Mangatangi South of Auckland, Fonterra is planning a huge new open cast coal mine.
While the current Green Party leadership prepare to make their peace with climate change. Ex-Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons is actively campaigning against it.
Fitzsimons has linked up with locals opposed to the mine, who are calling a public meeting for Thursday night, March 7, at the Mangatawhiri hall, off state highway 2, (next to the famous Ice Cream Castle).
The crux of the argument is that coal adds to anthropomorphic climate change when more sustainable fuels could be used.
Fonterra’s coalmining company Glencoal has applied for resource consents to develop an opencast coalmine on 30ha of farmland between Mangatawhiri Rd and the new State Highway 2 at Maramarua….
….Glencoal has Government permits to mine the new property which, like K3, is expected to yield around 120,000 tonnes of coal a year.
Sacrificing Principle for Power; The Green Party and Climate Change
Despite the urgent and pressing need, the Green Party are selling out over climate change.
The first I heard of the Greens back-peddling on Climate Change was at the last elections.
People who I know, close to the Green Party, and whose views I trust, informed me that the Green Candidates had been advised, not to mention climate change during their election campaigns by the leadership of their party. The reason given for this directive, was rot them not to appear too radical to the voting public.
I have since confirmed this direction for self censorship, talking with leading members of the Greens who told me, “We didn’t want to scare the horses”.
The final proof, of course was the election itself. Which was marked by a lack of public debate on this issue by all parties.
In 2011, in ignoring climate change, the Green Party, Labour Party and the Natonal Party candidates, behaved very similarly to the 2012 US presidential candidates, neither side wanted to discuss climate change, or what to do about it.
In the US presidential elections, even an unprecedented Superstorm which interrupted their campaigning could not get Obama or Romney to discuss climate change.
It looks likely that the Green Party policy of keeping silent on Climate Change is to continue into the next election.
Climate change was not an election issue in 2011,
Despite the dangerous urgency.
Despite the appalling record of the current government on climate change.
It looks likely that climate change will not be an election issue in 2014.
If the Green Party do not take this issue up, it looks likely that it will not be raised by any other party either.
The other political parties: Labour and National will not want to raise this issue either, in case they offend their powerful oil and coal industry donors.
The proof that the Green Party are continuing their silence over climate change comes from their official website.
The following is the link to the official Green Party website which sets out all their “Priorities and “Issues”;
You will immediately notice that for an environmental party, there is no mention of climate change on the Green Party home page. ( It has been this way for months, despite Superstorm Sandy, Superstorm Bopha, and the record breaking Australian heatwave). And the current unprecedented drought being experienced in Northland.
I find this extremely odd, as climate change has been described as the biggest environmental issue of all time.
To find any mention of climate change on the official Green Party website you have to really look for it.
At the top of the Green Party home page: “For The Future” campaign. Clicking on this link to takes you to a page in which there is no mention of climate change.
There are no other obvious mentions of climate change on the Green Party official home page.
To find mention of climate change click on the “Issues” tab at the top of the Green Party home page.
Clicking on this link shows all the “Other issues” that are not Green Party “Priorities” or even Green Party “Other priorities”
“Other issues” are set out in alphabetical order, presumably signifying that not one, is of any more significance than the others.
These other “Other issues” are:
“Economy”
“Environmental and resources”
“Fairness and society”
“Health and food”
“International relations”
“Politics and law”
Under the second heading in the list under the heading “Environmental and resources”. First up, is climate change.
However this is misleading, as climate change is only first up, because this list is also set out alphabetically. The only signifcance that climate change has, to the 59 other Green Party “Other issues” is that it starts with the letter ‘C’.
Despite Naomi Klein’s warning to the left and the environmental movement that climate change has the power to undo all our current campaigns and past victories, the New Zealand Green Party have decided to bury this issue as deep as they can get away with.
Q: Mr Shearer, do you know your arse from your elbow?
A: Well, ah… yes,… I wouldn’t be too rash… I mean yes, I have a rash that itches, no, er, I mean I have to, I have an arse, and I have an elbow… two elbows… or one elbow and two arses… though I suppose you mean any elbow…I’m well,… I mean really arses and elbows are… you know, part of the same body, and I don’t think, ah, that it’s quite reasonable to you know, talk about them as if they were different things… I mean even if I do have an arse in the middle of each arm and I sit on my elbow, they’re all part of me… I mean you have arses and an elbow too… and spleens. I breathe with my pancreas. Er… I mean we have to consider glands as well, I’m not sure if you can pile glands up, like dominoes. I mean lego. I know glands are not lego, well I’m not sure glands are not dominoes or lego, but I mean if you had a stack of salivary glands and elbows, you couldn’t , er, make a model house out of them like you can with lego, or dominoes… er, what was the.. oh dear, where’s my bit of paper?
A bit more seriously, this is just incredible. My flabber is utterly ghasted. Shearer got up and beat his breast about asset sales and now can’t even say why he did that, and is desperately distancing himself from any commitment to hanging on to them. It’s a betrayal, moreover it’s a public betrayal, criminally undermining confidence in his party.
How on earth can anyone have confidence in this drongo?
