That was covered in Yesterday's Dom/Post as well. I couldn't help but laugh out loud.
What I particularly liked was that, after it was obvious that the patrol craft was taking on water, that "the cruise ship had remained in the vicinity of the incident for more than an hour and had offered assistance.. It's Captain alerted the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Curacao which eventually advised him to continue his journey."
Go away! Stop looking at us! Let us sink in peace!
There are an enormous number of uploads on Youtube but all they are is just stock footage of both ships. None show the ramming attempt as far as I could discover.
Why does David Lange's comment come to mind?
'Shortly after the Mikhail Lermontov, the pride of the Soviet cruising fleet, ended her life at the bottom of the Marlborough Sounds, Lange declared that little old New Zealand was "the only nation to sink a Russian Ship since the Second World War."'.
To those that think we were too slow, and to those that think we went too severe, 1 death, so far. Look at the UK, nurses, Drs, Bus Drivers, a 5 year old yesterday! Each county numbering 100s of deaths. Big thanks to those working their arses off keeping us as safe as they can.
For a start the lockdown would have been delayed, "because of the cost to business".
Those on welfare would have been ignored.
Big businesses with lobbying clout would have all still been open and their employees forced to work.
There would be no uptick in demand from a minimum wage rise.
Help would have been directed at banks and corporates. Small business, sole traders,beneficiaries and wage earners would have been last on the list, if at all.
Lastly, communication from Bridges would have been abysmal, and even their own voters don't really trust National. Except for tax cuts and lining their own pockets.
You are letting your political bias blind you to political reality. As SM says there would have been virtually no difference in response (except minimum wage increase).
All the fiscal measures to support wages and salaries, to support small business survive would have been implemented.
How do I know this? Because what the govt has done is modelled on what National did in Christchurch. They have actually said as much.
Under National there would have been much tougher border surveillance and earlier. That has been and remains a major failure of the government.
KJT may be right. Wayne may be right. We'll never know. I lean towards KJT's point of view. National would have been likely followed Scumo's weaker response. But as I said, it's history, and words spoken now about what would have happened are worthless and meaningless.
I agree. Nice as it may sound, it’s rather pointless and not even an ‘academic’ exercise. It also carries the risk of polarising opinions, which we don’t really need in these times or in any time for that matter, IMHO.
The health system in NZ has hardly changed in the last two decades (apart from new technology). The health budget has increased under both governments at more or less the same rate.
The proliferation of administrators on high pay, often much higher than operational staff, has swallowed up a large proportion of funding increases for schools, universities and schools, for the last 3 decades.
So the idea that funding has increased may be true on the face of it.
But so much has gone in those salaries and payments to private providers, all those sectors have shown the effects of being run down, in reality.
If you want to read about a health system being privatised by stealth read this. How the likes of fun f**king loving Branson the one along with Stagecoach f**ked eastern region railways in the UK and expected compensation is now a big player "running" the NHS
Nationalise the lot, tell them all to F**k Off with no compensation. I think Bo-Jo has a bloody cheek putting on his podium "Save the NHS" when since the days of Thatcher the Tories have done their utmost to run it into the ground.
"Bridges as PM" is not the same as "National in government".
I would give Key/English the benefit of the doubt. But the "bonfire of red tape" (Simon Bridges' own plans, in his own words) was announced as a response to Covid-19.
"The arguments for these things just becomes stronger as a result of Covid-19 … Clearing away red tape means businesses are freer to get up in the morning to hire people and building houses, cutting hair, doing the things that need to be done without the unnecessary rules and regulations," he said.
That was in March 2020. Less than a month ago. Only days before the lockdown. It was pure fantasy.
"Clearing away red tape means businesses are freer to get up in the morning to hire people and building houses, cutting hair, doing the things that need to be done without the unnecessary rules and regulations," he said.
I would be fascinated to know what unnecessary rules and regulations there might be governing cutting hair.
Yep Bridges was completely out of touch. Almost like he continued to waffle on along prepared lines without any awareness of how serious things were becoming.
"Because what the govt has done is modelled on what National did in Christchurch."
What did National do for beneficiaries at that time? I don't remember an across the board benefit rise for Canterbury people. Nor an energy payment that winter. Can't remember what National's response was. Anyone?
it was extended by a few weeks but was further restricted from memory but as far as direct financial support went that was the extent if I recall correctly.
Its worth noting that the fact a business support package (wage subsidy) had been implemented before, albeit on a limited basis, would likely have promoted it as an option on this occasion.
Having said that I think KJT's assertion that Nationals response would have differed holds a considerable amount of water as with everything the emphasis, priorities and timing would have been different …the devil is always in the detail
Single issue lunacy from you KJT, surround by a huge amount of conjecture and what if’s’
I think the response has been over the top. If anyone thinks this thing isn’t coming back for round 2 at some point, they’re deluded. Will we just shut the economy down again? Or is it better to allow some deaths amongst the lower risk demographics and try and focus isolation and support on the high risk? Then at least we can build some immunity.
No economy in the world can meets the all of the health needs of citizens and prevent all disease related deaths. What economies can do is generate capital to support and resource health systems. The stronger the economy, the greater the resources governments can give to health systems. The issue as it always has been is about how to best allocate those resources. This requires careful judgement (not evident with the current Minister of Health).
For instance cancer patients have for years been competing with each other and with other medical conditions for resources. There is never enough resource to go round and so there will always be priorities and winners and losers.
No one is "happy" about "sacrificing"people. And it doesn't happen "for the economy". Your thinking on this doesn't make sense. Its emotive bullshit.
To reiterate, its the 'economy' that makes it possible to build better health systems.
The problem with these armchair alternatives is that they ignore the most basic question in a democracy. Does the government tell the people what it is doing?
If "No", then you're arguing for a cover-up. Which would inevitably leak out, and there would be uproar.
If "Yes", how do you propose that a NZ government (ANY government, forget the names and parties) announces to the people:
"We think it is better to allow some deaths, so we'll be doing that."
By and large the evidence strongly suggests that the young don't die at anywhere near the same rates as 'the old and infirm" as a result of Convid 19. So that sacrifice is not being asked of the young. And neither should it.
The same rate does not mean that there is no rate. They still get sick, they still die, and they still infect others. Therefore they are still sacrificing.
Moreover as they have to go off sick in large quantities, they will cause businesses to fail thereby eventually losing themselves and others their jobs.
What kind of moronic point are you trying to make? Simpleton aphorisms don’t make an argument – they merely define someone being an idiot.
I agree with your statements concerning the use of the concept, 'rates'.
My other point (which I should have made more clearly) is that I don't think we should be expecting the young to make unreasonable sacrifices for, say, boomers, for example.
I understand that you're probably been a little too lazy to read up on epidemics. But the issue in a epidemic without a vaccine or a effective treatment is that everyone almost without exception gets sick.
The more often that you get exposed and infected again before you develop any immunities, the more likely it is that you'll wind up with a dose of infecting agents that manage to overwhelm anyones immune system. Without adequete medical treatment you're more likely to die or have a downstream consequence – like a permanently compromised immune system.
So instead of whining about someone else based on a discussion about probabilities, perhaps you should look more closely at how you stop you, your family, your friends, and your workmates getting into a situation that they get into the worst possible epidemic case.
Try looking at New York where it appears the major demographic dying or severely distressed now are in their 30s and 40s because they have been swanning around in virus haze thinking that they're immune.
Meanwhile the boomers buttoned up weeks ago because they were told that they were at risk.
You can also look to OZ where the risk takers are the most affected ie 20's.
Dr McAnulty said that younger people are being affected.
"Young people need to be aware that they are not immune from getting severe disease.
"The older people and people with underlying health problems, cardiac or chest or immune problems, are most prone to getting severe disease and requiring intensive care and ventilation, but younger people are getting infected as well, and the biggest single age group is people in their 20s.
"In fact, we have seen also three people who were ventilated in intensive care in their 30s."
My other point (which I should have made more clearly) is that I don't think we should be expecting the young to make unreasonable sacrifices for, say, boomers, for example.
Why not? We're all in this together. Some of the at risk people will be younger people eg those with asthma or immune issues. Everyone is making sacrifices, not just young people, so why single them out as a group and pit them against others?
Further, why is the boomer generation not worthy of being helped? What about the elderly who will die if we all don't do our bit?
Are those young going to have there student loans remitted? As they face ruinous generational bills to pay for the privilege of extending the lives of those who benefited from a free education? Will the young get advantageous interest rates on their mortgages as they take lower paid roles in order to support the old and infirmary right to live where they are on a full government super? Will that same super be affordable for future generations as reward for sacrificing so much for the old and infirm who demanded the economy be shut down to protect them.
the same voices crying for there future generations to be protected from climate change are now sadly forgotten as those same voices revert to individualistic selfishness.
For the moment, I’m ignoring the rest of your comment, which is basking in ignorance, IMO.
Then at least we can build some immunity.
Nobody knows or is sure if exposure to (i.e. infection with) COVID-19 will induce immunity and, if so, how long this will last. This pandemic is too young to tell and it is highly risky to make predictions and extrapolate from the experience with other coronaviruses or research on animals.
Pretty weak excuse. It’s not wiping people out. It’s fatality rate amongst people without other morbidity factors is nearing .25%.
its the old and infirm and the occasionally unlucky other who then gets sensationalised. I’m not saying it’s not something to be afraid of, but when the theoretical cure is worse than the disease…
we don’t even know if isolation will actually break the transmission cycle. It’s a best guess based on an assumption. So no less valid than Sweden’s approach, which is what I think we should follow.
but hey, if you blindly accept MoH media reports and briefings, be my guest.
people are going to die regardless, do we want to lower everyone who survives quality of life for generations to come to potentially save a small portion of the population? And save them only the first time round?
its a tough choice, no one gets it right, but the draconian response is out of proportion.
Yes, we’re all going to die, one day. However, we don’t leave anyone behind in this country.
You seem to be suggesting that we “potentially” sacrifice “a small portion of the population” so that the survivors can have better quality of life.
You say that this is a tough choice. Well, no, for me it’s an easy choice and my QALYs would be lower because of my burdened conscience assuming I’ll be among the survivors. You don’t seem to have that problem!?
Getting sick is not the same as dying from Covid 19. Probably why we aren’t seeing lots of deaths relative to our infection rate.
so either your example about New Zealand’s young is designed to be misleading about the fatality impact of covid 19 or it supports my point that the at risk people (fat Americans, old people, underlying health conditions) should be isolated and have massively targeted support and the very low risk people should be allowed to live almost as normal, with some restrictions. As covid 19 isn’t fatally dangerous to them
When falling sick, you risk dying from it. This applies to all ages, but not equally, which nobody has disputed so this is a strawman.
When becoming a carrier, you risk spreading the virus and infecting others. This has nothing to do with your own ‘risk status’.
To prevent this from happening and to try to stamp out the virus, we’re in Alert Level 4. This is likely why we aren’t seeing lots of deaths relative to our infection rate.
You’re suggesting to let the virus go rampant among the population without knowing who are at risk and who aren’t; you don’t know whom it will be “fatally dangerous” to. You’re prepared to let people die so that others can live “almost as normal”. You believe that this is a price worth paying.
Who’s talking about “fat Americans” in our NZ society? Are you deliberately misleading?
You’re as ignorant about COVID-19 as you are about CC, which actually makes a lot of sense.
'…if you blindly accept MoH media reports and briefings, ..'
Hmm blindly following the actual experts advice or some pseudonymous commenter on a blog….. that's a tough one.
Have you ever seen any of the vaccination threads on this site.. lots of pseudonymous commenters thinking they know better than the experts and their science.
We encourage strong debate supported by sound arguments. We ask the ignorami to educate themselves and improve their arguments and debating skills. You’re starting to sound like a straight-up denier, as you did with CC. Keep it up and you’ll be booted off this site.
Who is denying CC? You’re getting confused. CC is happening, I think there are other ways to deal with it than jetting around hectoring people or organising wasteful marches.
3 people ventilated. It’s hardly reason enough to shut down society. Some will be unlucky enough to get it seriously or even fatally. It’s unfortunate, but not enough to wreck the futures of the rest of their generation.
And. If the hospitals are full of Coronavirus cases, a hell of a lot of other people are going to die of other conditions. Because there is no place or people to treat them.
But. They are just part of the "collateral damage" right.
One of my friends, a health worker, still cannot work because his constantly postponed hip replacement, has been postponed again due to coronavirus. Isn't that a cost, to?
The reason some of those Drs and nurses are dying is because they are getting reinfected, and each time it hits them stronger, then they die. You may end up like Boris Johnson, in denial, then sick.
Bridges was interviewed on Q+A this morning, and it was far the best I've seen him. Sensible, largely supportive of Government measures dealing with Covid, but pertinent questions about testing and quarantining of incoming travelers.
He seemed to be natural and informed.
This perhaps shows the benefits of being isolated from party strategists and media trainers.
All of them the bane of modern politics and the ruin of potential leaders. David Shearer suffered badly from it, as did Andrew Little (but as it turns out Ardern is a far better communicator anyway).
Ardern herself has been better when finding herself in times of crisis where she acts as she sees fit rather than being projected through a PR lens. Her interview on Seven Sharp on Friday wasn't one her best, it looked prepared and scripted, and laughing off the Clark question and pivoting to a lecture to the rest of us to not do what Clark had done was poor.
We to often forget that a Leader is still part of a group/party.
Who, may not even agree with the things they have to front.
Or, like Trump, is the figurehead for a large number of enablers behind him.
Then they have, in both Labour and National, to deal with a large number of chair polishers, and outright loons, their selection processes saddle them with.
Ardern's interview on 7 Sharp on Friday was simply propaganda and politicking. Its was straight out of the ex Women's Weekly playbook.
TVNZ need to be careful about providing a platform at prime time for political propaganda of this sort. Hillary Barry asking the tough questions is a joke. The programme was unbalanced and biased.
Jack Tane's Q & A programme provides the template for how these things should be done; especially in these times.
Bollocks. What you saw is Simon as he is. Politicians both left and right are not automatons and just puppets of polling. Yes, polling is done. But basically a politician has to use his/her judgement. And once before the camera they just say what they say. It is not nearly as scripted as you seem to think.
I wonder how the ACC levies are going with the loss of income.
Bearing in mind the markets, I suspect they’d be more worried about their reserves which are the buffer. The levies are probably gone down roughly in line with the claims.
We shall never know how Simon would have handled the crisis (thank God for that) but if we look overseas we can see numerous examples of how right wing governments have fared, Think Trump, think Johnson, think Morrison.
It would be fair to say Simon would not have been much better than any of them.
Add to that the Chinese ambassador's annoyance when we closed our borders to China and you can be sure the borders would have stayed open for longer – notwithstanding what Simon says now.
Australia is doing ok. Its current management of the problem is producing results similar to NZ.
Mostly because the various state governments like NSW, Vic and SA have been doing far closer what the NZ government has done. Closing borders. Forcing businesses to close. People to self-isolate early.
They are doing this despite the Federal government’s vacillating and inconsistent policies that seemed largely designed to reduce the call on federal funds at the unemployment.
However the federal government has now seemed to get on with the task at hand in recent days with what looks a lot like our stimulus programmes.
Very, very good. It explains why the Dems have singularly misunderstood Trump, underestimated him and miserably failed to compete against such an egregious goat of a man:
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York seems to understand something that no other politician or political candidate up against President Trump has yet grasped. You can’t fight a Reality TV Presidency with an argument, you have to fight it with another reality show, a newer and better one.
And you have to fight it by showing a better way, not just promising it or arguing about it.
In essence, you undercut Trump by being the very opposite of him on television every single day when so many people are paying attention. You do not do this by attacking him or quarreling with him. It’s entertainment, stupid, fighting and offending is his specialty, it is most people’s weakness. You try to show what government, at its best, can do.
Reminder #23628 of why it's a really not a good idea for a political leader to own and control substantial business interests: the Dotard of Doltistan is looking for substantial debt relief from Deutsche Bank at the same time as the Department of Justice (which he is in charge of) is investigating Deutsche Bank for various crimes.
I think Morrissey is referring to the article he posted, Starmer intends to address anti-semitism in the party (which doesn't really exist, but was an invention of many "friends of Israel" and some other hidden forces), this will be a direct attack on all socialists in the party who support Palestinian's human rights.
Starmer has previously said he would take action to eliminate prejudice against Jews in his party “on day one” in order to demonstrate “the difference that new leadership will make on the issue.”
