery.
And don’t pull the “ language difficulties” deflection either, I’m pretty sure you can’t study at MIT or work at Macs orKFC if you only understand Elvish or Klingon !
[Fixed typo in user name]
Trial by media is not the best approach.
Despite them being requested to not play the blame game off they go regardless of the impact this could have on those concerned.
Cue the 'public interest' line from the MSM which's total BS.
I'd imagine those involved will be coping it for sometime to come from those around them without our celebrity clickbait bachlorette boats on foils MSM weighing in.
It is, for the media.
Sometimes helpful sometimes not helpful.
Yes, the country demands a sacrifice, a human one……so lets burn this Family.
where would you like that to be – middle of Aotea Square? Or Maybe somewhere in South Auckland?
And the Tamaki Grifters, would you want them to be sacrificed too for breaching Level 3 lockd down orders?
And that Aucklander that flew to Queenstown just to be taken straight to a hospital with flue like symptoms? Should he to be burned?
And overcrowding and not fully admitting to it lest you lose a rental or a Winz benefit in the area of NO AFFORDABLE Housing and political bullshittery around that is something that is to be expected. Cause we know that couch surfing, sleeping and living in Garages etc is fairly common in lower income areas. \
Seriously, this demand for blood is getting tiresome.
Yes this is known and appreciated. It does not excuse in any way the apparent non disclosure of the fact that he was boarding with the family.
i don't excuse it, but in saying that, the government knows about overcrowding, so should also include this in their 'what if ' scenarios.
And if they don't then this will repeat itself again and again and again, until the polite society of this country understand that low class income areas don't behave like the well to do society of Parnell or Ponsonby or various Government quaters in Wellington.
So while the family is not to be excused, as i said yesterday, the government also needs to pull its head in and start admitting that their one size fits all does not fit all.
Sabine, there has to be a boundary set.
If NZ will have to go into total lockdown, with catastrophic economic consequences affecting the very same poor you seem to defend for their stupidity and their "up yours" attitude, the majority of these "we need to understand and give them some space, be kind" brigade will change their mind very quickly. Because another lockdown could well mean that this is managed with food rationing, firmer quarantine etc. The rich will just charter a plane to a remote Island but he average kiwi will be angry because we were so "understanding".
Yeah government – pull yer heid in. Now I feel better (Tui).
While the NZ government is short on time and resources to fix overcrowding, their supposed "one size fits all" response to this global pandemic has been a spectacular success, at least when compared to most other countries.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/
Tales of how our government has and continues to egregiously fail NZ citizens will ramp up – the MSM, and some Kiwis simply can't admit/believe that for a small country with limited resources, NZ has navigated the COVID threat very well, so far.
And there’s always room for improvement, of course.
We are one year in this Covid mess, not at the beginning.
As i have said last year, the easiest part was going into lockdown 4 – paid an all – as people were scared of the shitshows overseas etc.
The hardest thing is coming out of it, and maintaining the status quo. And that would be now.
So yes, blame is to be put on the individuals who for what ever reason did not do the right thing, and blame is to be put on the Government to not have included overcrowding, fear of losing income'/benefit, literacy issues, and good old anti government stances of those that live these lives. Fear of government when one depends on Winz, is actually a thing. Fear of losing a benefit or a rental also.
The shoe that worked last year is now well and truly worn out and we need to update our processes, procedures and so on.
And we can honestly admit that the govenrment does not fail all citizens, but it does and for the longest time has failed those that live poor and overcrowded or in cars. And that we have ample of proof and write ups for.
South Auckland was always going to be a worry for all the issues. And that is something that can not be washed away with outcrys of outrage at some poor sobs while we don't seem to have the same sense of outrage at those that leave town to go to the batches, or like Tamaki go on collection tour up and down NZ, or those that escape a plague hotel to get beersies and pies.
Poverty, fear of government, poor rentals, overcrowding, low education standards, poor reasoning etc make for a potentially dangerous mix.
And yet, we still don't know how the first person of that cluster got infected, and where.
The current surfeit of "outcrys of outrage" is cause for concern – it's easy to see how a sense of outrage might fuel an already "potentially dangerous mix", so it behoves us all to keep calm and try to calm things down, imho.
But no news cases of COVID today, either in the community or in managed isolation, so that’s good news.
Hindsight allows us to look at a situation or an event after it has happened.
The positive cases have all come from within the high school. Had the high school students and teachers gone into a 14 day bubble with everyone in their household the situation would have been different.