I just hope there’s more of it and that no PR fix-it brigade comes in and masks his incompetence just enough to hold off his ousting so we’re left with the un-fixable buffoon that he is. Keep going, David, may you reach rock bottom. It’s the only hope we’ve got.
Their audio page (where all their broadcast audio is archived in 15 minute blocks) is here: http://radiolive.co.nz/audio.aspx but it doesn’t seem to be working at the moment.
I think Whaleoil has a very short edit of part of the interview on his site.
As you haven’t pointed to anything I’ve written that indicates a “feminist science” (whatever that is) or “feminist ideology” then I’ll accept your apology as soon as it’s offered.
Sure. Can’t say I’ve know that many manhaters though, so I guess you have a very rare condition. Unless you mean aversion to women, in which case we have several useful words already.
A ‘pro gay crusader’ may or may not be a ‘moral relativist’, but if they are they won’t be the type of relativist who ‘can’t make normative statements’.
The dead man was uncared for scum but the mega rich Queenie gets a bug and everyone’s bowing and scraping, sort of society the market’s shoeshine boy Key wants here. 🙁
Benefit advocates help the government deliver it’s welfare service properly by cleaning up the mess left by overworked (or let’s face it…just bitchy) case managers. They ensure mental health consumers continue to receive welfare. They SAVE the government money by negotiating with Work and Income and preventing review of decisions (costly and time consuming for the ministry).
This service needs help or it closes in three weeks: http://bais.org.nz/ (website has been hacked so donate page missing !) Might take a phone call or two.
BAIS is registered as a charity with the NZ Charities Commission: CC10594 so please give these guys a hand.
IMHO the government should fully fund these. It’s a tough funding environment out there but we can change it by voting with out donations and claiming it via tax back.
To hear the minister crow about the drips and dribbles of funding benefit rights services are funded on makes me sick. They only stay in existence because the volunteers know what is at stake – everyday people going without in a country with a SOCIAL CONTRACT to support them at their most vulnerable.
Yea, does need a voice. Might be better if someone with experience of dealing with BAIS writes it. I’ve only sent them an email once and deal with the Benefit Rights Service (BRS) in Wellington central.
An interesting item on msm reporters who are compromised by conflicts of interest in their undisclosed family and friendship connections with politicians.
Note to Bomber –Proofreading – crowd source if necessary. I was also shocked at the recently published edition of ‘Werewolf’ which was so shot through with every kind of error that I wondered if they had accidentally published an earlier unedited version. I’m vehemently opposed to policing this kind of thing in the conversation amongst commenters, but in the format of a magazine or a newspaper, too many typos, spelling, punctuation etc. mistakes jar and detract from credibility, yet they can be corrected without changing the writer’s actual words, one jot.
To me, if you can’t be bothered using good grammar and good spelling to express your ideas, have you actually thought through and value what you are trying to say? And have you even bothered to check the facts that you are using?
Actually, I don’t think those things necessarily go together, CV. I have often noticed spelling errors in Bomber’s Tumeke posts. Maybe he needs to get someone else to do the proofreading – spelling and written grammar may not be his strong point.
Let us make clear that this is no victory for the left. M5S is an extremely ambiguous phenomenon. As Giuliano Santoro points out, Grillo and the co-founder of his movement, marketer Gianroberto Casaleggio, are both millionaires with a proprietorial conception of their organisation.
M5S’s constitution, written by Grillo and Casaleggio, states: ‘The name of the Five Star Movement is attached to a trademark registered under the name of Beppe Grillo, the sole holder of rights on its use.’ These rights have been consistently used to expel anyone who has tried to make the movement more autonomous from Grillo’s personal style of leadership.
In fact for the past three years I’ve been sure that Labour would get it right in the next six months. It is teh one ting the Party is consistant about.
A pity the voters don’t see it that way.
(the sound you hear is a mixture of hysterical laughter and tearful sobs)
Assuming a November 2014 election, E-day is only 18 months away. Unless of course you are talking about the normally scheduled February Leadership vote which occurs after each election…which would be exactly 21 months away…
Exactly what the hollowmen wanted, the thought of DC up against Slippery made them go all out helping the mallarfia ensure that’s now not going to happen.
well meaning dithering inexperienced bloke up against well trained sharky dishonest money trader, shall we lay bets now.
Q: Who would you rather have as Prime Minister in 2014: David Cunliffe or John Key?
Robertson, King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al: David Shearer – and he will be!
Q: My question was whether you would prefer David Cunliffe or John Key.
Robertson, King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al: Napoleon!
Q (rolls eyes): I repeat my question.
Robertson, King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al: Richard the Lionheart, Qin Shi Huang, Augustus, Ramesses II!
Q (facepalm): I don’t mean DEAD historical figures, my question was-
Robertson, King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al: Gandalf!
Q (tearing hair): – nor do I mean fictitious characters.
Robertson, King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al (after a brief pause): Historical inevitability!
Q:What?
King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al (now they roll their eyes): You don’t understand how democracy works do you? Let us put it clearly: Whenever National comes to power due to the foolishness of the people and David Cunliffe, they are punished by that government which then – being aware of historical inevitability, politely cedes power to us in the next term after we have released a sufficient number of press releases. We really don’t see what all the fuss is about.