He has also said he would look to fully cooperate with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s report into anti-Semitism in the party, which is currently in the works, but that he had no intention of waiting for its results in order to take action.
Starmer deliberately mislabels opposition to the crimes of the Israeli regime as "anti-Semitism." That obviously sits well with the extreme right Times of Israel, which published this encomium, but it's another nail in the coffin for the future of the Labour Party.
So he hasn't "vowed to expel every Labour Party member who cares about human rights" then and you just made that up?
What caught my attention about that was that the other leader candidates signed a pledge to support the expulsion of gender critical feminists from the party. From memory Starmer didn't, or at least he was restrained in his handling of that rather than throwing a large number of Labour feminists under the bus.
So making shit up about expulsions carries more stupid weight than normal.
He joined in the campaign of defamation against Jeremy Corbyn, which descended into a purge of anyone who spoke out against Israeli crimes. I didn't make that up, it's an unpleasant fact.
Do you support the contention of the Blairite rump of that party that criticism of Israel is, per se, anti-Semitism?
'The so-called “friends of Israel”, who support Israel automatically and blindly: this has nothing to do with friendship. They are enemies of Israel—they corrupt us. The Jewish establishment in Australia kept saying to me: “Israel right or wrong.” Well, Israel is wrong and they need to stop supporting it. Continuous support by Western governments and by the Jewish establishment is anything BUT friendship.'
What it looks like is that you are back in your routine of feigned ignorance. I doubt that you are unaware of the brutal campaign of "anti-Semitism" allegations that was directed against Corbyn over the last four years. So why pretend you are?
I'm asking for evidence that the Labour party has purged members or intends to. You've made the claim twice, and both times refused to back it up, so I assume now you are lying.
In terms of your politics around Israel and Palestine and what Labour are doing re that, not interested in talking about that today.
I'm asking for evidence that the Labour party has purged members or intends to.
If you don't know that the Labour Party is purging human rights activists, you should not be commenting here. I expect to find displays of willful ignorance on Kiwiblog, but not on this normally excellent forum.
In terms of your politics around Israel and Palestine and what Labour are doing re that, not interested in talking about that today.
The false anti-Semitism smear and the witchhunt and the demand for apologies has everything to do with the "politics around Israel-Palestine." I don't believe, by the way, that you are ignorant about this matter.
Morrissey, you run your own blog, IIRC. You should know that many blogs, particularly TS, are not for little tête-à-têtes but for robust debate. Anybody can join in but many read this site without ever commenting. So, when somebody, particularly a Moderator, asks you for evidence to back up your allegations, then please oblige without sounding like a petulant little child. Thanks.
I'm not "alleging" that the right wing (Blairite) rump of the Labour Party, which has now manoeuvred itself back into control—a pyrrhic victory if ever there was one—has operated an unrelenting smear campaign against Corbyn and anyone who stands up for the rights of the Palestinians, any more than I would allege that the sun is coming up tomorrow morning or that today is Sunday. It's a fact.
You say there is "no evidence" of a purge of human rights activists from the Labour Party. This charming little encapsulation of Starmer's agenda comes from the article I provided for you in my original comment on this thread:
New opposition chief immediately apologizes to Jews for anti-Semitism in ranks, vows to ‘tear out this poison’….
When Starmer says "this poison" he doesn't mean anti-Semitism, he means criticism of the Israeli regime. What do you think he means when he says he's going to "tear out" these critics?
Morrissey, you could have saved yourself the trouble with those utterances that I personally am not interested in.
My concern is your behaviour here and how you respond, or not for that matter, to basic requests for evidence to support your allegations. This is a necessary element of good debate, which we treasure on this site.
You have been around here long enough to know how it works. Next time, please just provide the evidence and don’t argue. It is wasting our time and I find it tedious enough to get the ban-hammer out.
I thought it was kinda obvious. Robertson said that Clark was "always available" for interviews according to Jason Walls.
Also Stuff reported Robertson as saying “He’s available to front anytime".
But Jack Tame pointed out he reneged on a scheduled Q+A interview for today so wasn't always available as stated. RNZ Live referred to it as "a no show'.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was grilled by journalists as to why Health Minister David Clark has declined some interviews this weekend. She said others had fronted, he was at home at lockdown and he would continue to be available for interviews.
Dr Clark refused Newshub's repeated requests for an interview, instead sending a short statement.
So according to Robertson and Ardern, Clark is "available to front any time" and "would continue to be available for interviews", but according to journalists he isn't.
The Minister of Health, during the biggest health crisis for decades, is remote from the centre of Government and Ministry of Health activity and is not giving interviews despite the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance saying he is available (knowing he isn't doing interviews).
If he's not giving interviews to gossip columnists who want to rabbit on about him going for a bike ride, then good so. Why should someone in his position indulge such childish bullshit? If they were actually interested in asking him questions about the pandemic and NZ's response to it, it would be dereliction of duty for him to refuse the interviews – but they aren't, and it isn't.
Q+A is hardly a gossip column, it's not perfect but it's one of the best political media forums we have.
With Clark not fronting up Simon Bridges got a spot, and surprisingly he came across well, far different from his usual. Generally supportive of Government actions but with some reasonable questions and criticisms.
So at least something good came of Clark's no show. Bridges may be capable of rising to the occasion that the current situation requires of our politicians.
” it would be dereliction of duty for him to refuse the interviews – but they aren’t”
Do you have proof of this? I heard O’Brien saying she had specific and relevant (to the pandemic) sounding questions.
The fact that David Clark went for a bikeride is quite possibly the most serious thing facing our nation right now and think Jacinda should have focussed her entire press conference on this incredibly important issue. Tova is obviously the Woodward and Bernstein of her time.
Good move by Clark imo, let's see how much media work he does in the coming week. Journos want to sensationalise a story that should have been over by now. Under normal circumstances that would just be tedious, but under these circumstances it's bizarre.
PM's press conference today: the first there-were-so-many-I-can't-recall-how-many questions were all about David Clark going for a bike ride. Nothing about Tova O'Brien's previous reporting suggests she'd operate to a higher standard than that, in fact for all I know it was her asking those questions (the questioners aren't identified in the video).
What is obvious is that your mind is not like mine, obviously.
Being available for interviews is not the same as being available for a game of pin the tail on the donkey, no matter how much it appeals to a certain audience and certain pundits who have made a hobby out of reporting on it.
When something smells a little off, it could be a ripening French cheese. Yum!
So how long do you think that Clark should refuse to do interviews (despite Ardern and Robertson saying he is always available) just in case someone asks him an awkward question that he would prefer not to answer?
Or do you think he should only do interviews with questions he allows in advance?
Or should Bloomfield, Robertson and Ardern just speak on his behalf. It's not as if he has a very important job, is it.
I think this tweet speaks for itself, adding to this thread.
Also for all of the people telling the Gallery off for asking David Clark questions, who are you serving by helping the PM suppress questions about a health minister who has so clearly been marginalised in a health crisis? She decides there are only 15 minutes for questions
I never thought the bike ride was a big deal apart from being embarrassing for Ardern efforts to get people following her message of staying away from risky pastimes.
But what it has highlighted is a Minister of Health being shielded or hiding away at the most important time for any Minister of Health for decades. That's an important issue. Do we have a functional Minister of Health?
What’s more important: de we have a scandal that can bring down this Government? Will the PM call a snap election? What do the polls say? What’s for dinner tonight?
You attempt at flippancy is a pretty lame attempt at diversion, and I think stupid in the current situation of a pandemic.
Media have picked up on the MIA issue…
The PM used the word idiot to describe a member of the public and Tova put her words back to her. Legitimate question when every day the PM decides whether David Clark is sitting in Dunedin with a ministerial warrant and a cool 250k in the middle of a crisis.
Do you really not see what Ardern did today? She knew exactly what was coming (our political journos are nothing if not predictable). She fed them a line: "idiots".
Then she took the (predictable) questions on Clark and quietly kicked him in the shins. She didn't repeat "idiot", because she didn't need to.
She also knew that while a minuscule minority of poli-tragics on blogs might still be getting worked up about Clark, the vast majority of the public are rolling their eyes at the journos (see the social media reaction in real time, which is unspun).
What do leaders usually say when one of their team lapses? "It was within the rules …" "I do not condone but …" "What about what about?" etc. Weasel words, which only make it worse.
She is smarter than that, and still many can't/won't see it.
Yes, she gave journalists an opening to infer Clark was an idiot, a notion she didn't do much to dispel.
If Ardern is smart she won't let this fester away, which is likely if left unaddressed and information is sought from the Minister of Health – he can't go to ground forever.
It isn't festering away. Nobody cares much, except journos who help to make sure nobody cares by going on about it some more. She has political capital in spades, they don't.
I don't think you would even recognize her smarts, TBH.
Good question. I don't know. I do know that he has seemed to struggle with interviews he has given over the last couple of weeks, he has sounded unsure and lacking in confidence. Perhaps that's why he has quietly been given a reduced role.
It's a bit superfluous for him to be doing interviews when the PM is fronting this issue. Journalists know that too, hence no squawking about lack of interviews until now. It's clear why they have a sudden interest in interviewing him, and also clear that the reason is "childish gotcha bullshit."
Virgin Australia has shut down its NZ operations. 600 jobs gone, more than twice as many as the Bauer debacle. No doubt the howls of outrage in the media are coming…?
The airline industry is going to be a very sad place for a long time. There's a lot of airlines that have been loosing serious money prior to the covid19 restrictions on travel. Virgin Australia was one.
This piece from ABC sums it up nicely. Bottom line, Virgin is an overseas owned business and the Australian government is very unlikely to bail them out. Unfortunately some / most of the overseas airlines that own Virgin are worse. Can't see them being around for long.
The global airline industry will probably resemble the airline industry of the late 60's by the end of this, a few national flag carriers serving their home states and a couple of larger international based ones. And a lot of surplus aluminium parked in the desert. And a lot of people out of work.
Virgin Australia were in big trouble 8 months ago….losses of $1.2 billion over the last 6 years. They would probably have folded without Covid-19. See:
"a lot of surplus aluminium parked in the desert. "
I wonder how that will affect the prospects of Rio Tinto at Tiwai? Their "best aluminium" claims revolve mainly around aircraft manufacture, I understand.
The high purity of the aluminium from Tiwai Point is more valuable for electronics purposes that directly use it in the pure state. The large portion of the output that goes to Japan is used for that.
High purity aluminium is useless for any kind of structural use, it's much too soft and weak. So it has to be alloyed with significant amounts of other elements, and the tiny quantities of impurities disappear into the tolerances of the alloying proportions. For instance, a common high-performance alloy is 7075 with a recipe that roughly includes 5.6–6.1% zinc, 2.1–2.5% magnesium, 1.2–1.6% copper, and less than a half percent of silicon, iron, manganese, titanium, chromium, and other metals.
"our high-purity aluminium is valuable for aerospace" makes for a good marketing story, though. It's useful to make locals feel special about what they produce, in order to add to their social license to operate. Even when it's bullshit.
Its likely, for the moment, that any subsidies paid to Tiwai will be cheaper than unemployment support for the numerous on and off site staff and losses to the wider community. But the plant owners could pull the plug anytime, which would be sad.
The real shame is that money, which could have been used to develop long term sustainable employment in Southland, has instead been wasted on bribes to Rio Tinto. It would have been cheaper to shut it down, and just continue paying the staff.
And we have all been paying higher power bills, for decades, for the same reason.
Other industries and infrastructure, such as electric rail, could have used that power.
a faster curve than expected, but we were always going to end up here and I'm relieved it's happening now rather than in 20 years when it's way too late.
My hope now is that we create sustainable jobs rather than rushing back to the pollution economy.
I notice the usual suspects gearing up for business as usual.
Including Federated farmers, trying to get out of ceasing to pollute waterways, and businesses which relied on cheap labour, tax payer support and capital gains, trying to use this an excuse for even more largess from their employees, and the rest of us.
I don’t have much hope. They are already trying to paint targets on anyone who is against de- regulation and subsidies for polluting businesses.
Once China has built it's strategic milk powder mountain a shock could be on the way. No markets, or severely fucked markets, will mean much less going off farm.
Add to that less containers coming into the country full of all the shit we buy from Briscoes et al, so we've got to import empty boxes, and NZ agriculture could be in for a squeeze like it's never seen before.
NZ agriculture could be in for a squeeze like it's never seen before.
Twaddle,demand in china for WMP is increasing due to the CCP expectation that everyone needs to drink 300ml of milk a day.Neither China or NZ can meet that cumulative demand.
There is also expected a global shortfall in whole foods such as apples,kiwifruit,oranges.and grain due to export restrictions from former CIS states.
Agriculture is resilient ie antifragile during recessions,whether NZ can sustain the harvest,due to staff shortages or government policy in horticulture (limited selling venues) is the open problem.
As few additional house sales will be transacted over the lockdown period,and those who do not seek mortgage holidays,repayment would also exceed bank household lending.
household sector savings provide protection from offshore impacts including exchange rate fluctuations is true enough…hence the RBNZ increased requirement in recent times…however there is another side to that ledger which somewhat negates your cheerleading…both household debt and total debt has increased more in the same period
The floating exchange rate could be expected to provide (some) protection in normal circumstances however we are looking at a prolonged reduction in worldwide economic activity which is it self deflationary as there will be reduced demand and ability to purchase our goods and our competitors are capable of increasing production at a scale (and will be looking to do so) we cannot cope with even if we had spare capacity , which we dont…and the non commodity imports required for our (now) high input model of ag will not deflate at the same rate.
Yes oil is low at the moment but that wont remain the case for long as the russians and saudis will agree to cut production soon enough especially in light of further reduced demand.
from your final comment it appears your horizon is around 3 months…..seriously???
and the fixed costs spread over a smaller pool will necessitate considerable fare increases…cheap travel is gone for the foreseeable (once the dust settles)
When walking I have noticed the increase of "Dog Mines" just off footpaths 🤬. When giving way to others: using the footpath as a 2m guide walk whilst passing using either side of the grass verge. Be careful watch out for dog poo being tramped thru the house. 😉
Only when I enter into our entrance or garage then leave shoes inside front or back door – there is the isolated occasion that there is a need rush inside 😉 – And that will be the one occasion that "stuff" is on the sole of the shoe.
A longish but very worthwhile piece on the idea of there being a trade-off between the economy and public health (spoiler: there isn't), with a focus on when and how to back off on restrictions.
That sort never thinks. He has no excuse except to apologise humbly for being a natural dork. He should go through a rigorous Army training program to strengthen his discipline muscle.
Funny how the corporate media have been avoiding talking about the Biden sexual assault allegations. And then it gets all mixed up in an attack on Alyssa Milano, ever get the feeling women mean nothing in politics, and are just props?
Please don't do the usual and throw in trump to dilute the debate. I know he's a absolute sexist arse, and anyone not living under a rock knows it too.
I actually did not consider my comment being linked to a virus.
I tried to get glasses recently and the only pair which suited that I really liked were in the children's section and had a superman on them so were not an option.
I am finding the styles of frames to be so variable from like thick window frames to looking like goggles.
The easiest solution is to keep the frames and update the lens.
Congratulations to Keir Starmer for taking out the labour leadership contest. Not my choice, who came in third, but thankfully the continuity candidate Wrong Daily fell well short, and with her, the momentum led ultra faction.
Not only did Starmer have the overwhelming backing of all three voting groups, he also took effective control of the NEC (executive council) after his supporters won in a series of separate elections.
Starmer describes himself as a socialist but not a Corbynite, and will keep key policies from the Corbyn era, such as nationalising rail, mail and water and repealing anti-union laws, but the hope is he won't be anywhere near as unpopular and unelectable as the biggest labour loser in living memory.
With 5 years until the next election, and though much needs to be done to shore up and rebuild the red wall, my advice to the new leader is the same I gave Cunliffe when he rose to the top – Don't invite the enemy into the camp, purge. He should also seek to redefine the bond between the party and the unions so the likes of McCluskey are sidelined as much as possible. If he doesn't like it, tough, he can always advise those who pay his large salary to vote tory, though I suspect he'd have a moan and succumb, realising what side his bread is richly buttered on.
… the hope is he won’t be anywhere near as unpopular and unelectable
That will depend on whether or not there’s a concerted defamation campaign against him as there was against Corbyn. Starmer was one of the foulest defamers, along with the likes of such intellectual luminaries as J.K. Rowling. Tom Watson, and Rachael Riley.
'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This party is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! He’s f*ckin’ snuffed it!…..THIS IS AN EX-PARTY!!