It was always going to be confusing and a greater risk to the community for one member of the household to be a casual plus contact and the other members to go about their daily routine. Not having a bubble for 14 days and then splitting a classification in a household has come back hard.
Nonsense! The compliance rate was very high among the high school students and the community at large.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/03/covid-19-live-updates-latest-on-auckland-community-outbreak-wednesday-march-3.html
So 33 had not been tested?
I didn’t count them. Did you?
Compliance with testing in the first round of testing is one thing. Containing further community outbreak is another. The high school remained shut for a week and retesting was required think prior to current level 3 lockdown.
Unknown source for case A and all sources of infection in a household had a school contact.
Responsibility was taken by all who got tested twice. A great effort.
The school was not the problem. It was the actions of a couple of individuals. You claim a 14 day bubble would have made a difference. I beg to differ. You want to penalise the large majority that complied by the rules for the actions of a few. That’s just silly and will backfire in the long run.
It is not about penalising those who did the first round of Covid tests or the second round of Covid tests. It is what the science said about the first round of tests.
If the first round of Covid tests were enough the second round of Covid tests for the casual plus classifications would not have been required.
Even if there was no breach under the first level 3 lockdown I do not think there was enough certainty that the first round of Covid tests could eliminate a positive case turning up before day 14.
As it is the high school has had disruption of education for 3 weeks.
Maybe making sure students have an internet connection is the productive way to go when the situation is not clear.
Could you put a link up re this boarder please.
Found it but my computer playing up and cannot link. While the family did not disclose his existence he himself advised his employer, Chorus, who notified the authorities. He is self isolating at the place he boards. He is a door to door salesperson for Chorus. One negative test so far and hopefully another will follow. Mind boggling if the person had been positive.
I was awake before the earthquake struck. It was a long rolling one. Pleased it did not gather more momentum.
There were three total earthquakes, and there is now a full evacuation order for downtown Whangarai, and the East coast from Matata to Tologa Bay, and Great Barrier Island.
All of this can be found on the NZ Herald Live blog.
I needed to be specific the 2.30 am one. As for the other two they were not felt.
OK so warning this is a longer read.
But for those who like absorbing patterns of climate and human interaction with them over millennia, the long historical analogues are pretty intense:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/extreme-climate-change-history/617793/
Thanks (I think!) Ad – brilliantly written and enormously sobering. He ends encouragingly (?) but he certainly turns up the temperature on the issue. What a film that would make!
The language difficulties for some in south Auckland are understandable to a degree but given people have to organise a bank account and operate it, organise a power supplier and pay the bill, go to a job, and deal with all sorts of other day to day necessities, language surely can't be an insurmountable issue. If in doubt, ask someone be it a neighbour, friend, relative.
If there is a God then she has a wicked sense of humour, where do those poor Covid refugees from Auckland go to now that their beach houses are uninhabitable.
[Fixed same typo in user name again]
[Fixed same typo in user name again]
you mean people that intentionally break Lockdown 3 rules, rather then 'refugees'?
That word implies that they must leave town because ……not that they are running away from not being able to eat out, go to the gym and have standard normal fun?
Wonder if Billy TK is evacuating or he thinks Tsunamis are a hoax.
Tin foil hats are a good protection against 5G and 8.1 M earth quakes.
No need for a tinfoil hat for
5G
when you can get a pill from
Jami-Lee:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/124069747/jamilee-ross-behind-anti5g-supplement-business
Where I live, there are bouts of 3G-indigestion with the occasional sharp stabbing 4G-migraine. I’ll die of old age before 5G-cancer kills me. JLR can stick those pills up his arms.
Did Jami-Lee's partner in scam tickle any memory cells? Michael Kelly?
TBH, I had not read the link and still don’t intend to.
Yes, that commenter rings a bell. Turns out I banned him permanently in June last year for falsely claiming that Jacinda Ardern was (going to) pursue a “Forced Vaccination Agenda”. The ban was subsequently challenged in the back-end because it was seen as stifling debate on vaccination, which is an important topic; it was never followed up though. Looking back at it now, I’m happy I let the ban stand 🙂
Kelly's efforts here certainly appeared to be more of an attempt to set the stage for a sales effort than any kind of good faith attempt to debate.
The stuff link is really only entertainment value, for those that get amused by reading about what fantasies get spun by hucksters trying to fleece the gullible.
Indeed, I thought Kelly was trying to hijack the vaccine debate here on TS, which is why I banned him, not because of his views or opinions.