Q (staring blankly and speaking in a halting monotone); Um. Yes. Well then… Um. My question remains: Who. Would. You. Prefer. To. Be. Prime. Minister. In. 2014: John. Key. Or. David… Cunliffe?
King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al: JOHN KEY!
Jesus Christ Shearer’s fucking hopeless. He hasn’t got a clue at all. At the rate he’s going Key could shoot someone on Queen street, at lunchtime and still be re-elected.
Hey Muzza. Yep, watched that doco last year. Ha! It never ends. Am in the thick of dealing with regional council in regard to an aerial agri chemical spraying co for three breaches of the regulations right at the moment. Don’t want to say too much about that case. Just to add that we have a poor history of health and safety and lax regulation when to comes to using and abusing agri chemicals in NZ.
“The poisoning of New Zealand” by Meriel Watts (published in 1994) gives some background to that history. There may or may not have been regulatory changes within the years since that book was published but the challenge of holding the likes of monsanto, dowagro, nufarm etc to account remains the same. Bloody tough.
All the best with that, and thanks for the book tip.
NZ genuinely has a disgraceful history, on many counts. Yeah there are good people throughout the country, but the sad state of the nation, is now a reflection on all people, including the good ones.
So sorry to hear about your Dad RT @ 9.1.2.
I wonder how many of the generations before us (and indeed those who are still with us) suffered ill health that wasn’t diagnosed correctly and/or early death due to the effect of unsafe practices when working with agricultural or industrial chemicals.
A relative of mine was one of those victims of a certain notorious timber mill in the Eastern B.O.P. He lived with a chronic work related respiratory illness which eventually took him.
Still, despite all efforts the “She’ll be right” attitude is still prevelant within our culture. The examples are around us all the time.
The census – all that effort and the useful and important things that weren’t init!! For instance I do a lot of volunteer work which wasn’t mentioned in this census. All retired people should be barracking for volunteer work to be counted as work and a contribution to society. There has to be action by older people against the 70 age limit to the old age pension, which is what it is in NZ.
I see being expected to contribute to society in some meaningful way fro the whole of one’s life, but especially when society pays you a pension, as being a reasonable and rational and practical thing which mitigates against the idea of us being self-centred elderly royalty, which many now are at the top end . If we thinking older people don’t get together and present a defence to current thinking and upward age limits most older lives are going to be times of worry and sometimes misery under the Labour push. This is a very TINA mentality – just a repeat of the thinking, or lack of it, in 1984.
It irks me to see on the form a space for working on the family business for no pay (and also I believe that ‘work’ is counted from the first completed hour). I spend probably about 20 hours a week as a volunteer, which is invisible. Marilyn Waring’s book Counting for Nothing findings still apply.
No wonder we can’t get ahead in this country – we have good thinkers here but we have pathetic little burkes that talk their way into a profession or money and then bureaucracy or parliament who never realise the breadth of what they don’t know that they don’t know. There should always be pilot schemes testing different ways of managing the country which are formulated from a wide number of ideas and input, and then evaluated against set criteria.
Listening to Peter Dunne this morning on child support liability and exponential imposts of penalties impressed me on the narrow understanding of the world many of these twerps have.
He talked about partners having a vendetta against each other as the main reason for not paying. A lot of the time it’s just that they can’t afford to support two households, or they don’t want to, or else they are alcoholics and can’t afford the happy-go-lucky habit and free spending trend that goes with trying to be happy all the time.
What government doesn’t understand is that often the family is better off without such a role model and the further away with infrequent contact with the other parent, the better for the child’s moral development and the stability and happiness of the family..
Indeed volunteer work is very important to society and the economy:
prism: The census – all that effort and the useful and important things that weren’t init!! For instance I do a lot of volunteer work which wasn’t mentioned in this census.
question 45:
Mark as many spaces as you need to answer this question. In the last 4 weeks, which of these have you done, without pay?
Answer otions include, housework, gardeneing etc; caring for others plus:
other help or voluntary work for or through any organisation, group or marae
Other questions include options for unpaid work within family business or farm.
Thanks karol
It is in my mind though that volunteer work for the community has been listed separately in a previous census. Unpaid work within family business or farm is merely working for your own interests, your household or wider family – not the same thing. I think it isn’t sufficient to just have community or volunteer work touched on so generally. There isn’t a question of how many hours, just whether done ever in the last 4 weeks.
And working at housework gardening without pay is what people do for each other in their own home. If it is supposed to mean – for other people outside your home it should say so. The census isn’t worded so as to find really useful statistics. For instance it would be interesting to ask – how many women are home nearly all the time caring for children or other family members – on maternity leave for a year, or working for pay part-time under 15 hours, working for more than 30 hours with children in child care? How many men? How many grandparents are caring for grandchildren regularly? How many hours per week.
There are things we ought to know if we were a functioning vital people-embracing country. But sadly we embrace businesses that can boost our politicians and entertain us, we would rather have a matinee idol cracking jokes and finishing every sentence with a confident ‘No worries mate, it’ll work out fine” than a thinking, caring pragmatic person who has buckteeth and a hunchback.
prism, yes there could be more specific questions about hours, etc. However, qu 46 does ask about housework, gardening, etc, within your household, and separately asks about caring for a child, with your household, and not in your household, plus separate questions about caring for someone with illness or disability within your household and not in your household.