A sheep farming nieghbour of mine has yearly given himself a shot of drench at that time of year. He reckons that if it can't kill a lamb it will have its work cut out on him. It will get him one day, but it had better get a move on, he's 82 and still working.
What the actual fuck??? Just checked my replies tab and the replies to the mozzie's droning whines showed up, not replies to me. I'm struggling to not take it as a personal insult.
Dollars to be made so of course tRump and gHouliani are touting this shit.
A conservative business group founded by a prolific Republican political donor is pressuring the White House to greenlight an unproven COVID-19 treatment, saying in an online petition that the country has plants in the U.S. ready to produce a drug but can’t because of “red tape, regulation, and a dysfunctional healthcare supply chain.”
In recent days, Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus’ Job Creators Network has placed Facebook ads and texted supporters to sign a petition urging President Donald Trump to “CUT RED TAPE” and make an anti-malarial drug called hydroxychloroquine available for treating those sickened with the virus, one such message obtained by ProPublica reads.
All the nit picking, repetitive, sanctimonious Pete George comments seem to indicate he desperate to have a soapbox. Has his own blog closed down?
Most people have agreed David Clark made a mistake going for his bike ride. It was not at all appropriate at this time. He has apologised, and there now are more important issues to deal with. Yes, the media conferences are no doubt left to the PM and Grant Robertson as the best people to handle the media pack of wolves. Both are very ably doing this. Any crisis of this magnitude has to be tightly managed.
There are 2 American utube spokespeople attracting viewers in the millions for their daily press briefings at the moment. Trump and Cuomo.
Cuomo has Trump's measure, he is a better showman.
Trump had me chortling at his relentless superlatives, Cuomo had me in tears.
Cuomo doesn't attack Trump, Donald has nowhere to go but praise Cuomo's popular forthrightness. The guy's little brother is a CNN anchor and has just come down with the virus.
Is it too late for Cuomo to line up against Donald for the Hot Seat? Americans of all stripes are learning to love that guy.
My 79 year old Dad has just been taken to Waikato Hospital by Ambulance. He's normally very healthy, but started having breathing difficulties early Sunday morning. He had to go on his own because of the current rules. This is really scary stuff. I don't know what's happening.
There are lots of people still getting breathing difficulties that have nothing to do with 19.
It could be 19 but wait for something decent to worry about before you worry about it too much fireblade.
Put a call into Waikato Hospital and ask how you can be advised like you were phoning them every 5 minutes but without phoning them every 5 minutes. eg: Be advised of what's going on immediately.
Dad is home again now. The Hospital did an ECG, chest x-ray, Influenza test, Covid-19 test and blood tests. They gave him some medication and he can breath more easily now.
He water blasted the concrete area behind his house on Saturday afternoon and the Hospital thinks this irritated his lungs. Hopefully the tests will be normal/negative. St John Ambulance and the Waikato Hospital were both fantastic.
People are dying overseas because hospitals aren't able to provide artificial lungs until an aged person generates enough of an immune system to counter-act the mongrel.
Because Jacinda jumped early, we have all the ventilators we need for as long as the patients need them. Worst case scenario, you're still stuck with your grumpy old man.
Arundhati Roy writes about how Covid19 threatens India.
She concludes;
Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
The historical normality of India,is pestilence and famine.The former is here and the later will follow almost surely.
India – the world’s second-most populous country, where a majority of the population is involved in agriculture – is among the most vulnerable nations to the disruptions.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a 21-day lockdown with just a few hours notice on March 25, leaving many of its 120 million migrant laborers struggling to get home and with no money for rent, food or transport.
The country’s northern grain bowl relies on labor from eastern parts of the country, but workers have left the farms because of the lockdown. [L4N2BO25E]
“Who is going to fill the grain bags and bring the produce to market, and transport it to mills?” asked Jadish Lal, a merchant in Punjab’s Khanna grain market, the country’s largest.
Wow, Cuoro is brilliant, he is giving Donald an awful time while leaving no target.
In his live conference he talks about having no choice but go cap in hand to China and beg for ventilators and masks.
He just needs to drop the tiniest of 'I wish we could sort this out in our homeland' hints and it hits like a sledge hammer.
Cuoro is a master story teller. A good story teller doesn't tell, they show, they give us room to create our own narrative. I think Donald has met his match.
The PM’s comments this evening seemed out of her recent character. Her suggestion that we should be grateful we have only 1000 cases instead of the 4000 predicted by some model has drawn cheers from the cheap seats
On reflection tho, hearing her fishing for praise for her performance to date smacks of a commander briefing her troops for a battle she knows we are about to loose. “Remember me lads! I did my best; honest!” Trying to score political points at this early stage is somewhat worrying.
It’d pretty much be relief. This is an epidemic exponential growth curve where the infected rate is expected to double every 2-3 days. That means if it was 4000 now, then we could expect it to be somewhere over 16,000 at the end of next week and somewhere over 64,000 the week after.
Getting the rate down to 1000 after a week and half in lockdown means that the bet that the executive council made in requesting a state of emergency and a epidemic order, plus the steps being taken are actually working. Provided some idiots like those I have fun disparaging here don’t affect progress, we’re more likely to control the epidemic over coming months than we are to lose control.
You really don’t have to work up a dumb conspiracy theory. Simple relief is sufficient. Now maybe she’ll eat better and get some damn sleep with a reduce stress level.
With a grain but it sure looks like the Generals are getting antsy.
Jair Bolsonaro’s irresponsibility in the face of the SARS-CoV-2 virus crisis may have irritated the Armed Forces into choosing Chief Minister of the Civil House, Walter Braga Netto, as the new operational president of Brazil, it was reported today.
Brasil 247 portal quoted Argentine investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky, saying that a high-ranking officer in the Brazilian Army told a peer from Argentina in a telephone conversation, that Bolsonaro is not heard by authorities when making decisions.
‘The Brazilian party reported they had made the decision to ignore President Bolsonaro in all important decisions,’ said the communicator on the program. ‘There will be consequences’, says the quote by Radio El Destape.
Verbitsky stated that Bolsonaro acts as ‘a monarch without effective power’ and that General Walter Braga Netto of the Civil House is now in charge of the country.
Military website defesanet.com.br, considered the most important news page in the areas of defense, strategy, intelligence and security in Latin America, also confirmed that Braga Neto will be in charge of directing and centralizing all government administration, at least while the crisis lasts due to the Covid-19.
Don Franks was interviewed by Dr Toby Boraman in December 2013 about his time working in the militant Ford car plant in the 1970s. In this first installment Don tells of some of the early organising that had been done before it became a site of significant industrial strength. (The ...
Picturesque Illusion: The early-Sixties’ picture-book tableau of cultural homogeneity wasn’t real. The values cherished by America’s and New Zealand’s fundamentalist Christians only appeared to be widely shared. Beneath the veneer of happy conformity, the trials and tribulations of ordinary men and women went on regardless. Occasionally their troubles were overcome by ...
Natter about the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has reached even these distant shores, with much online ink being spilled about what our National Party Opposition intends to ...
Behavioural economics challenges our assumptions about the relevance of rational economic man.Paul Krugman tweeted that ‘behavoural econ[omics] is the best thing to happen to the [economics] field in generations’. For the last 150 years much economic analysis has been based on homo economicus, an ‘economic’ man who is rational and ...
There’s huge public concern about the potential for the wealthy to translate their economic power into political power. In particular, there’s a strong belief that governments in New Zealand tend to make laws to suit the interests of the rich. Whether it’s concern over Jacinda Ardern’s Government not implementing a ...
Metropolis George Grosz 1918A FEW HOURS AGO, I was sorting through a box of old papers when I came across these lyrics to a song I’d composed nearly fifty years ago, at the tender age of seventeen! I have decided to share it with the readers of Bowalley Road as proof ...
Last night the government concluded a free trade agreement with the European Union. I'm pretty meh about FTAs, largely because they seem to be a backdoor for pro-corporate irregulation than actual trade now, so I wasn't enthusiastic to begin with (though on the plus side this one does at least ...
Completed reads for June: 4.50 from Paddington, by Agatha ChristieNarrations, by CononThe Vampire (poem), by Rudyard KiplingProgress and Poverty, by Henry GeorgeA Modest Proposal, by Jonathan SwiftThe Horla, by Guy de MaupassantSupernatural Horror in Literature, by H.P. LovecraftTowards Zero, by Agatha ChristieHickory Dickory Death, by Agatha ChristieThe Lady of ...
Looking into a distant mirror The academic publishing process is notoriously stately. Events in the rest of the world happen at their own swift pace as a given article makes its way through the publication pipeline. In the case of Russian climate scepticism: an understudied case, authors Teresa Ashe & Marianna Poberezhskaya submitted their work ...
A ballot for one member's bill was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill (Chlöe Swarbrick) Swarbrick's bill implements a number of past recommendations from government agencies and advisory bodies which for some reason (cough big booze ...
No Common Ground: The destructive and punitive impulses aroused by the abortion issue make a rational, let alone a civil, debate virtually impossible. Indeed, the very idea that those on both sides of the abortion issue might be decent and caring individuals, whose opposing positions are based on reasonable and ...
What Happened Next? After the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1954, overturned its earlier validation of “separate but equal” schools, hospitals, public washrooms, busses and trains for Blacks and Whites, and told the Topeka Board of Education that segregated education is in breach of the Fourteenth Amendment of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Neha Pathak When spring creeps around the corner, pediatrician Aaron Bernstein starts counseling his Boston-area patients and their families about extreme heat action plans. “The first heat wave of the year is routinely the most harmful,” says Bernstein, who also directs Harvard’s ...
On 7 December 1941, Imperial Japan launched a war on the American people. It would forever become a date of infamy, said then US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, eightyone years ago.On 24/25 June 2022, conservatives launched their war on 166.24 million American women. That date, also, will forever live on ...
Stuff has a story this morning about the police juking the domestic violence stats, downgrading family violence crimes to "incidents" so they don't have to be investigated (and so Bad Number doesn't Go Up). That's appalling in and of itself, for the human consequences, and for what it says about ...
Today is a Member's Day, and it looks like its back to local legislation for a while. First up is the committee stage of the highly controversial Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill, which would allow unelected appointees (and a disproportionate number of them, at that) on ECan. This ...
Despite Christopher Luxon’s assurances to the contrary, there is no such thing as “settled law” in New Zealand. Apart from the six provisions that are constitutionally entrenched, legislation can always be amended or overturned by a simple majority vote within our single chamber of Parliament. Luxon’s repeated use of the ...
This is a re-post from the Thinking is Power website maintained by Melanie Trecek-King where she regularly writes about many aspects of critical thinking in an effort to provide accessible and engaging critical thinking information to the general public. Please see this overview to find links to other reposts from Thinking is Power. ...
What a week, month even of deplorable headlines and hysterics we’ve had as a country – and given 2023 is closing in on us (a mere 6 months until Parties shift some gears into election mode really, not that some of them haven’t started already of course), we need ...
Over the weekend, the US Supreme Court followed through on its threat, and overturned Roe v. Wade, effectively outlawing abortion in much of the United States. People were outraged, in America and around the world. And in Aotearoa, this meant a lot of sudden questions for the National Party, which ...
Nothing is evil in the beginning… #TheRingsOfPowerpic.twitter.com/XffZtqp8Yw— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime) June 27, 2022 We have ourselves a new breadcrumb (not a leak!) out of The Rings of Power. It is a fifteen second collection of clips from the original teaser-trailer, together ...
The repeal of Roe vs Wade by the US Supreme Court is part of a broader “New Conservative” agenda financed by reactionary billionaires like Peter Thiel, Elon Mush, the Kochs and Murdochs (and others), organised by agitators like Steve Bannon and Rodger Stone and legally weaponised by Conservative (often Catholic) ...
A Dangerous Leap Backwards: A United States forced to live by the beliefs and values of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries cannot hope to go on leading the “Free World”, or compete economically with nations focused fearlessly on the future. The revocation of Roe v. Wade represents the American republic’s most ...
Now that the right of US women to abortion (formerly protected by Roe vWade) has been abolished, the important role of medication-induced abortion will come even more to the fore. Already, research by the Guttmacher Institute reproductive rights centre shows that over half of US abortions are obtained ...
The government is finally moving to improve transparency over party finances, lowering the donation disclosure threshold to $5,000. This is a good move, though it doesn't go as far as it should. And of course, there's a nasty twist: The rules for larger donations are also changing. Presently parties ...
A rare exposure in Western media of the fact that many residents of the Donbass prefer Russian rule to Ukrainian ultranationalist rule. I don’t know why anyone would take advice from UK’s lame duck Prime Minister and well-known buffoon Boris Johnson seriously, but he ...
Jacinda Ardern will need to deploy every aspect of her starpower if she is to have any hope of rescuing New Zealand’s faltering free trade negotiations with the European Union (EU). The Prime Minister has branded each of her four foreign trips so far this year as ‘trade missions’ – ...
It was sometime in the late 1990s that I first interviewed Alan Webster about New Zealand’s part in a global Values Study. It’s a fascinating snapshot of values in countries all over the world and I still remember seeing America grouped with many developing countries on a spectrum that had ...
Today marks Matariki, the first “new” New Zealand public holiday since Waitangi Day was added in 1974. Officially the start of the Maori New Year, this is one of those moveable beasties – much like Easter, the dates will vary from year to year, anywhere from mid-June to ...
The takeaways from the just released data are:1. Any estimate of GDP is subject to error.2. The 0.2 percent decrease in the March 2022 quarter is not precise and will be revised, with the mild likelihood that it will eventually be higher.3. New Zealand has no ‘official' definition of a ...
Guided By The Stars? This gift of Matariki, then, what will be made of it? Can a people spiritually unconnected to anything other than their digital devices truly appreciate the relentless progress of gods and heroes across the heavens? The elders of Maoridom must wonder. Can Te Ao Māori be ...
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Stashing renewable energy Do a little internet sleuthing on renewable energy via your favorite search engine and you'll find some honest critique and much more dishonest misinformation (aka disinformation) to the effect that photovoltaic and wind generation are fickle energy supplies, over-abundant in some periods and absent in others. There's ...
The current New Zealand First Foundation trial in the High Court continues to show why reform is required when it comes to money in politics. The juicy details coming out each day show private wealth being funnelled into some peculiar schemes in an attempt to circumvent the Electoral Act. Yet ...
As in so many other areas of public policy, attitudes towards overseas investment in New Zealand – and anywhere, for that matter – boil down in the end to ideology. For proponents of the “free market”, there is really no issue. The market, in their view, must never be second-guessed; ...
Selwyn Manning and I discussed the upcoming NATO Leader’s summit (to which NZ Prime Minister Ardern is invited), the rival BRICS Leader’s summit and what they could mean for the Ruso-Ukrainian Wa and beyond. ...
New Zealand’s Most Profitable“Friend” Dangerous “Threat”: This country’s “Five Eyes” partners, heedless of the economic consequences for New Zealand, have cajoled and bullied its political class into becoming Sinophobes. They simply do not care that close to 40 percent of this country’s trade is with China. As far as Washington, London, ...
I have seen some natter around about how The Rings of Power represents the undue and unholy corporatisation of J.R.R. Tolkien. I won’t point out examples, but anyone who has seen YouTube commentary has a pretty good grasp of what I am talking about – the sentiment that ...
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I've read some bad stuff about long covid recently, and Marc Daalder's recent Newsroom piece about what endemic covid means for Aotearoa got me wondering about whether the government was thinking about it. Mass-disability due to long covid has obvious implications for health and welfare spending, as well as for ...
Last year, a stranded kiwi criticised the MIQ system. Covid Minister Chris Hipkins responded by doxxing and defaming her. Now, he's been forced to apologise for that: Minister Chris Hipkins has admitted he released incorrect and personal information about journalist Charlotte Bellis, after she criticised the managed isolation system. ...
Gil-galad is an Elven Chad Gil-galad is an Elven Chad But Celebrimbor makes them mad Digesting leaks from Amazon Of Isildur and Pharazôn. The hair is short? The knives are keen. The beardless face of Dwarven Queen? With meteor and man-not-named The fandom temper is inflamed. Of Annatar ...
From the desk of Keir "Patriotic Duty" Starmer:“We have robust lines. We do not want to see these strikes to go ahead with the resulting disruption to the public. The government have failed to engage in any negotiations.“However, we also must show leadership and to that end, please be reminded ...