To me, the link looks like click bait and the best way to handle that is not to click on it 😉
And will Des Gorman pop up and claim that the tsunami is a 'border failure' of stupendous proportions, the government has been 'caught with its pants down' and there should have been a plan to stop it?
Imagine if you fled level 3 Auckland in your Audi for your low lying coastal bach….
God just told you to literally get in the sea.
He knows, foreshore, they're created by HAARP.
I haven't seen comment on National's idea of paying people directly for covid lock down subsidies. Has it been discussed on The Standard or elsewhere? I can see horrendous setup problems at a time when the public sector is working very hard on other covid issues, and the opportunity for a lot of individual mistakes, and ultimately the government being painted as seeking personal information for other (nefarious) purposes. Like most ideas from Collins, it deserves what it appears to have received – not even much media coverage.
Interesting Guardian article on a a UBI experiment in Stockton, California. It's not a large study (125 below-median wage people) and the unconditional payment was not large (USD$500/month). But the results predictably confound a couple of the standard objections to UBI: full-time employment among the target group actually went up, not down; and the money was spent on food, transport and utility bills – not booze. Even more predictably, debt was repaid, mental health improved and stress reduced.
I know there are legitimate 'left' criticisms of UBI – such as Tory-proofing it (as Weka says) so that it's not pegged back to subsistence levels and actually disadvantages groups with additional needs. Plus the larger issue of it being potentially disempowering and isolating. But it's an interesting result all the same.
Yes, i linked to it on the Daily Review. It would do those that live below the poverty line a world of good if they could get a payment of 500 a month without strings. Yet, we have strings attached to people who have lost their jobs. Go figure. We know that cash payments help. We just don't want to do it. We = society = parliament
edit: we can’t ‘tory’ proof anything really unless we make it so. I.e. the heating payment is one of these things. Once the tories get in, i can see this payment being axed as one of the first actions. Hence the argument to increase the base benefits substantially so that people might not need these seasonal and Tory unproof top ups.
Too many vested interests, but there is no veto on 16 billion of which quite a few companies and their shareholders should have but did not pay the money back. If nothing else, this alone must be a warning where the powers to be sitting morally.
I am all for the UBI given that automation and concentration of industries about to hit the labor market hard. Since any economic setting is a construct and not a natural phenomenon it can be changed. Wishful thinking but I feel that the money horders are amoral to the core and this idea will stay a pipe dream.
I know there are legitimate 'left' criticisms of UBI – such as Tory-proofing it (as Weka says) so that it's not pegged back to subsistence levels and actually disadvantages groups with additional needs.
We already have a 'Tory-proof' UBI – NZ Super for everyone over 65. Once a UBI was in place it would, like all other govt concerns be subject to the usual push and pull of the political landscape. There is nothing unusual in this – but over the past 3 decades we've seen successive govts hold conventional benefits too low for several simple 'non-political' reasons – that if they increased them too much the gap between minimum wage incomes and benefits would become too small, and the marginal tax abatement rates necessary would become even more onerous. (There is a whole lot more to be said on this, but that's the short version.)
Because however we've known nothing else but the the conventional benefit system, we tend to discount it's numerous built-in downsides.
Plus the larger issue of it being potentially disempowering and isolating.
Honestly I'm puzzled by this. In my view a UBI, by eradicating the inevitable social stigmas associated with conventional welfare, would have the exact opposite effect.
As for the report itself – absolutely non-surprising. I’ve been reading about similar positive outcomes wherever a UBI type scheme is implemented for over a decade now. Why the hell the left just can’t unite behind this baffles me.
Well then, ask the right why they don't go for it, if it is the failure of the left to deliver this.
And again, i would like to remind you that our moderate conservative kind of progressive PM has ruled out benefit increases. Unless you want to call JA, RG and the other suits – radical left. Oh, and htey have a majority so they don't even need any support from radicals or non radicals.
Or is blaming a fictional 'radical left' easier then asking the government to do what is the right thing to do?
if it is the failure of the left to deliver this.
Yes I agree with you, the left has been way too timid on this. To be fair a UBI would be a dramatic reform and any govt would consume a great deal of political capital getting it over the line. And until this past few post-COVD months there has never been a Labour govt in a strong enough position to do this.
But the ground has shifted – it's my sense that NZ right now would be more receptive to the idea than at any time in my life.