There is a separate question elsewhere asking if you are on the DPB, and of course, separate questions about paid and unpaid hours worked.
There also needs to be a balance between the number of questions asked, and the amount of meaningful information sought.
You mention in the first paragraph that
“There has to be action by older people against the 70 age limit to the old age pension”
I don’t understand what you are talking about. Can you please clarify what this is?
alwyn I’ve read your posts before and you often don’t understand. Seems you have a lot of thinking and learning to do. So by all means keep asking and someone will help. I usually can get info and different points of view here.
You have heard surely alwyn that Labour is talking about raising the age limit for receiving superannuation (old age pension under a fancy name) to 70 years, probably over a period of years? I have been thinking of the unpleasant results to the people affected and have decided I am against it.
Google says on the meaning of the word superannuation
1 Regular payment made into a fund by an employee toward a future pension.
2 A pension of this type paid to a retired person.
As NZ pays out of current taxation the income support for retired people, this is not superannuation. But everyone likes that word better than old age pension which is not a cool term especially to the wealthy.
The reason for paying all old people from current taxation, to add to your putea of knowledge, is that it is hard to build and maintain solid funds going forward! that match inflation when conservatively invested. And before we tackled inflation which at one time was rampant, it was impossible. Now the Super Fund is trying to build up a fund to limit the shock when an extra lot of baby boomers come to The Age. Company pension funds also are difficult to maintain because they are notoriously tempting to dip in to by those high up in the company having risky investments going belly-up or yacht and mansion house maintenance problems.
Thank you for replying, at least.
However just how I was expected to connect the statement you made to Labour’s last election policy is rather a stretch.
Your statement, and I quote it in full, was “There has to be action by older people against the 70 age limit to the old age pension which is what it is in New Zealand.”
For your information “what it is in New Zealand” at the moment is 65, not 70.
What labour proposed was that it be raised to67, not 70 and that the age of 67 would not be reached until 2033. How that becomes 70 now, which you appear to believe, is rather unclear.
As to the rest of the response you made, my only addition would be to suggest that it is just as hard for the state to maintain a fund as it is for a company. If you don’t understand that have a look at the tribulations of the various state and city super schemes in the USA, many of which are insolvent.
I don’t trust ANY politician with access to funds such as the Cullen fund, which is in theory supposed to pre-fund superannuation. One has only to read material on the Green party blog, or web-site, to see all the hare-brained ideas for spending the fund. Alternatively just read the material on this blog for how to spend the money on non-productive assets.
Incidentally you can’t really pre-fund superannuation for anybody. Any consumption by a non-working person must be from production by a currently working one. Imagine if every single person was retired. Just where would the goods they wish to consume come from?
alwyn I said that the old age pension is what we have in NZ. And I made the point that it is not actually superannuation. And the 67 year limit has often been stated to be just a step on the way to 70 years.
And you appear to be in a bog not a blog as you don’t like government funded pensions and you are vague about the value and sustainability of company and government funds alike. Oh dear, we are up the creek without a paddle in this case.
Last comment on this (at least by me).
Of course it is an old age pension. However evryone calls it National Superannuation so why shouldn’t we?
OK, no doubt there are people who say we should move to 67 or 70 or whatever.
You however said it was 70 NOW, not some vague option for the future. Perhaps you are like a Maths Prof I used to have who said that “one is just a first approximation to infinity”
I do like Government pensions. In fact I regard them as an essential thing to ensure that the elderly have an income in retirement. People can try and invest to help with their retirement but I think a basic state supplied old age pension is the only way to keep a significant portion of the elderly from penury.
I am not “vague” about the value and sustainability of pensions at all. I know that there will be a proportion of investments that become worthless and that some company schemes in particular that will fail, for any of a number of reasons. They don’t all happen because of people like Robert Maxwell. Some are just bad luck.
I don’t think that trying to build up massive funds, under Government control will work in the long run. I do not trust politicians to leave them along. They want to interfere in the investment decisions to fulfill their own little dreams. Look at the people on this blog who want to say where the Cullen fund should put its money. Everyone thinks that hey know best. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?
My final comment about it being logically impossible to pre-fund pensions for all, without affecting those who are working when the pension is paid, is of course true. It is merely an example of something that is true for an individual is not necessarily true for society as a whole.
I don’t think that trying to build up massive funds, under Government control will work in the long run. I do not trust politicians to leave them along. They want to interfere in the investment decisions to fulfill their own little dreams. Look at the people on this blog who want to say where the Cullen fund should put its money. Everyone thinks that hey know best. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?
Shit dude, so you trust bankers, finance companies and Wall St to look after your investment funds instead?
The NZ Government is 100x more solid than any of those agents buddy.
Oh dear, I said I had finished commenting on this subject but I can’t resist.
No I don’t “trust” them at all.
I think that Cullen set up the fund for the wrong reasons, which is a separate matter, but at least he did his best to keep the investments out of the hands of his fellow politicians. They always say that a poacher makes the best gamekeeper.