Has swapping Scott Morrison for Anthony Albanese made any discernible difference to Australia’s relations with the US, China, the Pacific and New Zealand ? Not so far. For example: Albanese has asked for more time to “consider” his response to New Zealand’s long running complaints about the so called “501” ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The Biden administration in April 2021 dramatically ratcheted up the country’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions pledge under the Paris target, also known as its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). The Obama administration in 2014 had announced a commitment to cut U.S. emissions 26-28% below 2005 levels ...
Something I missed: the Central African Republic has abolished the death penalty: The National Assembly of the Central African Republic (CAR) passed a law abolishing the death penalty in the CAR on May 27, 2022. Once CAR President Touadéra promulgates the bill, the CAR will become the 24th abolitionist ...
Walking On Sunshine: National’s Sam Uffindell cantered home in the Tauranga By-Election, but the Outdoors & Freedom Party’s Sue Grey attracted an ominous level of support.THE RIGHT’S gadfly commentator, Matthew Hooton, summed up the Tauranga by-election in his usual pithy fashion. “Tonight’s result is poor for the National Party, catastrophic for ...
Te reo Māori is Dr. Anaha Hiini’s life purpose. Raised by his grandparents, Kepa and Maata Hiini, Anaha of Ngāti Tarāwhai, Tūhourangi, Ngāti Whakaue descent made a promise at the age of six to his late grandmother, Maata Hiini. “I’ve always had a passion for Māori culture. My first inspiration ...
Dr Carwyn Jones’ vision is to see Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the law given equal mana. Carwyn who holds a PhD in law and society and currently teaches Ahunga Tikanga (Māori Laws and Philosophy) at Te Wānanga o Raukawa after 15 years at Victoria University of Wellington has devoted ...
Jacinda Ardern’s decision to attend the upcoming North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Spain – but to skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda – symbolises the changes she is making to New Zealand foreign policy. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) starts today in ...
The outlook does not look that promising. Forecasting an economy is a mug’s game. The database on which the forecasts are founded is incomplete, out-of-date, and subject to errors, some of which will be revised after the forecasts are published. (No wonder weather-forecasting is easier.) One often has to adopt ...
by Don Franks It seems that almost each day now another ram raid shatters someone’s shop front and loots the premises. Prestigious Queen street is not immune, while attacks on small dairies have long stopped being headline news. Those of us not directly affected are becoming numbed to this form ...
It’s hard to believe that when we created Sciblogs in 2009, the iPhone was only two years old, being a ‘Youtuber’ wasn’t really a thing and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok didn’t exist. But Science blogging was a big thing, particularly in the United States, where a number of scientists had ...
For 13 years, Sciblogs has been a staple in New Zealand’s science-writing landscape. Our bloggers have written about a vast variety of topics from climate change to covid, and from nanotechnology to household gadgets.But sadly, it’s time to close shop. Sciblogs will be shutting down on 30 June.When ...
Radical Options: By allocating the Broadcasting portfolio to the irrepressible, occasionally truculent, leader of Labour’s Māori caucus, Willie Jackson, the Prime Minister has, at the very least, confirmed that her appointment of Kiri Allan was no one-off. There are many words that could be used to describe Ardern’s placement of ...
A Delicate Juggler? The new Chief Censor, Ms Caroline Flora, owes New Zealand a comprehensive explanation of how she sees, and how she proposes to carry out, her role. Where, for example, is her duty to respect and protect the citizen’s right to freedom of expression positioned in relation to ...
Good grief. Has foreign policy commentary really devolved to the point where our diplomatic effort is being measured by how many overseas trips have been taken by our Foreign Minister? Weird, but apparently so. All this week, a series of media policy wonks have been invidiously comparing how many trips ...
Where we've been Time flies. This coming summer will mark 15 years of Skeptical Science focusing its effort on "traditional" climate science denial. Leaving aside frivolities, we've devoted most of our effort to combatting "serious" denial falling into a handful of broad categories of fairly crisp misconceptions: "radiative physics is wrong,""geophysics is ...
Mercenary army of bogus skeptics on parade Because they're both squarely centered in the Skeptical Science wheelhouse, this week we're highlighting two articles from our government and NGO section, where we collect high-quality articles not originating in academic research but featuring many of the important attributes of journal publications. Our mission ...
In the latest episode of AVFA Selwyn Manning and I discuss the evolution of Latin American politics and macroeconomic policy since the 1970s as well as US-Latin American relations during that time period. We use recent elections and the 2022 Summit of the Americas as anchor points. ...
The Scottish government has announced plans for another independence referendum: Nicola Sturgeon plans to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence in October next year if her government secures the legal approval to stage it. Angus Robertson, the Scottish government’s constitution secretary, said that provided ample time to pass ...
So far, the closer military relationship envisaged by Jacinda Ardern and Joseph Biden at their recent White House meeting has been analysed mainly in terms of what this means for our supposedly “independent” foreign policy. Not much attention has been paid to what having more interoperable defence forces might mean ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters For those puzzling over the various hurricane computer forecast models to figure out which one to believe, the best answer is: Don’t believe any of them. Put your trust in the National Hurricane Center, or NHC, forecast. Although an individual ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Scott Denning The excellent Julia Steinberger essay posted at this site in May provides a disturbing window into the psychology of teaching climate change to young people. It’s critically important to talk with youth about hard topics: love and sex, deadly contagion, school shootings, vicious ...
By Imogen Foote (Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington) A lack of consensus among international conservation regimes regarding albatross taxonomy makes management of these ocean roaming birds tricky. My PhD research aims to generate whole genome data for some of our most threatened albatrosses in a first attempt ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to scrap the Acceptable Standards of Health policy that discriminates against disabled migrants after former Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni acknowledged the policy “disadvantages” disabled migrants on TVNZ’s Q&A this morning. ...
We’ve secured a major free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU) – a move that’s set to boost exports by $1.8 billion per annum, enhance our economic security, and enable New Zealand businesses to grow, by unlocking one of the world’s biggest and high value markets. The new ...
Our Government is committed to making sure that our health system works for all New Zealanders, no matter who you are or where you live. Transformation of our health system will take time, and the step we’re taking today – establishing Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority – ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to announce its support urgently for a moratorium on deep sea mining under the high seas, after Pacific nations joined forces this week to demand change. ...
We’re committed to ensuring that there is every opportunity for women and girls to succeed in Aotearoa New Zealand, with fewer barriers. Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to support women and girls, by improving services like healthcare and tackling issues like the gender pay gap. Here are just ...
Political pressure from the Green Party has pushed the Government to supply free masks to kids and teachers in schools across Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and the European Greens have published a joint statement calling for the NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement to support climate action, phase out fossil fuel subsidies, cut agriculture emissions, protect human rights, and uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to guarantee that it will complete light rail and improve walking, cycling, and bus journeys across Wellington before digging new high-carbon tunnels. ...
The Green Party is urging Oceans and Fisheries Minister David Parker to commit to stronger ocean protection around Aotearoa and on the high seas while at the United Nations Oceans Conference in Portugal this week. ...
A strong Green voice in Parliament has helped reduce the influence large secret money will have in future elections and finally ensured overseas New Zealanders will retain the right to vote even while stranded by the Pandemic. But, the Government needs to go further to ensure our democracy works for ...
A new poll shows that the majority of people back the Greens’ call on the Government to overhaul the country’s criminally punitive, anti-evidence drug law. ...
The US Supreme Court’s decision on abortion is a reminder that we must take nothing for granted in Aotearoa, the Green Party says. “Aotearoa should be a place where everyone, no matter where they are from, or who they love, can choose what is right for their body and their ...
We’re proud to have delivered on our election commitment to establish a public holiday to celebrate Matariki. For the first time this year, New Zealanders will have the chance to enjoy a mid-winter holiday that is uniquely our own. ...
Proposed new legislation to reduce the risk that timber imported into Aotearoa New Zealand is sourced from illegal logging is a positive first step but it should go further, the Green Party says. ...
On World Refugee Day, the Green Party is calling on the new Minister for Immigration, Michael Wood to make up for the support that was not provided to people forced to leave their home countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
This week, we’ve marked a major milestone in our school upgrade programme. We've supported 4,500 projects across the country for schools to upgrade classrooms, sports facilities, playgrounds and more, so Kiwi kids have the best possible environments to learn in. ...
We’ve delivered on our election commitment to make Matariki a public holiday. For the first time this year, all New Zealanders will have the chance to enjoy a mid-winter holiday that is uniquely our own with family and friends. Try our quiz below, then challenge your whānau! To celebrate, we’ve ...
The Green Party says the removal of pre-departure testing for arrivals into New Zealand means the Government must step up domestic measures to protect communities most at risk. ...
The long overdue resumption of the Pacific Access Category and Samoan Quota must be followed by an overhaul of the Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) scheme, says the Green Party. ...
Lessons must be learned from the Government's response to the Delta outbreak, which the Ministry of Health confirmed today left Māori, Pacific, and disabled communities at greater risk. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to withdraw the proposed Oranga Tamariki oversight legislation which strips away independence and fails to put children at the heart. ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern met UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London overnight, and together took a number of steps to strengthen the already close ties between our two countries, and promote our common interests in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. “The UK is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s oldest and closest friends and ...
Building a more secure, sustainable and prosperous future together: Joint Statement – Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern and Boris Johnson 1. New Zealand and the United Kingdom are old friends and close partners. Our relationship rests on a bedrock of history, shared values, and deep people-to-people links, extending across almost all ...
Director Sir Robin Niblett, distinguished guests. What an honour it is to be back in London, and to be here at Chatham house. This visit represents much for me. The reopening of borders and resumption of travel after a difficult few years. The chance to bring life to the UK ...
Manawa maiea te pūtanga o Matariki Manawa maiea te ariki o te rangi Manawa maiea te mātahi o te tau! Introduction I’m pleased to join you for my second address at the 56th Annual Otago Foreign Policy School. The topic for this year is Space. Given that we are in ...
New Ministry will officially be called Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People Public Service Commission have appointed Geraldine Woods as Interim Chief Executive Office for Disability Issues to be folded into the new Ministry In what is a milestone day, the Government has launched Aotearoa New Zealand’s first Whaikaha ...
Nine new He Poutama Rangatahi programmes have been approved funding. These programmes will provide work-readiness, training and employment initiatives for over 820 rangatahi NEETS (not in education, employment or training), across Aotearoa New Zealand. "He Poutama Rangatahi has proven to be a very successful initiative which supports rangatahi to overcome ...
Minister for Māori Development Willie Jackson today announced the appointment of Crown representatives, Dr Charlotte Severne and Mr Bernie O’Donnell, to the Steering Committee that will determine the future of the Ihumātao land. “I’m pleased to have made the Crown appointments. Both Dr Severne and Mr O’Donnell have extensive ...
I begin by thanking each of you for accepting appointment to these boards. You’ve each been on the Ministerial committee that established Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand and Te Aka Whai Ora - the Māori Health Authority and I express my appreciation for the enormous task you collectively ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has reiterated its concerns over the continued erosion of rights, freedom and autonomy in Hong Kong. On the second anniversary of the introduction of the Hong Kong National Security Law, the Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta says developments in Hong Kong remain a cause for worry. “Two years ...
The Europol Agreement signed is a significant milestone for New Zealand and the European Union’s relationship, and reflects our shared principles of democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. The Prime Minister attended a signature ceremony in Brussels, as part of ...
· New nationwide public health system · 20 district health boards disestablished and deficits wiped · 82,000 health employees directly employed by Health New Zealand · $24 billion health budget this year – up 43% since Labour took office in 2017 – in addition to separate funding for the new ...
Education Minister Chris Hipkins has announced appointments to the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand and the Board of Trustees of Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (Te Kura). “Robyn Baker ONZM has been appointed as the chair of the Teaching Council. She has considerable governance experience and is a ...
European Commission President von der Leyen and Prime Minister of New Zealand Ardern met in Brussels on 30 June 2022. The encounter provided an opportunity to reaffirm that the European Union and Aotearoa New Zealand are longstanding partners with shared democratic values and interests, aligned positions on key international and ...
Export revenue to the EU to grow by up to $1.8 billion annually on full implementation. Duty-free access on 97% of New Zealand’s current exports to the EU; with over 91% being removed the day the FTA comes into force. NZ exporters set to save approx. $110 million per annum ...
57,000 EVs and Hybrid registered in first year of clean car scheme, 56% increase on previous year EVs and Non Plug-in Hybrids made up 20% of new passenger car sales in March/April 2022 The Government’s Clean Car Discount Scheme has been a success, with more than 57,000 light-electric and ...
Police Minister Chris Hipkins congratulates the newest Police wing – wing 355 – which graduated today in Porirua. “These 70 new constables heading for the frontline bring the total number of new officers since Labour took office to 3,303 and is the latest mark of our commitment to the Police ...
Members with a range of governance, financial and technical skills have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Board as part of the shift to strengthen the Bank’s decision-making and accountability arrangements. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 2021 comes into force on 1 July 2022, with the establishment of ...
New Zealand to remain at Orange as case numbers start to creep up 50 child-size masks made available to every year 4-7 student in New Zealand 20,000-30,000 masks provided a week to all other students and school staff Extra funding to schools and early childhood services to supports better ...
Aotearoa New Zealand will join Ukraine’s case against Russia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which challenges Russia’s spurious attempt to justify its invasion under international law. Ukraine filed a case at the ICJ in February arguing Russia has falsely claimed genocide had occurred in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, as ...
The Government has taken another step forward in its work to eliminate family violence and sexual violence with the announcement today of a new Tangata Whenua Ministerial Advisory Group. A team of 11 experts in whānau Māori wellbeing will provide the Government independent advice on shaping family violence and sexual ...
Te Mahere Whai Mahi Wāhine: Women’s Employment Action Plan was launched today by Minister for Women Jan Tinetti – with the goal of ensuring New Zealand is a great place for women to work. “This Government is committed to improving women’s working lives. The current reality is that women have ...
The food and fibre sector acknowledged its people and leadership at last night’s 2022 Primary Industries Good Employer Awards, a time to celebrate their passion towards supporting employees by putting their health, welfare and wellbeing first,” Acting Minister of Agriculture Meka Whairiti said. “Award winners were selected from an extraordinary ...
Kia ora koutou katoa. It is a rare thing to have New Zealand represented at a NATO Summit. While we have worked together in theatres such as Afghanistan, and have been partners for just on a decade, today represents an important moment for our Pacific nation. New Zealand is ...
Te Arataki mō te Hauora Ngākau mō ngā Mōrehu a Tū me ō rātou Whānau, The Veteran, Family and Whānau Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy Framework “We ask a lot of those who serve in the military – and we ask a lot of the families and whānau who support ...
Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs Aupito William Sio has been appointed by the United Nations and Commonwealth as Aotearoa New Zealand’s advocacy champion for Small Island States. “Aotearoa New Zealand as a Pacific country is particularly focused on the interests of Pacific Small Island Developing States in our region. “This is a ...
An estimated 100,000 low income households will be eligible for increased support to pay their council rates, with changes to the rates rebate scheme taking effect from 1 July. Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has announced increases to both the maximum value of the rates rebate, and the income threshold ...
A long-standing physical activity programme that focuses on outcomes for Maori has been expanded to four new regions with Government investment almost doubled to increase its reach. He Oranga Poutama is managed by a combination of hapū, iwi, hauora and regional providers. An increase in funding from $1.8 million ...
The Government is progressing a preferred option for LGWM which will see Wellington’s transport links strengthened with light rail from Wellington Station to Island Bay, a new tunnel through Mt Victoria for public transport, and walking and cycling, and upgrades to improve traffic flow at the Basin Reserve. “Where previous ...
To Provost Muniz, to the Organisers at the Instituto de Empresa buenas tardes and as we would say in New Zealand, kia ora kotou katoa. To colleagues from the State Department, from Academia, and Civil Society Groups, to all our distinguished guests - kia ora tatou katoa. It’s a pleasure ...
On June 28, 2022, a meeting took place in Madrid between the President of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain, Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who was visiting Spain to participate in the Summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as one ...
A six-fold increase in the Aotearoa New Zealand-Spain working holiday scheme gives a huge boost to the number of young people who can live and work in each other’s countries, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says. Jacinda Ardern and Spanish President Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón made the Working Holiday/Youth Mobility Scheme announcement ...
A significant barrier has been removed for people who want to stand in local government elections, with a change to the requirement to publish personal details in election advertising. The Associate Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty has taken the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill through its final stages in Parliament ...
New financial conduct scheme will ensure customers are treated fairly Banks, insurers and non-bank deposit takers to be licensed by the FMA in relation to their general conduct Sales incentives based on volume or value targets like bonuses for selling a certain number of financial products banned The Government ...