Perhaps the most pernicious effect of our conventional targeted benefit welfare (and the one that personally first clued me into the whole idea of a UBI over 20 yrs ago) is what happens when you try to transition off a benefit. The higher benefits are set, the more aggressively the system must abate them.
This creates very high marginal tax rates (often >80%) and is a huge disincentive. It's a large component of what's usually called the poverty trap.
By contrast a UBI system typically has flat (or close to flat) marginal tax rates – which means that the extra hours a family in this example worked would be of direct value to them, creating the opportunity to move out of the relative poverty and stress they're often in.
At present the system we have in NZ does the exact opposite – trapping families into an abusive cycle of precarious, casualised short term work, typically with periods on and off benefits. And very quickly they realise that whether they're working this week or not, it makes very little difference to them in the long run.
I don't think this quote makes the actual case you confer from it.
From the example, say a policy is adoped where $12000 anually is paid as a UBI (per household). Say also the mode of household income is initially $36000 p.a This shifts the whole income distribution up by that amount, which still leaves them at $36000 vs the new $48000 mode after every household receives the UBI. This makes the impacts a question of how the cost of living adjusts to this new income level, if that makes the household better, similarly or worse off. They are still relatively $12,000 poorer than the modal income however.
In contrast a $12000 targeted income boost does reduce this households relative poverty. It also creates what is described as a welfare trap where because of abatement rates there is little extra income earned for additional hours of work.
I think that makes it a question of what is the worse harm, relative poverty or welfare traps. It can also be considered what abatement rates should be applied.
Of course contrasting a UBI to 90s welfare reforms they work in different directions of income adjustment. Maybe a case can be made that boosting rather than cutting is more socially responsible policy reform. But in terms of effects I think the 90s reforms lack of payoff highlighted that welfare traps are not very harmful. That also seems to align with the study showing people were not disincentivised (were more likely to end up in work) to work by an income boost.
You've missed the important role that effective marginal tax rates are having here.
With a targeted benefit very high marginal tax rates are hard to avoid unless you keep the benefits low compared to minimum wages; whereas it's trivial to design a UBI/Flat Tax that has a constant flat marginal rate across the entire income band if that's what you want.
My understanding is that benefits and wage income are taxed at the same rates?
That doesn't seem to imply high benefit rates need be coupled with high marginal tax rates in any way. The UK seems to have an untaxed £10K band and I see no reason NZ could not do this as an separate policy change too.
While I understand, a negative income tax band coupled with a flat tax band, can be described as a progressive income tax regime. I would still say its significantly less progressive than our present 4/5 band income tax regime.
Your last paragraph is what I've always advocated for, a UBI that can be best thought of as a negative tax band combined with a flat PAYE tax. The numbers I've often used in the past were a UBI of $10kpa and a flat tax rate of 33%.
There is however no particular reason why these numbers should be used, I only chose them because they made giving examples at various income levels easy. Updating to 2021 I'd probably advocate for a UBI of $15kpa and say 3 tax bands ranging from 25% up to 45%.
Plus a CCT/Asset tax and a FTT.
The important point is that a UBI cannot be properly described without understanding the wider tax system that it is innately part of. Yet for all of these interesting technical ins an outs, it's the universal nature of a UBI that I firmly believe is it's most fundamental social virtue.
All well and good, however I don't see how that impacts what I said in 11.2.1.1.1 in any way. I was at the time thinking of all figures in after tax terms actually. I don't understand how giving everybody $12,000 p.a UBI reduces relative poverty. While targeting the income to those in relative poverty does this.
Agreed – the evidence suggests that the benefits are such that the objections are either overblown or need to be managed.
Couple of live streams.
https://whk-bar.click2stream.com/
http://ohopesurfcam.co.nz/
Of Trump playing golf with Clinton and Putin?
Have just finished watching Minister Kiritapu Allan presenting the press conference on the after effects of the earthquakes. An impressive performance with a very good ability to grasp and present the issues at hand.
Yes we all commented here on how well she spoke and that all 3 fronting interacted and performed as a team.
Perhaps the next cabinet reshuffle, those that are performing as min Kiritapu Allen will be recognised and those that have been found out are placed in positions that better suit their current abilities and performances.
It would be so much more helpful if you include a link, especially when it relates to an emergency alert.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/437703/tsunami-threat-to-new-zealand-constantly-evolving-allan
Here's a woman that obviously thinks Level 3 does not apply to her or her children.
Covid 19 coronavirus: Mother and Kids flouting lockdown at playground berates police at Browns Bay – NZ Herald
Kudos to the police for how they handled this. I know that we understand the utility of being kind right now – hope that Granny Herald understands too.