That is the structure of the “Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation” (or whatever they are called) who pick the people who will invest the assets. They are supposed to be independent of the politicians. Unfortunately the bigger the pot gets the more temptation there is for the Poly’s to interfere. Even John Key got in at one point when he suggested that a certain percentage should be invested within New Zealand. Luckily he seems to have thought better of that. The Green party are probably the most interested in choosing the investments of course. Certainly they are worse than Labour.
In terms of having bankers, finance companies etc looking after my investment funds, no I don’t trust them. This is one of the flaws in Kiwisaver where you are required to have your Kiwisaver investments with one of these organisations. That is where the Australian superannuation system is better. People are allowed to manage them themselves. Not that great a percentage do but you CAN do so. Why can’t we have that here?
In terms of the Government part of Superannuation, or the universal old age pension, I don’t think we need a fund at all. Pay it out of current taxation, however that is raised. As I said, wherever it is being paid from it is being provided by those who are working at the time it is spent.
alwyn
I didn’t say it was 70 NOW. I did manage to incorporate two things in the one sentence in an unclear manner. So sorry. I’ll keep sentences shorter from now on.
There should always be pilot schemes testing different ways of managing the country which are formulated from a wide number of ideas and input, and then evaluated against set criteria.
That’s what universities are for and these pilot programs could then be tested at the local government level and filter up. Unfortunately, our central government tends to think it knows best especially when under control of the National Party.
What government doesn’t understand is that often the family is better off without such a role model and the further away with infrequent contact with the other parent, the better for the child’s moral development and the stability and happiness of the family.
And that comes back to that false right-wing ideology that the family is more important in a child’s life than anything else even when it is dysfunctional.
DTB
True about universities, but this bunch once they started to read, went straight on to textbooks that gave improving stories about how to make money. They went to university to do business courses or ones that fitted their conservative brains and just reinforced all their prejudices while there. And probably met their future partner there and parented more self-centred little know-alls.
And that’s what is important in a child’s life for them to achieve a comfortable lifestyle. And the rest can go scrabble for what they can get and be punished for not being wealthy.
Interesting how the National Party goes in for Central Planning. I thought they considered that was a Communist disaster – the Five, Ten Year Plan etc. And the Great Leap Forward.
We did have a Great Leap in 1984 of course followed by strides in other years and have now sunk to incrementally and sneakily removing screws from the body politic and NZ Inc and soon the muffler may fall off, or the crankshaft will be flat (quoting Toad from Wind in the Willows).
It does pay to view the whole enterprise of NZ under the mendacious politicians as a sweeping filmic epic and then you’re so busy waiting for the next fascinating instalment that you don’t realise that you’re the featured actor and it’s your house that is in flames.
personally (in case you were wondering)
-Mon, community meal
-Tues, foodbank
-Wed, counsel
-Thurs, counsel
-Everyday, grow veges to distribute around the “cul-de-sac”
You’re a real trooper Rogue. Do you counsel others, or go to counselling yourself on Wed and Thurs?
Growing veges everyday sounds interesting. Have you followed the city gardens movement I think mainly in parts of the USA?
Rogue Trooper (from AD2000) had his unit violently betrayed by the very top. He then spent years on foot, trudging and fighting through the chemical wastelands of Nu-Earth, to find those responsible for the massacre of the people he cared about. Awesome.
I don’t see why they need names and addresses. I don’t recall providing that information previously, though of course it has been seven years since the last one and I may be wrong. I would have thought they would only be interested in the numbers in the various categories, not the identities of the persons concerned.
Apparently she operated some cult like think tank / educational outfit in NY.
Can see why the free market zealots are in love with her.
[lprent: Your comment pattern this morning looks like a troll. You seem to be haranguing people trying to start a flame war. If you want to discuss something then write something substantive about what your topic for others to disagree with. Don’t just harass with assertions that you provide no backing for. I can, if you’d prefer, demonstrate on you why that tactic isn’t a good idea for “debate”. Your choice really.. ]
Same system – re-edit. There is hopefully a chorus tech coming in to look at my network link on behalf of Orcon support (who have spent the last week getting upset after I told them that I wasn’t happy about factory resetting my Genius). At present the link is reconnecting every 15 minutes or so.
I’m looking for a new network supplier. Anyone got bad things to say about Actrix?
I can only get ADSL+ at present. The UFB in Grey Lynn doesn’t appear to go into apartment blocks.
I just have to stop being social and going to weddings and the like to get some more time. I really need some time off..
At present the link is reconnecting every 15 minutes or so.
I had that. Lasted for about a week. Orcon finally decided that I was right and that a tech needed to be sent out (it really is irritating trying to explain to the helpdesk staff that I actually know more about the network, fault finding and the processors than they do). On the day the tech was came my internet went down for about two hours and then came back up rock solid but at only 5mbps. For it to be down that long I figured that they must have been doing some work on the cabinet or possibly the exchange (not bloody likely) but the tech didn’t know if anybody was working on the cabinet – he wasn’t – but he turned up a couple of hours after my internet came back up. He replaced a couple of connectors in the DP and I got 17mbps back.