Legislation that bans major supermarkets from blocking their competitors’ access to land to set up new stores paves the way for greater competition in the sector, Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Dr David Clark said. The new law is the first in a suite of measures the Government is ...
The Government has announced an end to the requirement for border workers and corrections staff to be fully vaccinated. This will come into place from 2 July 2022. 100 per cent of corrections staff in prisons, and as of 23 June 2022 97 per cent of active border workers were ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta has concluded a visit to Rwanda reaffirming Aotearoa New Zealand’s engagement in the Commonwealth and meeting with key counterparts. “I would like to thank President Kagame and the people of Rwanda for their manaakitanga and expert hosting of this important meeting,” Nanaia Mahuta said. “CHOGM ...
Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty officially launched the new Monitoring, Alerting and Reporting (MAR) Centre at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) today. The Government has stood up the centre in response to recommendations from the 2018 Ministerial Review following the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake and 2017 Port Hills fire, ...
Transport Minister Michael Wood has welcomed the announcement that a 110km/hr speed limit has been set for the SH1 Waikato Expressway, between Hampton Downs and Tamahere. “The Waikato Expressway is a key transport route for the Waikato region, connecting Auckland to the agricultural and business centres of the central North ...
Following feedback from the sector, Associate Minister of Education Jan Tinetti, today confirmed that new literacy and numeracy | te reo matatini me te pāngarau standards will be aligned with wider NCEA changes. “The education sector has asked for more time to put the literacy and numeracy | te reo ...
$4.5 million to provide Ukraine with additional non-lethal equipment and supplies such as medical kit for the Ukrainian Army Deployments extended for New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) intelligence, logistics and liaison officers in the UK, Germany, and Belgium Secondment of a senior New Zealand military officer to support International ...
Power Play - The Prime Minister travelled to Brussels with two speeches prepared - one detailed a historic trade deal, the other why she would leave Brussels without one. ...
Green Party candidate for Wellington's Motukairangi-Eastern Ward Luana Scowcroft is launching her campaign at Hataitai Centre (the former Hataitai Bowling Club) at 7pm tonight, Saturday July 2nd. Luana says that council's short-term thinking, and ...
The government has just announced the conclusion of a free trade agreement with the European Union. One Māori entity operating in the trade space, Ngā Toki Whakarururanga, is not celebrating. “We are aware that New Zealand negotiators genuinely sought ...
Buzz from the Beehive Down here on Earth – more particularly, in Ihumātao – progress on doing whatever is going to be done to that disputed patch of land has been glacial. Newsroom drew attention to the dawdling in an article in April which noted that Māori Development Minister Willie ...
PNG Post-Courier Today is officially the last day of campaigning in Papua New Guinea’s 2022 National General Election. Count tomorrow until Monday as rest days, but in politically charged PNG, anything is possible, including illegal last-minute clandestine campaigning. Polling is set to begin Tuesday, July 4, when millions will exercise ...
Asia Pacific Report newsdesk Greenpeace Aotearoa has condemned New Zealand for “standing by” while “deep wounds are inflicted on its Pacific neighbours” by silence over deep sea mining. Greenpeace’s seabed mining campaigner James Hita made the critical statement today after a dramatic shift at the UN Oceans conference in Lisbon ...
Buzz from the Beehive Numbers, quotas and ratios have been high in ministerial considerations over the past 24 hours or so. Export revenue to the EU will grow by up to $1.8 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Harris Rimmer, Professor and Director of the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith Business School, Griffith University Prime Minister Anthony Albanese admitted at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Public Forum that some Australians may not understand why he’s at a NATO meeting ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jared Mondschein, Senior Research Fellow, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney When colonial Americans declared their independence on July 4 1776, they rejected more than British rule. They explicitly denounced the British form of government and the unlegislated norms, traditions and conventions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and Emma Larouche, from the University of Canberra’s Media and Communications team discuss the week in politics. They canvass the crossbenchers’ stoush with the Prime Minister over ...
"Aotearoa New Zealand remains concerned by the steady erosion of rights, freedoms, and autonomy that has occurred in Hong Kong as a result," the foreign minister said. ...
With one month to go until the closure of the 2021 Resident Visa, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) encourages those who are eligible for the 2021 Resident Visa to submit their applications before the category closes at 11:59pm on 31 July 2022. INZ has ...
Analysis - National's Christopher Luxon moves to defuse a potentially vote-losing disaster, the Health Minister's problems keep piling up and the PM speaks at a NATO summit and unveils an historic free trade agreement with the EU. ...
The government's signing of an Europol Agreement significant reflects shared principles of democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Tolbert, Associate Professor of Science and Environmental Education, University of Canterbury GettyImagesPlastic Free July has rolled around again and we’ll all be hearing about reducing plastic use in our daily lives. Much of the messaging is targeted toward young ...
Cost, sexism and racism are barriers to ethnic women entering Aotearoa New Zealand politics, a University of Auckland researcher says A University of Auckland researcher shedding light on the unseen and unheard stories of ethnic women in New Zealand politics ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roderick Neilsen, Associate Professor TESOL/Languages Education, Deakin University Burned-out teachers in Australian primary and secondary schools are quitting in droves, while the majority of surveyed teachers are thinking about it. There are similar fears about Australia’s early childhood educators. However, there ...
Unions representing care and support workers are lodging a pay equity claim today to raise pay rates for a majority female workforce that has always been undervalued. The pay equity claim is a crucial step in stemming the crisis the care and support ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Lavender, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Health and Wellbeing, Federation University Australia Shutterstock I am sure you’ve been told you should stand up and move away from your work stations or use a standing desk where possible. One of the ...
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has today welcomed the Free Trade Agreement established between New Zealand and the European Union says President Richard Wagstaff. "The Agreement includes a number of welcome steps to make trade more ...
New Zealand is once again calling on the Government to overhaul an outdated system that determines what community programmes disabled adults have access to based on flawed assessments they were given as children. A case note published this week from ...
The meat and dairy industries are very disappointed with the outcome of the free trade deal struck between New Zealand and the European Union saying it falls far below their expectations. ...
The Prime Minister will need to explain to farmers why there were not more gains in meat and dairy in the trade agreement with the EU, the opposition says. ...
In a dramatic shift at the United Nations oceans conference in Lisbon this week, a series of Pacific Governments have formed an alliance to oppose deep sea mining in international waters but Greenpeace says the continued silence from the New Zealand ...
New Zealanders are amongst the highest generators of plastic waste in the world and on top of this there is now concern about the level of microplastics in our water. As Plastic-free July gets underway, Water New Zealand chief executive Gillian Blythe ...
“When will governments and trade negotiators realise they have more credibility if they tell the truth about free trade agreements (FTA) like the new deal with the European Union (EU), instead of their fancifully positive spin?”, asks Jane Kelsey, ...
National child abuse advocacy group - Child Matters - says yesterday’s revelation that authorities were never alerted to the extent of Malachi Subecz’s horrific injuries is a stark reminder that government legislation must change – and now. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh White, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University Testing Washington: Chinese President Xi Jinping. Li Gang/Xinhua via AP How can Australia navigate the tough and dangerous strategic environment in Asia today with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Kaufman, Research Fellow, Vaccine Uptake Group, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Engin Akyurt/Unsplash The federal government has released a new A$11 million ad campaign urging Australians to “take on winter” by getting COVID boosters and influenza vaccines, as well as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Macintosh, Professor and Director of Research, ANU Law School, Australian National University Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen is today expected to announce a much anticipated review of Australia’s carbon credit scheme, known as the Emissions Reduction Fund. In March, we exposed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Esmé Louise James, Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Melbourne Netflix After a month of waiting, the season finale of Stranger Things season 4 has almost arrived on Netflix. This season, along with the nightmarish arch-villain Vecna, we have been ...
More than 91 percent of tariffs will be removed the day the deal comes into effect, while the value of NZ exports to the EU are estimated to increase by $1.8b a year by 2035. ...
RNZ News New Zealand has designated US groups the Proud Boys and The Base as terrorist entities. Set down in the government’s official journal of record — the Gazette — last Monday, 20 June, it was published publicly a week later but with no wider dissemination. The move — authorised ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra David Pocock, the progressive independent who broke the Liberals’ stranglehold on one of the two ACT Senate seats, wouldn’t have expected to find himself allied with Pauline Hanson before even being sworn in. But, ...
Tabloid Jubi The Civil Organisations Solidarity for Papua Land has condemned Indonesia’s Papua expansion plan of forming three new provinces risks causing new social conflicts. And the group has urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to cancel the plan, according to a statement reports Jubi. The group — comprising the Papua ...
RNZ Pacific Palau, Fiji, and Samoa have announced their opposition to deep-sea mining, calling for a moratorium on the emerging industry amid growing fears it will destroy the seafloor and damage biodiversity. The alliance was announced just as a United Nations Oceans Conference began in Portugal this week. The moratorium ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has just spoken to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky by phone, expressing solidarity and support for his country. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis B Desmond, Lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, University of the Sunshine Coast Sashenka Gutierrez/EPA The art of concealing or misrepresenting one’s identity in the physical world has long been practised by spies engaged in espionage. In response, intelligence agencies ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Wes Mountain/The Conversation, CC BY-ND Homeowners will face mortgage rates near 5.5% in a little over a year, according to a survey of 22 leading Australian economists. The ...
Guest column by Nicholas Kerr Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s comments about the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling on abortion inadvertently help explain why the court was right to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue to the states. She noted that New Zealand ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mona Nikidehaghani, Lecturer in Accounting, University of Wollongong From Monday July 4 2022, Australian job seekers face a new social security system to police eligibility for support payments. It replaces the “Jobactive” system that required the “mutual obligation” of applying for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Gulliver, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Queensland A man who drove through a climate protest blocking the Harbour Tunnel this week has copped a A$469 fine, while multiple members of the activist group were arrested. The protest was among a ...
“Less than a month ago Floyd Du Plessis, the President of the Corrections Association (CANZ), wrote a letter to the Chief Executive warning of more assaults against prison officers if things didn’t change,” says Darroch Ball Leader of Sensible Sentencing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ritesh Chugh, Associate Professor – Information and Communications Technology, CQUniversity Australia Shutterstock While manufacturers have successfully increased the water-repelling nature of smartphones, they are still far from “waterproof”. A water-resistant product can usually resist water penetration to some extent, but ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suze Wilson, Senior Lecturer, School of Management, Massey University Phil Walter/Getty Images The US Supreme Court’s recent ruling to throw out Roe v Wade is an issue of relevance to political leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand. The decision was ...
New Zealand will present its legal view on Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations' international court, contesting the Kremlin's claim of genocide. ...
Buzz from the Beehive The Government has declared or reiterated three bold ambitions, one of them (the elimination of family violence) probably unachievable. Whether progress is being made towards the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Price, Team Leader / Senior Research Officer, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Shutterstock Most new parents and caregivers will know the phrase “put your baby down when drowsy but awake”. But some parents may find this just doesn’t work for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Stavrou, English Language Instructor, University of Cyprus, and PhD Graduate, Charles Sturt University Traditional approaches to adult language teaching often use resources such as textbooks and generic learning materials that are less than inspiring for learners. New research shows ...
Accompanied by a giant albatross sculpture made of reclaimed plastic bottles, Greenpeace has delivered a 100,000-strong petition to parliament calling on the Government to ban single-use plastic bottles and incentivise reusable and refillable alternatives. ...
Covid-19 Response Minister Ayesha Verrall says the country needs to remain at the orange traffic light setting as case numbers are starting to "creep up". ...
Our Annual plan 2022/23 was presented to the House of Representatives today. This annual plan is a key accountability document for our Office. It describes the discretionary work we consider will help us to achieve our ultimate outcome – that Parliament ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Director, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre; Associate Professor of Criminology, Faculty of Arts, Monash University AAP Image/Supplied by Department of Justice In 2020 the killing of Hannah Clarke and her three children – Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch University The election of the Albanese Labor government brings an opportunity to end one of the most detrimental elements of Australian refugee law and policy in the past decade: the use of temporary ...
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has welcomed the launch of the Te Mahere Whai Mahi Wāhine: Women's Employment Action Plan today. For too long, women have been disadvantaged in the world of work. While many improvements have been made over ...
The experimental weekly series provides an early indicator of employment and labour market changes in a more timely manner than the monthly employment indicators series. Key facts The 6-day series includes jobs with a pay period equal to or less than ...
Statement from Auckland Transport Interim Chief Executive Mark Lambert: Auckland Transport is proud to support the New Statement of Ambition being launched tonight by the Climate Leaders Coalition. We’re delighted that AT’s work to achieve the ...
Greenpeace Aotearoa, SAFE, Animals Aotearoa, SPCA, and the New Zealand Animal Law Association have joined forces to call for an end to intensive winter grazing through the Government’s Dairy Cattle Code of Welfare review. The coalition says that as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Swift, Educational Experiences team lead (Senior Lecturer), ANU School of Cybernetics, Australian National University Shutterstock I love writing code to make things: apps, websites, charts, even music. It’s a skill I’ve worked hard at for more than 20 years. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Baillie, Professor of Allied Health, University of Sydney Shutterstock COVID might be the largest mass casualty event in Australian history. And with one in 20 people with COVID still experiencing symptoms three months later, long COVID might even become Australia’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick O’Connor, Associate Professor, University of Adelaide A tiny parasitic mite that lives on the European honeybee (Apis mellifera) has breached Australia’s border quarantine and been detected in managed bee hives in New South Wales. This is bad news for Australia’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Main, Visiting Scholar, Australian National University Shutterstock The COVID pandemic slowed mining activity across the Pacific. But as economic activity returns, an Australia-based company is poised to pursue what would be the largest mine in Papua New Guinea’s history. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachele Sloane, Graduate Researcher and Tutor – Master of Education, Student Wellbeing Specialisation (MGSE), The University of Melbourne Shutterstock New Child Safe Standards come into effect in Victoria this Friday, July 1. The set of 11 standards builds on the ...
A wee piece of real-life comedy for you this morning.
Naval boat repeatedly rams a cruise liner for no reason other than testosterone poisoning.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/03/americas/venezuela-navy-cruise-liner-incident-intl/index.html
Naval ship didn't realise – after ramming the cruise liner multiple times – that the cruise liner prow was reinforced to withstand antarctic ice.
Whoops.
Naval boat crumples and sinks.
Cruise liner: 1
Venezuelan navy: 0
That was covered in Yesterday's Dom/Post as well. I couldn't help but laugh out loud.
What I particularly liked was that, after it was obvious that the patrol craft was taking on water, that "the cruise ship had remained in the vicinity of the incident for more than an hour and had offered assistance.. It's Captain alerted the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Curacao which eventually advised him to continue his journey."
Go away! Stop looking at us! Let us sink in peace!
I'm just disappointed there's no video of the whole thing.
There are an enormous number of uploads on Youtube but all they are is just stock footage of both ships. None show the ramming attempt as far as I could discover.
Why does David Lange's comment come to mind?
'Shortly after the Mikhail Lermontov, the pride of the Soviet cruising fleet, ended her life at the bottom of the Marlborough Sounds, Lange declared that little old New Zealand was "the only nation to sink a Russian Ship since the Second World War."'.
To those that think we were too slow, and to those that think we went too severe, 1 death, so far. Look at the UK, nurses, Drs, Bus Drivers, a 5 year old yesterday! Each county numbering 100s of deaths. Big thanks to those working their arses off keeping us as safe as they can.
And the US 28k new cases to day!!
This is a short tic toc using trump statements on various days.
It is tragic
https://www.tiktok.com/@butdidiask17/video/6806022464519310598?region=JP&mid=6806013252699540230&u_code=d99c7j1c2cic98&preview_pb=0&language=en×tamp=1585986518&utm_source=line&app=tiktok&iid=6802162459673511682&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=ios&tt_from=line&user_id=6758790832193111041&source=h5_t
+ 100% Well said, I feel love.
We are extremely lucky we don't have fools, in power like the USA.
Imagine if Bridges was PM?
'Imagine if Bridges was PM?'
OK …
I doubt that very much.
For a start the lockdown would have been delayed, "because of the cost to business".
Those on welfare would have been ignored.
Big businesses with lobbying clout would have all still been open and their employees forced to work.
There would be no uptick in demand from a minimum wage rise.
Help would have been directed at banks and corporates. Small business, sole traders,beneficiaries and wage earners would have been last on the list, if at all.