In the absence of a vaccine, it looks like someone has been swallowing fistfuls of magamoron
Despite earlier widespread doubts that a COVID-19 vaccine would even be possible, it's MAGA-type viruses (Destiny, Plan B, etc.) that will prove most difficult to treat.
Needs the FIZA jab – For idiot zombie arseholes.
Bedtime story for our kids is self selecting tonight … the boy who cried wolf.
The damned entitlement of jerks who think that the cops have to show you the specific law they will arrest you for before they put the cuffs on you. Worse that she likely would still have gotten away with it even if she weren't hiding behind her kids.
Cutting the tape is wilful damage, and she had failure to give details in the clip.
Dunno, I think being able to ask the cops to explain themselves is a reasonable principle in a society where cops have bent the rules over time and this has disadvantaged certain parts of society. Despite her being a dick about covid.
I also think the whole intimidation thing from cops, while useful in some situations is a problem in others.
Was he standing 2m away?
There's a difference between explaining oneself and basically being called a liar unless you provide documentary evidence of the legislation one is acting under.
One is fair. The other is simply a tactic to delay and an attempt to intimidate a person just doing their job. And it also seemed to only ever be used by privileged folk caught redhanded so they go on the indignation offensive. I don't recall ever dealing with a normal student who wanted me to supply exact chapter and verse for what I was doing. And no, not a cop, but I still had the legal authority to take one or two folk to the ground until the cops did arrive (and I didn't need to quote it to the fools).
I reckon they were seriously considering arresting her – that "details" question is a preamble I've seen used by cops a couple of times. Failure to provide details is a clear grounds for arrest, much easier to bother with than a debate about what was actually going on.
But that's beside the point of this covidiot. If she's unaware why the playground is closed after a year of this shit, cops won't convince her otherwise no matter how patient they are.
They need to prosecute her. She was the one doing the intimidating. She ripped down the security tape around the playground and encouraged her kids to play there. She's a nutbar but that does not exempt her from paying a price for breaking the law and smartarse responses to a couple of police officers whose approach was exemplary.
more trouble than she's worth.
Contender for quote of the year?
This is good news – apparently the machine of ICE family detention is being rolled back:
Obviously getting pushback from the "migrant caravan" brigade now the plan is out.
Yup throw open the borders – great start. Maybe NZ should do the same?
🙄
This is not an open border policy, any more than police bail is a policy of letting criminals avoid punishment for their crimes.
OK so there's a 72hr delay at the border while you get 'rapid processing'.
Even better no bothersome MIQ!
Anyone entering the US is going into a plague zone, not out of one.
You seem to be under the impression that immigrants need to be detained while they go through the application process, and that this policy involves greencards being handed out after the most cursory background check. I suggest you ease off on the fox news.
So hypothetically what do you imagine my chances are if I turned up at the US/Mexican border without a visa, and tried to apply for US citizenship?
Or should I just send the kids on ahead?
Either way, you turn up at the border and claim entry status for whatever reason. You get held while your ID is verified, and there's an initial check to see if you're a very bad person who should be arrested or deported. If you're cool at first glance, you go to the next bit.
Then your grounds for entry are examined, e.g. refugee status or work visa. You might be denied entry and referred to proper centres to apply for entry on those grounds, at which point you are deported.
Alternatively, you could be given a court date and released into the US. Failure to appear at court makes you liable for deportation.
That's the decision that has been fast-tracked for families because imprisoning kids is bad, m'kay. They just don't spend months in prison waiting for a hearing and decision, nor are babies taken to court by themselves or stolen from their parents.
But you're cool with all that.
OK so I'll send the kids on ahead and join them later after applying for a work visa … good plan.
Given this was one of the key issues that got Unca Donald elected in the first place, pumping new life back into it, at a point in time when the US is struggling with both a pandemic and high unemployment, borders not so much with Mexico, but with insanity.
As for the children – using them as a queue jumping ticket is of course absolutely and completely the responsibility of the adults who exploit them in this manner.
I guess that sometimes the right thing can look like insanity to someone who likes to see kids in cages.
How about trotting off and decolonising maths or something?
Your comment is perfectly reasonable because opposing this is woke-ism gone mad.
It's not "queue jumping" put give accused criminals bail, and asylum seekers aren't even accused criminals. They turn up at the border in order to go through the regular process.
But you still want families locked up because… ?