I’m looking for a new network supplier. Anyone got bad things to say about Actrix?
The problem is that you’re not dealing directly with Telecom. When an ISP sends a Telecom tech out and there’s nothing found to be wrong with Telecoms network they get charged a huge amount and so the ISP will work very hard not to send out a tech. It results in poor service.
Yeah it is a problem. But supposedly Chorus isn’t part of Telecom any more….
The reason I moved from Telecom many years ago was because their plans sucked* (and I see they still do), but most importantly because it always took a bloody long time to get through to anyone who knew what my problem was – usually routing or network connection.
I know. It’s insane. In most circumstances if your boss doesn’t think you’re doing the job right, or if you don’t think the boss is doing the job right, you end up when you leave with a couple of weeks pay. Can’t understand why the hell you get a fortune to leave at the top end of the business in the same situation.
So. According to leighton smith it is really good that teachers are out protesting as it is preferable to them being in the classroom “spreading misinformation” According to the information I heard the teachers were doing it BEFORE school so as not to disrupt their classes.I get really annoyed with these radio has- beens who do not even take the time to get their facts right. Was in my daughter’s car so took a while to find the knob to turn the KNOB off.
You know what? …. WOT! said fred.
I look at all the various categories of posts on here: ‘Throw another Mill on the Barbie’; The constitutional ….etcetera; Asset sales et al.
WHERE THE FUCK IS LABOUR?
missing in action, and quite probably having a lay down (gathering their strength of course for some pathetic assault in future).
A Main Stream Media of a right-wing bent, a piece of journalistic couch material disguising herself amongst the various fabrics that create one-off wearable wardrobes – hell bent on a bit of rough-trade.
FFS there’s a cliff that saw herself amongst an era long gone (bring up the African drums).
You probably don’t get it atm. QUITE OBVIOUSLY neither does Trev, but prepare yourselves for the aftermath.
I hadn’t been aware that Trev n Jane as an item were public knowledge (as I’ve seem elsewhere)., but their positions as representaives – FIRSTLY as politicians, and secondly as representatives of a supposed 4TH ESTATE, pretty much says it all.
No no no, these are also the people I expect to be the folk that squeel like pigs in the not-to-distant
Just making sure. I seem to recall that last time Hopefully that goes to “reshuffle for unity” – on my form so far today it’ll probably go to an obscure statsNZ paper on ethnicity and the census) we ended up talking at cross purposes past each other because you thought my comments about recurring themes in comments here were comments about specific quotes you make.
If we’re not talking specifically about you, chapter and verse, then a lot of the time here I think that people are letting their disappointment that Cunliffe isn’t leader affect their assessment of what labour and Shearer are doing or saying. Just because a tory MSM aren’t picking up doesn’t mean that Labour are doing nothing.
“a lot of the time here I think that people are letting their disappointment that Cunliffe isn’t leader affect their assessment of what labour and Shearer are doing or saying.”
Meh, maybe so. It’d be a lot more convincing if the general public as polled and surveyed didn’t generally agree though, wouldn’t it?
Unless the polls and surveys are also heavily weighted toward embittered Cunliffe supporters of course, but I don’t think that’s any more likely than people on this forum saying they don’t think Shearer and Labour are much good for any other reason than, well, that they don’t think they’re much good.
“Just because a tory MSM aren’t picking up doesn’t mean that Labour are doing nothing”
Lolz. The tory msm have been Shearer’s biggest cheerleaders all along.
Really? The polls show us that Labour are shit at getting media coverage?What do the polls show us, really? The Labour needs to be more like National? Oh dear, in that case Shearer is indeed doing a shit job. Or maybe Labour need to be a counterpoint to National? In that case, Shearer and labour are shit the other way. Or maybe that it’s not all about whatever Labour does, but other shit counts too? Like National’s strategy of isolating key from competence and responsibility, or the fact that a lot of traditionally “left” people love to shit on Labour and Shearer, both the MSM commentariat and “left wing bloggers”?
Polls tell us what is, not why. They tell us, for example, that things are improving for labour, if sluggishly.
I’ve no idea if the MSM are picking up Labour inputs or not. Tim reckoned they were “missing in action”. I actually watched the late news tonight, saw hipkins and shearers on the longstone thing. And shearer on the mighty river thing. No idea what tim was talking about.
But whatever, between 2pm and 1030pm the MSM suddenly started interviewing the labour front bench to support Shearer from Tim’s scathing attack, or I suggest that Tim’s own perception bias is at fault.
It’s almost like people are too lazy to add Labour and Greens and Mana, and draw a shallow line between now and mid-2014.
Labour are necessary but not sufficient for a left wing government, regardless of their specific poll result. Their internal politics are largely irrelevant, bar shit overflowing and poisoning the public sphere (e.g. a repeat of the chris carter bs).
Nothing is assured, but I don’t see any reason for overly aggressive capitalisation of comments, bizarre analogies of death or hardship, or allegations that Labour are absent, sleepwalking or phoning it in.
Labour is a centrist market oriented party focussed on the votes of median and upper income households. Labour may be part of a left wing government, but since it’s instincts are centrist and market driven, that government will not be left wing because of it.
or allegations that Labour are absent, sleepwalking or phoning it in.