Lastly, communication from Bridges would have been abysmal, and even their own voters don't really trust National. Except for tax cuts and lining their own pockets.
KJT,
You are letting your political bias blind you to political reality. As SM says there would have been virtually no difference in response (except minimum wage increase).
All the fiscal measures to support wages and salaries, to support small business survive would have been implemented.
How do I know this? Because what the govt has done is modelled on what National did in Christchurch. They have actually said as much.
Under National there would have been much tougher border surveillance and earlier. That has been and remains a major failure of the government.
My reply is not from my political bias.
It is from what first hand knowledge of what National, really did, in Christchurch.
Not the PR spin version.
Tougher border surveillance could, and I think also, should, have been done sooner.
In fact I consider the border shutdown could have been sooner.
But. Don’t tell me that National wouldn’t have been prevaricating about, costs! long after the co-alition acted.
Bridges was still going on about costs to business not long ago. FFS..
KJT may be right. Wayne may be right. We'll never know. I lean towards KJT's point of view. National would have been likely followed Scumo's weaker response. But as I said, it's history, and words spoken now about what would have happened are worthless and meaningless.
I agree. Nice as it may sound, it’s rather pointless and not even an ‘academic’ exercise. It also carries the risk of polarising opinions, which we don’t really need in these times or in any time for that matter, IMHO.
You still haven't answered my question.
Who restocked our National pandemic supplies in 2017.
And another. Which Government was engaged in privatising by stealth, our health system? Which is going to severely limit our response.
What privatising of health by stealth?
The health system in NZ has hardly changed in the last two decades (apart from new technology). The health budget has increased under both governments at more or less the same rate.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/90153732/medical-laboratory-union-frustrated-at-wait-for-information-from-health-board
Two minutes on Google.
Many other examples.
And Labour wasn't guiltless, either.
The Neo-liberal disease.
The proliferation of administrators on high pay, often much higher than operational staff, has swallowed up a large proportion of funding increases for schools, universities and schools, for the last 3 decades.
So the idea that funding has increased may be true on the face of it.
But so much has gone in those salaries and payments to private providers, all those sectors have shown the effects of being run down, in reality.
Hospitals, universities and schools.
If you want to read about a health system being privatised by stealth read this. How the likes of fun f**king loving Branson the one along with Stagecoach f**ked eastern region railways in the UK and expected compensation is now a big player "running" the NHS
Nationalise the lot, tell them all to F**k Off with no compensation. I think Bo-Jo has a bloody cheek putting on his podium "Save the NHS" when since the days of Thatcher the Tories have done their utmost to run it into the ground.
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/30/covid-19-contending-with-a-dual-pathology-in-britain/
"Bridges as PM" is not the same as "National in government".
I would give Key/English the benefit of the doubt. But the "bonfire of red tape" (Simon Bridges' own plans, in his own words) was announced as a response to Covid-19.
"The arguments for these things just becomes stronger as a result of Covid-19 … Clearing away red tape means businesses are freer to get up in the morning to hire people and building houses, cutting hair, doing the things that need to be done without the unnecessary rules and regulations," he said.
That was in March 2020. Less than a month ago. Only days before the lockdown. It was pure fantasy.
Simon Bridges would have cost lives.
link to Simon Bridges' speech
Cutting hair? Was this before or after scomofo conferred essentialness upon the coiffeurs?
I would be fascinated to know what unnecessary rules and regulations there might be governing cutting hair.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120824045/coronavirus-police-modify-guidelines-for-frontline-officers
Yep Bridges was completely out of touch. Almost like he continued to waffle on along prepared lines without any awareness of how serious things were becoming.
I gave Key credit at the time when he raised welfare payments.
And for not going full austerity after the GFC, like so many of the Clowns, overseas.
"Because what the govt has done is modelled on what National did in Christchurch."
What did National do for beneficiaries at that time? I don't remember an across the board benefit rise for Canterbury people. Nor an energy payment that winter. Can't remember what National's response was. Anyone?
https://iknow.cch.co.nz/document/zntxtnewsUio1805910sl278464566/christchurch-earthquake-support-package
Is that the total of what they did or part?
it was extended by a few weeks but was further restricted from memory but as far as direct financial support went that was the extent if I recall correctly.
Its worth noting that the fact a business support package (wage subsidy) had been implemented before, albeit on a limited basis, would likely have promoted it as an option on this occasion.
Having said that I think KJT's assertion that Nationals response would have differed holds a considerable amount of water as with everything the emphasis, priorities and timing would have been different …the devil is always in the detail
Single issue lunacy from you KJT, surround by a huge amount of conjecture and what if’s’
I think the response has been over the top. If anyone thinks this thing isn’t coming back for round 2 at some point, they’re deluded. Will we just shut the economy down again? Or is it better to allow some deaths amongst the lower risk demographics and try and focus isolation and support on the high risk? Then at least we can build some immunity.
Another happy to sacrifice "other people". For the "economy".
Where else are we hearing that from?
By the way, they are heading tens thousands of deaths, if not millions, and their economy, is still fucked.
KJT
No economy in the world can meets the all of the health needs of citizens and prevent all disease related deaths. What economies can do is generate capital to support and resource health systems. The stronger the economy, the greater the resources governments can give to health systems. The issue as it always has been is about how to best allocate those resources. This requires careful judgement (not evident with the current Minister of Health).
For instance cancer patients have for years been competing with each other and with other medical conditions for resources. There is never enough resource to go round and so there will always be priorities and winners and losers.
No one is "happy" about "sacrificing"people. And it doesn't happen "for the economy". Your thinking on this doesn't make sense. Its emotive bullshit.
To reiterate, its the 'economy' that makes it possible to build better health systems.
Not the point. And you know it.
The problem with these armchair alternatives is that they ignore the most basic question in a democracy. Does the government tell the people what it is doing?
If "No", then you're arguing for a cover-up. Which would inevitably leak out, and there would be uproar.
If "Yes", how do you propose that a NZ government (ANY government, forget the names and parties) announces to the people:
"We think it is better to allow some deaths, so we'll be doing that."
So the young should die to protect the old and the infirm?
By and large the evidence strongly suggests that the young don't die at anywhere near the same rates as 'the old and infirm" as a result of Convid 19. So that sacrifice is not being asked of the young. And neither should it.
The same rate does not mean that there is no rate. They still get sick, they still die, and they still infect others. Therefore they are still sacrificing.
Moreover as they have to go off sick in large quantities, they will cause businesses to fail thereby eventually losing themselves and others their jobs.
What kind of moronic point are you trying to make? Simpleton aphorisms don’t make an argument – they merely define someone being an idiot.
I agree with your statements concerning the use of the concept, 'rates'.
My other point (which I should have made more clearly) is that I don't think we should be expecting the young to make unreasonable sacrifices for, say, boomers, for example.
You know you are utterly unconvincing and lack a compelling argument when you use clichés like that.
I understand that you're probably been a little too lazy to read up on epidemics. But the issue in a epidemic without a vaccine or a effective treatment is that everyone almost without exception gets sick.
The more often that you get exposed and infected again before you develop any immunities, the more likely it is that you'll wind up with a dose of infecting agents that manage to overwhelm anyones immune system. Without adequete medical treatment you're more likely to die or have a downstream consequence – like a permanently compromised immune system.
So instead of whining about someone else based on a discussion about probabilities, perhaps you should look more closely at how you stop you, your family, your friends, and your workmates getting into a situation that they get into the worst possible epidemic case.
Try looking at New York where it appears the major demographic dying or severely distressed now are in their 30s and 40s because they have been swanning around in virus haze thinking that they're immune.
Meanwhile the boomers buttoned up weeks ago because they were told that they were at risk.
You can also look to OZ where the risk takers are the most affected ie 20's.
Dr McAnulty said that younger people are being affected.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-05/coronavirus-australia-live-blog-updates-covid-19-april-5/12122460
Why not? We're all in this together. Some of the at risk people will be younger people eg those with asthma or immune issues. Everyone is making sacrifices, not just young people, so why single them out as a group and pit them against others?
Further, why is the boomer generation not worthy of being helped? What about the elderly who will die if we all don't do our bit?
Are those young going to have there student loans remitted? As they face ruinous generational bills to pay for the privilege of extending the lives of those who benefited from a free education? Will the young get advantageous interest rates on their mortgages as they take lower paid roles in order to support the old and infirmary right to live where they are on a full government super? Will that same super be affordable for future generations as reward for sacrificing so much for the old and infirm who demanded the economy be shut down to protect them.
the same voices crying for there future generations to be protected from climate change are now sadly forgotten as those same voices revert to individualistic selfishness.
Still with the right wing, trying to set generations against each other, bollocks.
What a mighty spectacle of shadowboxing strawmen you paint there.
In case you missed it, we’re currently trying to protect and save (!) every vulnerable New Zealander irrespective of age and socio-economic status.
Go ahead and sacrifice yourself. Which business are you going to throw yourself under the covid bus for?
For the moment, I’m ignoring the rest of your comment, which is basking in ignorance, IMO.
Nobody knows or is sure if exposure to (i.e. infection with) COVID-19 will induce immunity and, if so, how long this will last. This pandemic is too young to tell and it is highly risky to make predictions and extrapolate from the experience with other coronaviruses or research on animals.
Pretty weak excuse. It’s not wiping people out. It’s fatality rate amongst people without other morbidity factors is nearing .25%.
its the old and infirm and the occasionally unlucky other who then gets sensationalised. I’m not saying it’s not something to be afraid of, but when the theoretical cure is worse than the disease…
we don’t even know if isolation will actually break the transmission cycle. It’s a best guess based on an assumption. So no less valid than Sweden’s approach, which is what I think we should follow.
but hey, if you blindly accept MoH media reports and briefings, be my guest.
The fatality rate from COVID-19 among people who don’t get infected with COVID-19 is 0.00%.
We don’t know all the morbidity factors and some people have undiagnosed factors.
Young healthy people without any conditions or morbidity factors have died and are still dying from COVID-19.
New Zealand’s approach is not Sweden’s one. Sweden currently has 373 deaths caused by COVID-19.
but hey, if you blindly display your ignorance, be my guest.
The fatality rate is incredibly low amongst young people. So your statement young are getting sick and dying is misleading.
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/
people are going to die regardless, do we want to lower everyone who survives quality of life for generations to come to potentially save a small portion of the population? And save them only the first time round?
its a tough choice, no one gets it right, but the draconian response is out of proportion.
There is no misleading in my statement about young people dying from COVID-19, as your own link shows. You, OTOH, are displaying your ignorance again.
In New Zealand, the young are the single largest group of positive cases, which is why the PM singled them out in one of recent press conferences.
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases#age
Yes, we’re all going to die, one day. However, we don’t leave anyone behind in this country.
You seem to be suggesting that we “potentially” sacrifice “a small portion of the population” so that the survivors can have better quality of life.
You say that this is a tough choice. Well, no, for me it’s an easy choice and my QALYs would be lower because of my burdened conscience assuming I’ll be among the survivors. You don’t seem to have that problem!?
Getting sick is not the same as dying from Covid 19. Probably why we aren’t seeing lots of deaths relative to our infection rate.
so either your example about New Zealand’s young is designed to be misleading about the fatality impact of covid 19 or it supports my point that the at risk people (fat Americans, old people, underlying health conditions) should be isolated and have massively targeted support and the very low risk people should be allowed to live almost as normal, with some restrictions. As covid 19 isn’t fatally dangerous to them
Ignorant still, but not a surprise.
When falling sick, you risk dying from it. This applies to all ages, but not equally, which nobody has disputed so this is a strawman.
When becoming a carrier, you risk spreading the virus and infecting others. This has nothing to do with your own ‘risk status’.
To prevent this from happening and to try to stamp out the virus, we’re in Alert Level 4. This is likely why we aren’t seeing lots of deaths relative to our infection rate.
You’re suggesting to let the virus go rampant among the population without knowing who are at risk and who aren’t; you don’t know whom it will be “fatally dangerous” to. You’re prepared to let people die so that others can live “almost as normal”. You believe that this is a price worth paying.
Who’s talking about “fat Americans” in our NZ society? Are you deliberately misleading?
You’re as ignorant about COVID-19 as you are about CC, which actually makes a lot of sense.
'…if you blindly accept MoH media reports and briefings, ..'
Hmm blindly following the actual experts advice or some pseudonymous commenter on a blog….. that's a tough one.
Have you ever seen any of the vaccination threads on this site.. lots of pseudonymous commenters thinking they know better than the experts and their science.
This guy knows what’s what. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/
are people dying of or with covid-19?
They’re dying of COVID-19.
See also https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-05-04-2020/#comment-1698395
We encourage strong debate supported by sound arguments. We ask the ignorami to educate themselves and improve their arguments and debating skills. You’re starting to sound like a straight-up denier, as you did with CC. Keep it up and you’ll be booted off this site.
Who is denying CC? You’re getting confused. CC is happening, I think there are other ways to deal with it than jetting around hectoring people or organising wasteful marches.
3 people ventilated. It’s hardly reason enough to shut down society. Some will be unlucky enough to get it seriously or even fatally. It’s unfortunate, but not enough to wreck the futures of the rest of their generation.
FIFY
And only one fatality case so far. We’re so lucky, indeed!
And. If the hospitals are full of Coronavirus cases, a hell of a lot of other people are going to die of other conditions. Because there is no place or people to treat them.
But. They are just part of the "collateral damage" right.
One of my friends, a health worker, still cannot work because his constantly postponed hip replacement, has been postponed again due to coronavirus. Isn't that a cost, to?
Keen to volunteer your family as guinea pigs to see if your half arsed theory is correct.?
Yup. I am.
nothing half arsed about it. How else would a vaccine be effective if it wasn’t exposed to virus.
get back to FB Karen
The reason some of those Drs and nurses are dying is because they are getting reinfected, and each time it hits them stronger, then they die. You may end up like Boris Johnson, in denial, then sick.
Bridges was interviewed on Q+A this morning, and it was far the best I've seen him. Sensible, largely supportive of Government measures dealing with Covid, but pertinent questions about testing and quarantining of incoming travelers.
He seemed to be natural and informed.
This perhaps shows the benefits of being isolated from party strategists and media trainers.
And focus groups and polls.
All of them the bane of modern politics and the ruin of potential leaders. David Shearer suffered badly from it, as did Andrew Little (but as it turns out Ardern is a far better communicator anyway).
Ardern herself has been better when finding herself in times of crisis where she acts as she sees fit rather than being projected through a PR lens. Her interview on Seven Sharp on Friday wasn't one her best, it looked prepared and scripted, and laughing off the Clark question and pivoting to a lecture to the rest of us to not do what Clark had done was poor.
We to often forget that a Leader is still part of a group/party.
Who, may not even agree with the things they have to front.
Or, like Trump, is the figurehead for a large number of enablers behind him.
Then they have, in both Labour and National, to deal with a large number of chair polishers, and outright loons, their selection processes saddle them with.
Ardern's interview on 7 Sharp on Friday was simply propaganda and politicking. Its was straight out of the ex Women's Weekly playbook.
TVNZ need to be careful about providing a platform at prime time for political propaganda of this sort. Hillary Barry asking the tough questions is a joke. The programme was unbalanced and biased.
Jack Tane's Q & A programme provides the template for how these things should be done; especially in these times.
Bollocks. What you saw is Simon as he is. Politicians both left and right are not automatons and just puppets of polling. Yes, polling is done. But basically a politician has to use his/her judgement. And once before the camera they just say what they say. It is not nearly as scripted as you seem to think.
Yeah I ve seen Bridges in action -"Angry Simon implodes on Campbell Live"
very natural oh him wasn't it Wayne?
Yes. Saw it again yesterday. Bridges back to being a twit.
"Government should let more businesses open if it is safe for them to do so".
As if it isn't what they are doing already. FFS.
Bridges will have his platform when it comes to the usual May budget. I do not envy Robertson one bit when it comes to this.
There was a mild earth quake in Christchurch this morning. We had the EQC for the earthquakes.
We had a surplus which helps with the current Covid-19.
We have ACC for injuries.
I wonder how the ACC levies are going with the loss of income.
Does anyone know?
Bearing in mind the markets, I suspect they’d be more worried about their reserves which are the buffer. The levies are probably gone down roughly in line with the claims.
It will be interesting to see what the claim number will be during the lockdown and the breakdown of them.
FFS, Pete, where is your link?
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/bridges-calls-more-businesses-safely-operate-during-lockdown
We shall never know how Simon would have handled the crisis (thank God for that) but if we look overseas we can see numerous examples of how right wing governments have fared, Think Trump, think Johnson, think Morrison.