So you don’t think that those allegations hold water?
Feel free to keep setting the bar so fucking low that even a Chihuahua running by is gonna get a concussion.
Labour will not be the entirety of the next government, even if it might be Labour-led. Assuming that a labour-led governent will be the same as a labour 50%+ sole government is not realistic.
Labour aren’t absent. They are issuing releases, being interviewed in the press, and getting out and about.
Labour aren’t sleepwalking or phoning it in: those imply that Labour don’t really want to be in government.
They are plodding, lack fire and need a bit of an imagination transplant. They have some MPs that are a bit weak and lack experience, from what I see. They have a risk-averse media strategy and have too small a team looking for deficiencies or innovation in new policies – in fact I might go so far as to say there is little or no contingency anticipation at the tactical policy level, and possibly too much policy conservatism at the strategy level. And most of them, including Shearer, need to have like a daily spitballing session where they look at their interviews and think of how they could have done better, or what they would have said in their colleague’s place.
But the thing is, I don’t get worked up about those shortcomings that I see. Because left ain’t labour, labour ain’t the left, and the smaller parties will provide the guts that labour currently lack.
Really? The polls show us that Labour are shit at getting media coverage?What do the polls show us, really? The Labour needs to be more like National? Oh dear, in that case Shearer is indeed doing a shit job. Or maybe Labour need to be a counterpoint to National? In that case, Shearer and labour are shit the other way. Or maybe that it’s not all about whatever Labour does, but other shit counts too? Like National’s strategy of isolating key from competence and responsibility, or the fact that a lot of traditionally “left” people love to shit on Labour and Shearer, both the MSM commentariat and “left wing bloggers”?
lolwut? Was that directed to me? ‘Cos all I said was that people don’t seem to think much of Shearer and Labour at the mo.
Actually fv, you also speculated as to why the polls might begiving the results that you appealed to.
In case you hadn’t noticed, we had been talking about why people weren’t into labour. I think the general population has slightly different reasons for their poll results than e.g. shearer didn’t promise to renationalise telecom today, he must be a neoliberal, cunliffe would have done it by now
So the senior lawyer in Labour’s ranks, the Christchurch MP that has worked tirelessly for the area gets told that she has to go for the sake of “renewal”.
She did nothing wrong.
The decision to demote her was utu for not kissing Shearer’s arse.
I just think comparing the back benches at however many hundred $k p.a. with a multi-week train ride to a barren wasteland, starvation diet, overwork, and subzero temperatures is a bit, well, …, a bit shit, really.
One of Labour’s most experienced MPs, who has been doing a great job advocating for her constituents in a destroyed city, gets rewarded by being shoved down the rankings.
If that’s not political Siberia I don’t know what it is.
(Hey you didn’t think I was meaning actual geographical Siberia, did you? btw I know people from there and they think that it’s a fine place).
Oh noes, she’s got a different seat in the house and only a base MP salary! Fuck, that makes a comparison to the Gulag Archipelago totally reasonable!
I got that it was an analogy. I just think it was an analogy that was stupid, irrational, lacked perspective and actually sort of ilustrated my point that the major problems people here seem to have with Shearer and Labour probably come from the commenters’ own lack of rationality and perspective.
must be snowblind, being an oppressed mass in Siberia and all. Fuck, I must be, seeing as I’m on a fraction of her salary and can’t make speeches in the house.
Maybe the analogy you could have used was “sin binning” – off on the sidelines for a bit, but still able to get back into the game if you’re prepared to play reasonably.
Hey please explain on what grounds you think Shearer judged that Lianne Dalziel was not fulfilling her role as a Labour electorate MP “reasonably”.
How the fuck should I know? I’m not in caucus. I know it’s not because she chose sides against Shearer, because there wasn’t an alternative challenger for the leadership.
But her demotion sounds like, oh, a demotion to an important and well-paid position, not a train ride to Siberia.
I’m horrified by this case of torture in Fiji and I really want our government to bring more pressure to bear on the regime in those imprisoned islands.NZ eased sanctions in 2012. Clearly that was a mistake. Restore them and extend them.
But Fiji is WhaleSpew’s favourite democracy and we just don’t understand them. The terrorist in the video won’t think of stealing any more lightbulbs now, will he?
News Flash: Share Scalpers crash Mighty River Powers website!
That’s right those same greedy people ( Trevor Mallard refuse to comment on speculation that he is interested) that buy concert tickets to on sell for huge profits are at it again this time looking to wound us with the buy up of ‘our’ power assets shares!
Senior tax practitioners are in shock after the Inland Revenue Department won another key tax avoidance case in the Court of Appeal, with implications for at least 16 companies and some $300 million of back tax, interest and penalties at stake.
Look forward to seeing the managers fired from the firms for fraudulent behaviour, no Golden handshakes, their kids put into cyf care, assets taken off them, partners getting prosecuted for benefitting from the ill gotten salary and bonus payments and both going to jail.
Another party political broadcast from Corin Dann on behalf of his preferred party, even this time concluding the float was so popular the ‘opposition parties’ are now irrelevant. This from the political editor of the public television broadcaster. The Tory twat should be sacked, or come clean and go work for Key openly. Mind, that would require integrity.