It would be fair to say Simon would not have been much better than any of them.
Add to that the Chinese ambassador's annoyance when we closed our borders to China and you can be sure the borders would have stayed open for longer – notwithstanding what Simon says now.
Check the data Tony. Australia is doing ok. Its current management of the problem is producing results similar to NZ.
Mostly because the various state governments like NSW, Vic and SA have been doing far closer what the NZ government has done. Closing borders. Forcing businesses to close. People to self-isolate early.
They are doing this despite the Federal government’s vacillating and inconsistent policies that seemed largely designed to reduce the call on federal funds at the unemployment.
However the federal government has now seemed to get on with the task at hand in recent days with what looks a lot like our stimulus programmes.
Only because the states have responsibility for Health and NSW and Victoria went harder, faster than the Federal government was always proposing.
A grim read of the article on The Cut thanks KJT. I think?
A bit long and wordy but a great take on the Trump/Cuomo show.
https://www.bedlamfarm.com/2020/04/02/the-cuomo-brothers-versus-the-president-what-a-show/
Very, very good. It explains why the Dems have singularly misunderstood Trump, underestimated him and miserably failed to compete against such an egregious goat of a man:
Reminder #23628 of why it's a really not a good idea for a political leader to own and control substantial business interests: the Dotard of Doltistan is looking for substantial debt relief from Deutsche Bank at the same time as the Department of Justice (which he is in charge of) is investigating Deutsche Bank for various crimes.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/deutsche-bank-trump-debt-help-coronavirus-conflict-of-interest_n_5e87ee89c5b6cc1e47758499
Are these the loans guaranteed by Simeon Mogilivch the Russian mafia boss of bosses
Ruined party elects block of wood as "leader"
Tony Blair sans the charisma.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/413473/sir-keir-starmer-to-lead-uk-labour-party
I'll take the views of UK Labour people who work with Starmer every day over your sideline cynicism, thanks.
He's vowed to expel every Labour Party member who cares about human rights. You don't know much, or anything, about the UK Labour Party.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/keir-starmer-elected-uk-labour-chief-apologizes-to-jews-for-party-anti-semitism/
"He's vowed to expel every Labour Party member who cares about human rights"
Citation please (so we know what you are talking about).
I think Morrissey is referring to the article he posted, Starmer intends to address anti-semitism in the party (which doesn't really exist, but was an invention of many "friends of Israel" and some other hidden forces), this will be a direct attack on all socialists in the party who support Palestinian's human rights.
It's an attack not just on "socialists" but on all people who dare to speak out for the victims of injustice.
From the article I provided with my link:
Starmer deliberately mislabels opposition to the crimes of the Israeli regime as "anti-Semitism." That obviously sits well with the extreme right Times of Israel, which published this encomium, but it's another nail in the coffin for the future of the Labour Party.
So he hasn't "vowed to expel every Labour Party member who cares about human rights" then and you just made that up?
What caught my attention about that was that the other leader candidates signed a pledge to support the expulsion of gender critical feminists from the party. From memory Starmer didn't, or at least he was restrained in his handling of that rather than throwing a large number of Labour feminists under the bus.
So making shit up about expulsions carries more stupid weight than normal.
He joined in the campaign of defamation against Jeremy Corbyn, which descended into a purge of anyone who spoke out against Israeli crimes. I didn't make that up, it's an unpleasant fact.
Do you support the contention of the Blairite rump of that party that criticism of Israel is, per se, anti-Semitism?
'The so-called “friends of Israel”, who support Israel automatically and blindly: this has nothing to do with friendship. They are enemies of Israel—they corrupt us. The Jewish establishment in Australia kept saying to me: “Israel right or wrong.” Well, Israel is wrong and they need to stop supporting it. Continuous support by Western governments and by the Jewish establishment is anything BUT friendship.'
—Gideon Levy, speaking in Auckland, 3 Dec. 2017
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2017/12/unbelievable-brutality-day-after-day.html
Citation needed, because it looks like you are making shit up again.
What it looks like is that you are back in your routine of feigned ignorance. I doubt that you are unaware of the brutal campaign of "anti-Semitism" allegations that was directed against Corbyn over the last four years. So why pretend you are?
I'm asking for evidence that the Labour party has purged members or intends to. You've made the claim twice, and both times refused to back it up, so I assume now you are lying.
In terms of your politics around Israel and Palestine and what Labour are doing re that, not interested in talking about that today.
I'm asking for evidence that the Labour party has purged members or intends to.
If you don't know that the Labour Party is purging human rights activists, you should not be commenting here. I expect to find displays of willful ignorance on Kiwiblog, but not on this normally excellent forum.
In terms of your politics around Israel and Palestine and what Labour are doing re that, not interested in talking about that today.
The false anti-Semitism smear and the witchhunt and the demand for apologies has everything to do with the "politics around Israel-Palestine." I don't believe, by the way, that you are ignorant about this matter.
Morrissey, you run your own blog, IIRC. You should know that many blogs, particularly TS, are not for little tête-à-têtes but for robust debate. Anybody can join in but many read this site without ever commenting. So, when somebody, particularly a Moderator, asks you for evidence to back up your allegations, then please oblige without sounding like a petulant little child. Thanks.
A purging that everyone knows about but for which there is no evidence. Right.
Incognito:
I'm not "alleging" that the right wing (Blairite) rump of the Labour Party, which has now manoeuvred itself back into control—a pyrrhic victory if ever there was one—has operated an unrelenting smear campaign against Corbyn and anyone who stands up for the rights of the Palestinians, any more than I would allege that the sun is coming up tomorrow morning or that today is Sunday. It's a fact.
https://www.medialens.org/2019/reopening-auschwitz-the-conspiracy-to-stop-corbyn/
weka,
You say there is "no evidence" of a purge of human rights activists from the Labour Party. This charming little encapsulation of Starmer's agenda comes from the article I provided for you in my original comment on this thread:
When Starmer says "this poison" he doesn't mean anti-Semitism, he means criticism of the Israeli regime. What do you think he means when he says he's going to "tear out" these critics?
Morrissey, you could have saved yourself the trouble with those utterances that I personally am not interested in.
My concern is your behaviour here and how you respond, or not for that matter, to basic requests for evidence to support your allegations. This is a necessary element of good debate, which we treasure on this site.
You have been around here long enough to know how it works. Next time, please just provide the evidence and don’t argue. It is wasting our time and I find it tedious enough to get the ban-hammer out.
Over and out.
Well look where charisma gets us.
Jack Tame?
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/jack-tame-emotes-after-newtown.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/04/jack-tames-interview-of-chris-liddell.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/02/jack-tame-chief-worshipper-of-hosk-dec.html
None of that looks relevant to the two tweets, it looks more like a shoot the messenger diversion.
Did you read what Tame wrote about a real shooting? "Solipsistic" is the most generous spin you could put on it.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/jack-tame-emotes-after-newtown.html
I didn't read a link to something from two years ago – it's still irrelevant to the tweets.
I didn't read a link to something from two years ago…
Tame's horrible little meditation was from eight years ago.
What is your point, Pete? Are you playing ‘trick or treat’ with us here on TS?
I thought it was kinda obvious. Robertson said that Clark was "always available" for interviews according to Jason Walls.
Also Stuff reported Robertson as saying “He’s available to front anytime".
But Jack Tame pointed out he reneged on a scheduled Q+A interview for today so wasn't always available as stated. RNZ Live referred to it as "a no show'.
Also from RNZ Live:
Tova O'Brien reported:
So according to Robertson and Ardern, Clark is "available to front any time" and "would continue to be available for interviews", but according to journalists he isn't.
The Minister of Health, during the biggest health crisis for decades, is remote from the centre of Government and Ministry of Health activity and is not giving interviews despite the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance saying he is available (knowing he isn't doing interviews).
Something is obviously not right here.
If he's not giving interviews to gossip columnists who want to rabbit on about him going for a bike ride, then good so. Why should someone in his position indulge such childish bullshit? If they were actually interested in asking him questions about the pandemic and NZ's response to it, it would be dereliction of duty for him to refuse the interviews – but they aren't, and it isn't.
Q+A is hardly a gossip column, it's not perfect but it's one of the best political media forums we have.
With Clark not fronting up Simon Bridges got a spot, and surprisingly he came across well, far different from his usual. Generally supportive of Government actions but with some reasonable questions and criticisms.
So at least something good came of Clark's no show. Bridges may be capable of rising to the occasion that the current situation requires of our politicians.
” it would be dereliction of duty for him to refuse the interviews – but they aren’t”
Do you have proof of this? I heard O’Brien saying she had specific and relevant (to the pandemic) sounding questions.
You mean Tova Woodward?
Good move by Clark imo, let's see how much media work he does in the coming week. Journos want to sensationalise a story that should have been over by now. Under normal circumstances that would just be tedious, but under these circumstances it's bizarre.
PM's press conference today: the first there-were-so-many-I-can't-recall-how-many questions were all about David Clark going for a bike ride. Nothing about Tova O'Brien's previous reporting suggests she'd operate to a higher standard than that, in fact for all I know it was her asking those questions (the questioners aren't identified in the video).
"and is not giving interviews"
When was the last time Clark gave an interview then?
What is obvious is that your mind is not like mine, obviously.
Being available for interviews is not the same as being available for a game of pin the tail on the donkey, no matter how much it appeals to a certain audience and certain pundits who have made a hobby out of reporting on it.
When something smells a little off, it could be a ripening French cheese. Yum!
So how long do you think that Clark should refuse to do interviews (despite Ardern and Robertson saying he is always available) just in case someone asks him an awkward question that he would prefer not to answer?
Or do you think he should only do interviews with questions he allows in advance?
Or should Bloomfield, Robertson and Ardern just speak on his behalf. It's not as if he has a very important job, is it.
I thought it was kinda obvious. During Alert Level 4, he should only do interviews on how to repair punctures when mountain biking in the wild.
I think this tweet speaks for itself, adding to this thread.
I don’t hear any voices, Pete, do you?
Yap! Yap! Yap!
Please Pete – Give it a bone.
There are way more important issues than someone going on a bike ride, even if they are the Minister of Health.
I never thought the bike ride was a big deal apart from being embarrassing for Ardern efforts to get people following her message of staying away from risky pastimes.
But what it has highlighted is a Minister of Health being shielded or hiding away at the most important time for any Minister of Health for decades. That's an important issue. Do we have a functional Minister of Health?
What’s more important: de we have a scandal that can bring down this Government? Will the PM call a snap election? What do the polls say? What’s for dinner tonight?
You attempt at flippancy is a pretty lame attempt at diversion, and I think stupid in the current situation of a pandemic.
Media have picked up on the MIA issue…
…and that's a big deal for a Minister of Health during an unprecedented pandemic.
Irony not your strongest point, Pete, i.e. MIA?
Do you really not see what Ardern did today? She knew exactly what was coming (our political journos are nothing if not predictable). She fed them a line: "idiots".
Then she took the (predictable) questions on Clark and quietly kicked him in the shins. She didn't repeat "idiot", because she didn't need to.
She also knew that while a minuscule minority of poli-tragics on blogs might still be getting worked up about Clark, the vast majority of the public are rolling their eyes at the journos (see the social media reaction in real time, which is unspun).
What do leaders usually say when one of their team lapses? "It was within the rules …" "I do not condone but …" "What about what about?" etc. Weasel words, which only make it worse.
She is smarter than that, and still many can't/won't see it.
"Do you really not see what Ardern did today? "
Yes, she gave journalists an opening to infer Clark was an idiot, a notion she didn't do much to dispel.
If Ardern is smart she won't let this fester away, which is likely if left unaddressed and information is sought from the Minister of Health – he can't go to ground forever.
It isn't festering away. Nobody cares much, except journos who help to make sure nobody cares by going on about it some more. She has political capital in spades, they don't.
I don't think you would even recognize her smarts, TBH.
Have you and other journos [see what I did there?] called out Stuart Nash yet. I heard he’s been spotted in his home gym lifting weights.
And why didn't you bring this up before the bike ride?
when was the last time Clark gave an interview?
Good question. I don't know. I do know that he has seemed to struggle with interviews he has given over the last couple of weeks, he has sounded unsure and lacking in confidence. Perhaps that's why he has quietly been given a reduced role.
so you don't actually know if he is refusing to give interviews, other than he pulled out of one today?
As above, refusing interviews from Newshub.
And obviously other journalists are showing concerns about it.
Fair bet 90% of the interviews in the next few days would have revolved around bicycles, so why bother.
Probably with other pretexts but it woulod have come up for sure. But he's got to front up sooner or later and deal to that.
Or is he going to go full funkstille?
Gotcha issues have a short expiry date.
Non-performing ministers in critical portfolios in a crisis probably have a longer expiry date – like for as long as he refuses interviews.
how has he been non-performing other than refusing a couple of interviews?
*crickets*
This one?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018741008/coronavirus-health-minister-on-testing-ventilators
It's a bit superfluous for him to be doing interviews when the PM is fronting this issue. Journalists know that too, hence no squawking about lack of interviews until now. It's clear why they have a sudden interest in interviewing him, and also clear that the reason is "childish gotcha bullshit."
Not when he's cleaning his chain, obv. I mean come on.
Virgin Australia has shut down its NZ operations. 600 jobs gone, more than twice as many as the Bauer debacle. No doubt the howls of outrage in the media are coming…?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/413455/loss-of-600-jobs-as-virgin-australia-shuts-its-nz-operations
3000 from Air New Zealand.
The airline industry is going to be a very sad place for a long time. There's a lot of airlines that have been loosing serious money prior to the covid19 restrictions on travel. Virgin Australia was one.
This piece from ABC sums it up nicely. Bottom line, Virgin is an overseas owned business and the Australian government is very unlikely to bail them out. Unfortunately some / most of the overseas airlines that own Virgin are worse. Can't see them being around for long.
The global airline industry will probably resemble the airline industry of the late 60's by the end of this, a few national flag carriers serving their home states and a couple of larger international based ones. And a lot of surplus aluminium parked in the desert. And a lot of people out of work.
Virgin is an overseas owned business and the Australian government is very unlikely to bail them out.
Taleb had a scathing response (and solution)
Virgin Australia were in big trouble 8 months ago….losses of $1.2 billion over the last 6 years. They would probably have folded without Covid-19. See:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-virgin-australia-strategy-focus/turnaround-may-prove-tricky-for-new-virgin-australia-ceo-scurrah-idUSKCN1VG01O
"a lot of surplus aluminium parked in the desert. "
I wonder how that will affect the prospects of Rio Tinto at Tiwai? Their "best aluminium" claims revolve mainly around aircraft manufacture, I understand.
Wind turbines?
The high purity of the aluminium from Tiwai Point is more valuable for electronics purposes that directly use it in the pure state. The large portion of the output that goes to Japan is used for that.
High purity aluminium is useless for any kind of structural use, it's much too soft and weak. So it has to be alloyed with significant amounts of other elements, and the tiny quantities of impurities disappear into the tolerances of the alloying proportions. For instance, a common high-performance alloy is 7075 with a recipe that roughly includes 5.6–6.1% zinc, 2.1–2.5% magnesium, 1.2–1.6% copper, and less than a half percent of silicon, iron, manganese, titanium, chromium, and other metals.
"our high-purity aluminium is valuable for aerospace" makes for a good marketing story, though. It's useful to make locals feel special about what they produce, in order to add to their social license to operate. Even when it's bullshit.
Its likely, for the moment, that any subsidies paid to Tiwai will be cheaper than unemployment support for the numerous on and off site staff and losses to the wider community. But the plant owners could pull the plug anytime, which would be sad.
The real shame is that money, which could have been used to develop long term sustainable employment in Southland, has instead been wasted on bribes to Rio Tinto. It would have been cheaper to shut it down, and just continue paying the staff.
And we have all been paying higher power bills, for decades, for the same reason.
Other industries and infrastructure, such as electric rail, could have used that power.
A necessity to help stop man made global warming.
But. Still sad for the people out of work.
a faster curve than expected, but we were always going to end up here and I'm relieved it's happening now rather than in 20 years when it's way too late.
My hope now is that we create sustainable jobs rather than rushing back to the pollution economy.
I notice the usual suspects gearing up for business as usual.
Including Federated farmers, trying to get out of ceasing to pollute waterways, and businesses which relied on cheap labour, tax payer support and capital gains, trying to use this an excuse for even more largess from their employees, and the rest of us.
I don’t have much hope. They are already trying to paint targets on anyone who is against de- regulation and subsidies for polluting businesses.
Once China has built it's strategic milk powder mountain a shock could be on the way. No markets, or severely fucked markets, will mean much less going off farm.
Add to that less containers coming into the country full of all the shit we buy from Briscoes et al, so we've got to import empty boxes, and NZ agriculture could be in for a squeeze like it's never seen before.
I've too many family members in farming, to cheer on, it's reduction.
However commodity milk powder, was bound to run into a wall, at some stage.
Not to mention I expect the EU, and others to be trying to make up for lost trade at the same time as us.
No one who was around at the time, can forget the effects of "lakes of milk and mountains of butter" the EU, can produce, if they want to.
Expecting agriculture to pull us out of the hole, is not a given.
And. Our so called “free trade” agreements will prevent us from developing, replacement industry.
NZ agriculture could be in for a squeeze like it's never seen before.
Twaddle,demand in china for WMP is increasing due to the CCP expectation that everyone needs to drink 300ml of milk a day.Neither China or NZ can meet that cumulative demand.
There is also expected a global shortfall in whole foods such as apples,kiwifruit,oranges.and grain due to export restrictions from former CIS states.
Agriculture is resilient ie antifragile during recessions,whether NZ can sustain the harvest,due to staff shortages or government policy in horticulture (limited selling venues) is the open problem.
but at what price?…deflation is a feature of depressions
Deflation is across the entire economy,as people replace capex etc with the necessary and small treats.
During the GFC prices went up,before falling (due to increased supply)
http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/
wishful thinking….you may wish to look a little further back than the GFC.
and you may also wish to consider the impact of deflation on debt loadings especially in an already highly leveraged sector
Think of the cash in the bank.yr on yr.(deposits)
Feb 2019. 345,571 (m$)
Feb 2020 365,691 (m$)
Households holding an extra 7.5 b$
As few additional house sales will be transacted over the lockdown period,and those who do not seek mortgage holidays,repayment would also exceed bank household lending.
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/s40-banks-liabilities-deposits-by-sector
your point?….household sector savings have little to do with agricultural debt nor non performing loans.
Household and domestic savings provide stable liquidity for NZ
Agriculture (export) has an interesting built in safety valve,as ahve most commodity currencies.the fast 15% depreciation in the $nz
Fuel costs are down so internal transport costs reduce.Working capital interest costs have also been reduced.
Staffing for the harvest would be the biggest problem at present.
household sector savings provide protection from offshore impacts including exchange rate fluctuations is true enough…hence the RBNZ increased requirement in recent times…however there is another side to that ledger which somewhat negates your cheerleading…both household debt and total debt has increased more in the same period
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/s30-banks-assets-loans-by-sector
The floating exchange rate could be expected to provide (some) protection in normal circumstances however we are looking at a prolonged reduction in worldwide economic activity which is it self deflationary as there will be reduced demand and ability to purchase our goods and our competitors are capable of increasing production at a scale (and will be looking to do so) we cannot cope with even if we had spare capacity , which we dont…and the non commodity imports required for our (now) high input model of ag will not deflate at the same rate.
Yes oil is low at the moment but that wont remain the case for long as the russians and saudis will agree to cut production soon enough especially in light of further reduced demand.
from your final comment it appears your horizon is around 3 months…..seriously???
from your final comment it appears your horizon is around 3 months…..seriously???
Thats when they make most of their income,ie from the harvest to sustain them over the year.
Nobody told the cows
That's what they said to me, the last time I said dairy prices were going to drop steeply.
Of course telling me it was "twaddle" didn't stop them going down.
There will be longships to row, no doubt.
and the fixed costs spread over a smaller pool will necessitate considerable fare increases…cheap travel is gone for the foreseeable (once the dust settles)
Like I said, back to the 60's. Not quite passenger lists in the social pages, but close.
1st World problems:
When walking I have noticed the increase of "Dog Mines" just off footpaths 🤬. When giving way to others: using the footpath as a 2m guide walk whilst passing using either side of the grass verge. Be careful watch out for dog poo being tramped thru the house. 😉
You wear shoes inside! How od
Only when I enter into our entrance or garage then leave shoes inside front or back door – there is the isolated occasion that there is a need rush inside 😉 – And that will be the one occasion that "stuff" is on the sole of the shoe.
As the great philosophy forest gump said .
Shit happens.
I thought you were a dairyman bwaghorn. Dog poo and cow poo are not in the same race.
Wash your mouth out I'm a shepherd.
Mind I was a dairy farmer but shit really did happen in that game in more ways than one.!
A longish but very worthwhile piece on the idea of there being a trade-off between the economy and public health (spoiler: there isn't), with a focus on when and how to back off on restrictions.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/02/coronavirus-economy-reopen-deaths-balance-analysis-159248
Coronavirus: Man arrested after filming himself coughing on fellow shoppers
WTF was he thinking? He's lucky no one decked him given how stressed out and on edge many are currently. Hopefully the prick didn't have the disease.
Apparently he had a bit too much to drink so wasn't thinking.
He has been charged.
I think he should be trespassed from all food shops.
So the virus does spread by arseole.
That sort never thinks. He has no excuse except to apologise humbly for being a natural dork. He should go through a rigorous Army training program to strengthen his discipline muscle.
He clearly has FITH disease.
It's an hereditary condition so there's likely more like him out there.
Good.
Funny how the corporate media have been avoiding talking about the Biden sexual assault allegations. And then it gets all mixed up in an attack on Alyssa Milano, ever get the feeling women mean nothing in politics, and are just props?
Please don't do the usual and throw in trump to dilute the debate. I know he's a absolute sexist arse, and anyone not living under a rock knows it too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK-noZ2xsbk&ab_channel=TheYoungTurks
Please don't do the usual and throw in trump to dilute the debate. I know he's a [sic] absolute sexist arse…
So is Biden. And then there was Clinton. And this creep…
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/justin-trudeaus-blackface-is-far-from-the-worst-of-his-offenses-video/
I am watching The Nation. I am so fixated on Paul Goldsmith's goggles that I can not concentrate on what he is saying.
Has he got eye virus?
I actually did not consider my comment being linked to a virus.
I tried to get glasses recently and the only pair which suited that I really liked were in the children's section and had a superman on them so were not an option.
I am finding the styles of frames to be so variable from like thick window frames to looking like goggles.
The easiest solution is to keep the frames and update the lens.
Congratulations to Keir Starmer for taking out the labour leadership contest. Not my choice, who came in third, but thankfully the continuity candidate Wrong Daily fell well short, and with her, the momentum led ultra faction.
Not only did Starmer have the overwhelming backing of all three voting groups, he also took effective control of the NEC (executive council) after his supporters won in a series of separate elections.
Starmer describes himself as a socialist but not a Corbynite, and will keep key policies from the Corbyn era, such as nationalising rail, mail and water and repealing anti-union laws, but the hope is he won't be anywhere near as unpopular and unelectable as the biggest labour loser in living memory.
With 5 years until the next election, and though much needs to be done to shore up and rebuild the red wall, my advice to the new leader is the same I gave Cunliffe when he rose to the top – Don't invite the enemy into the camp, purge. He should also seek to redefine the bond between the party and the unions so the likes of McCluskey are sidelined as much as possible. If he doesn't like it, tough, he can always advise those who pay his large salary to vote tory, though I suspect he'd have a moan and succumb, realising what side his bread is richly buttered on.
Better luck next time Lisa.
… the hope is he won’t be anywhere near as unpopular and unelectable
That will depend on whether or not there’s a concerted defamation campaign against him as there was against Corbyn. Starmer was one of the foulest defamers, along with the likes of such intellectual luminaries as J.K. Rowling. Tom Watson, and Rachael Riley.
The Labour Party in Britain is dead.
'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This party is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! He’s f*ckin’ snuffed it!…..THIS IS AN EX-PARTY!!
lol
Got it in one brilliant take, Al1en!
Keep up the good work, my man.
I know! You really wanted to be that
stenographerlumberjack. 😆I'll stick to being a "third-rate stenographer", as the boys at Kiwiblog* used to cruelly call me.
.
.
.
.
.
.
* I'm excluded from that site now.
I guess you can still wear high heels, suspendies and a bra.
They've insinuated that I'm into that kind of thing too. Bastards.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/01/that-is-strike-one-breen-cops-formal.html
Did they quote Python?
Going on Kiwiblog is to step into Monty Python.
Farmers, better lock up your sheep drench. The zombie hordes of the clueless reading about the latest miracle cure are no doubt on their way.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120825594/coronavirus-australian-scientists-discover-head-lice-drug-kills-covid19-in-lab
A sheep farming nieghbour of mine has yearly given himself a shot of drench at that time of year. He reckons that if it can't kill a lamb it will have its work cut out on him. It will get him one day, but it had better get a move on, he's 82 and still working.
What the actual fuck??? Just checked my replies tab and the replies to the mozzie's droning whines showed up, not replies to me. I'm struggling to not take it as a personal insult.
Phew. Now it's pat's. That's not so bad.
Now it's Macro's. I can live with that.
😆
the mozzie's droning whines…
Assuming that "the mozzie" is this writer, i.e., moi, could you possibly explain how any of my posts constitute a "droning whine"?
Thanks in advance,
Morrissey.
https://www.ecomist.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/mosquito-biting-hand-feature.jpg
Recommended reading for weka
The lockdown gives you and nearly everyone else a chance to actually do some reading.
https://www.versobooks.com/books/3215-antisemitism-and-the-labour-party
The Economist on antibody testing.
http://archive.li/JXqnX
Good article. It does point towards a need to start looking for fly-by-night kits.
Dollars to be made so of course tRump and gHouliani are touting this shit.
A conservative business group founded by a prolific Republican political donor is pressuring the White House to greenlight an unproven COVID-19 treatment, saying in an online petition that the country has plants in the U.S. ready to produce a drug but can’t because of “red tape, regulation, and a dysfunctional healthcare supply chain.”
In recent days, Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus’ Job Creators Network has placed Facebook ads and texted supporters to sign a petition urging President Donald Trump to “CUT RED TAPE” and make an anti-malarial drug called hydroxychloroquine available for treating those sickened with the virus, one such message obtained by ProPublica reads.
https://www.propublica.org/article/republican-billionaire-group-pushes-unproven-covid-19-treatment-trump-promoted
All the nit picking, repetitive, sanctimonious Pete George comments seem to indicate he desperate to have a soapbox. Has his own blog closed down?
Most people have agreed David Clark made a mistake going for his bike ride. It was not at all appropriate at this time. He has apologised, and there now are more important issues to deal with. Yes, the media conferences are no doubt left to the PM and Grant Robertson as the best people to handle the media pack of wolves. Both are very ably doing this. Any crisis of this magnitude has to be tightly managed.
There are 2 American utube spokespeople attracting viewers in the millions for their daily press briefings at the moment. Trump and Cuomo.
Cuomo has Trump's measure, he is a better showman.
Trump had me chortling at his relentless superlatives, Cuomo had me in tears.
Cuomo doesn't attack Trump, Donald has nowhere to go but praise Cuomo's popular forthrightness. The guy's little brother is a CNN anchor and has just come down with the virus.
Is it too late for Cuomo to line up against Donald for the Hot Seat? Americans of all stripes are learning to love that guy.
My 79 year old Dad has just been taken to Waikato Hospital by Ambulance. He's normally very healthy, but started having breathing difficulties early Sunday morning. He had to go on his own because of the current rules. This is really scary stuff. I don't know what's happening.
There are lots of people still getting breathing difficulties that have nothing to do with 19.
It could be 19 but wait for something decent to worry about before you worry about it too much fireblade.
Put a call into Waikato Hospital and ask how you can be advised like you were phoning them every 5 minutes but without phoning them every 5 minutes. eg: Be advised of what's going on immediately.
Yep, thanks. Will phone Waikato Hospital.
Dad is home again now. The Hospital did an ECG, chest x-ray, Influenza test, Covid-19 test and blood tests. They gave him some medication and he can breath more easily now.
He water blasted the concrete area behind his house on Saturday afternoon and the Hospital thinks this irritated his lungs. Hopefully the tests will be normal/negative. St John Ambulance and the Waikato Hospital were both fantastic.
Excellent news!!
glad to hear
People are dying overseas because hospitals aren't able to provide artificial lungs until an aged person generates enough of an immune system to counter-act the mongrel.
Because Jacinda jumped early, we have all the ventilators we need for as long as the patients need them. Worst case scenario, you're still stuck with your grumpy old man.
The French are at it again.
Experimentation? There is no doubt, Rugby, League, NFL, NBL, most sports, chances are you're gonna be better off with a brown person. Music?
Did you catch Tiki locked down with his family?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAZ60kfGD0c&t=746s
Arundhati Roy writes about how Covid19 threatens India.
She concludes;
Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca
Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
The historical normality of India,is pestilence and famine.The former is here and the later will follow almost surely.
India – the world’s second-most populous country, where a majority of the population is involved in agriculture – is among the most vulnerable nations to the disruptions.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a 21-day lockdown with just a few hours notice on March 25, leaving many of its 120 million migrant laborers struggling to get home and with no money for rent, food or transport.
The country’s northern grain bowl relies on labor from eastern parts of the country, but workers have left the farms because of the lockdown. [L4N2BO25E]
“Who is going to fill the grain bags and bring the produce to market, and transport it to mills?” asked Jadish Lal, a merchant in Punjab’s Khanna grain market, the country’s largest.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-food-supplies-insi/coronavirus-upends-global-food-supply-chains-in-latest-economic-shock-idUSKBN21L2V7
Wow, Cuoro is brilliant, he is giving Donald an awful time while leaving no target.
In his live conference he talks about having no choice but go cap in hand to China and beg for ventilators and masks.
He just needs to drop the tiniest of 'I wish we could sort this out in our homeland' hints and it hits like a sledge hammer.
Cuoro is a master story teller. A good story teller doesn't tell, they show, they give us room to create our own narrative. I think Donald has met his match.
The PM’s comments this evening seemed out of her recent character. Her suggestion that we should be grateful we have only 1000 cases instead of the 4000 predicted by some model has drawn cheers from the cheap seats
On reflection tho, hearing her fishing for praise for her performance to date smacks of a commander briefing her troops for a battle she knows we are about to loose. “Remember me lads! I did my best; honest!” Trying to score political points at this early stage is somewhat worrying.
What does she know that we don’t, yet?
It’d pretty much be relief. This is an epidemic exponential growth curve where the infected rate is expected to double every 2-3 days. That means if it was 4000 now, then we could expect it to be somewhere over 16,000 at the end of next week and somewhere over 64,000 the week after.
Getting the rate down to 1000 after a week and half in lockdown means that the bet that the executive council made in requesting a state of emergency and a epidemic order, plus the steps being taken are actually working. Provided some idiots like those I have fun disparaging here don’t affect progress, we’re more likely to control the epidemic over coming months than we are to lose control.
You really don’t have to work up a dumb conspiracy theory. Simple relief is sufficient. Now maybe she’ll eat better and get some damn sleep with a reduce stress level.
I think she was praising us, all of us, the nation, for our collective performance under testing circumstances.
Great story Andrew, and I'm sure you are a great man and father, but you should be back with your family in the Phillipines as far as as I can see.
Sorry, but why the hell is the wage subsidy going to migrant workers who then send it off-shore?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12322066
With a grain but it sure looks like the Generals are getting antsy.
Jair Bolsonaro’s irresponsibility in the face of the SARS-CoV-2 virus crisis may have irritated the Armed Forces into choosing Chief Minister of the Civil House, Walter Braga Netto, as the new operational president of Brazil, it was reported today.
Brasil 247 portal quoted Argentine investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky, saying that a high-ranking officer in the Brazilian Army told a peer from Argentina in a telephone conversation, that Bolsonaro is not heard by authorities when making decisions.
‘The Brazilian party reported they had made the decision to ignore President Bolsonaro in all important decisions,’ said the communicator on the program. ‘There will be consequences’, says the quote by Radio El Destape.
Verbitsky stated that Bolsonaro acts as ‘a monarch without effective power’ and that General Walter Braga Netto of the Civil House is now in charge of the country.
Military website defesanet.com.br, considered the most important news page in the areas of defense, strategy, intelligence and security in Latin America, also confirmed that Braga Neto will be in charge of directing and centralizing all government administration, at least while the crisis lasts due to the Covid-19.
https://www.plenglish.com/index.php?o=rn&id=54219&SEO=brazilian-media-reports-armed-forces-may-have-named-new-president