Not surprising, TDB is even more anti Shearer than this place.
Blogs are fun but they exist at the fringes of politics, Labour & Shearer are trying to position themselves more at the centre, and every policy is negotiable until a real election campaign begins.
Shearer is trying very hard to look like a reasonable dude to the average kiwi, rather than a freaky left wing zealot who calls the PM a liar.
(public perception is what wins elections, not badly presented ‘facts’)
He’s got to radically sharpen up his tv and radio presence then. He comes across like an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he gets asked questions beyond his limited script. It’s killing whatever messages he’s trying to get across.
You are right. Up to a point Ropata, many Kiwi’s are busy with their lives and not into the minutiae like many of us on-line weirdos.
That point though is when he has a few stuff-ups on the 6.00 news and in heavily watched elections TV debates. Then most kiwis will respond negatively.
Many on these pages are experienced participants and/or observers of politicians and politics.
They had doubts about many aspects of Shearer from early on:
Shearer was given the benefit of the doubt for a long enough period;
then Shearer confirmed those doubts;
then Shearer even managed to smash the “nice guy” image;
and Shearer extends and confirms the doubts most of the times he speaks.
and every policy is negotiable until a real election campaign begins.
Seriously?
And Shearer is some kind of professional, trained in the war zone, hostile environment negotiator in-extremis?
Is there some special style of negotiation I’m not aware of where you fold all your cards before the first round has even finished being dealt, and where you give away all your chips before betting starts???
what is there to negotiate? labour isn’t in government.
he can only make a bunch of promises or commitments that tend to come back later and bite you on the arse at an inconvenient time on an election campaign
And it’s not like Savage or Kirk won by making promises or commitments to Labour voters, is it?
This.
We need a party of the left willing to stand on principle, to make promises and then to keep them. The ones we have are too busy making deals – just like National.
CV
Give those Centrists some Kaitaia Chilli – get them moving. It should be come a ritual for every new left government to have crackers and chilli to underline their commitment to keep hot and keen for the people’s betterment.
And National’s convictions having power, I wouldn’t like to rely on that energy for when they have sold all the electricity assets and dug down to all the oil and gas. After that they we will find they haven’t have any power in reserve for us.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
Opinion: New Health NZ commissioner Lester Levy is authorised to assume operational leadership – chief executive Margie Apa is effectively relegated to his operational deputy The post All-powerful Levy is feudal baron of a $28b fiefdom appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Climate Change stops here!
Mangatangi South of Auckland, Fonterra is planning a huge new open cast coal mine.
While the current Green Party leadership prepare to make their peace with climate change. Ex-Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons is actively campaigning against it.
Fitzsimons has linked up with locals opposed to the mine, who are calling a public meeting for Thursday night, March 7, at the Mangatawhiri hall, off state highway 2, (next to the famous Ice Cream Castle).
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/8380942/Protesters-take-on-Fonterra-over-coal
prepare to make their peace with climate change
As always, [citation needed].
Enough citations for you QoT?
Sacrificing Principle for Power; The Green Party and Climate Change
Despite the urgent and pressing need, the Green Party are selling out over climate change.
The first I heard of the Greens back-peddling on Climate Change was at the last elections.
People who I know, close to the Green Party, and whose views I trust, informed me that the Green Candidates had been advised, not to mention climate change during their election campaigns by the leadership of their party. The reason given for this directive, was rot them not to appear too radical to the voting public.
I have since confirmed this direction for self censorship, talking with leading members of the Greens who told me, “We didn’t want to scare the horses”.
The final proof, of course was the election itself. Which was marked by a lack of public debate on this issue by all parties.
In 2011, in ignoring climate change, the Green Party, Labour Party and the Natonal Party candidates, behaved very similarly to the 2012 US presidential candidates, neither side wanted to discuss climate change, or what to do about it.
In the US presidential elections, even an unprecedented Superstorm which interrupted their campaigning could not get Obama or Romney to discuss climate change.
It looks likely that the Green Party policy of keeping silent on Climate Change is to continue into the next election.
Climate change was not an election issue in 2011,
Despite the dangerous urgency.
Despite the appalling record of the current government on climate change.
It looks likely that climate change will not be an election issue in 2014.
If the Green Party do not take this issue up, it looks likely that it will not be raised by any other party either.
The other political parties: Labour and National will not want to raise this issue either, in case they offend their powerful oil and coal industry donors.
The proof that the Green Party are continuing their silence over climate change comes from their official website.
The following is the link to the official Green Party website which sets out all their “Priorities and “Issues”;
http://www.greens.org.nz/
The link takes you to the Green Party home page.
You will immediately notice that for an environmental party, there is no mention of climate change on the Green Party home page. ( It has been this way for months, despite Superstorm Sandy, Superstorm Bopha, and the record breaking Australian heatwave). And the current unprecedented drought being experienced in Northland.
I find this extremely odd, as climate change has been described as the biggest environmental issue of all time.
To find any mention of climate change on the official Green Party website you have to really look for it.
At the top of the Green Party home page: “For The Future” campaign. Clicking on this link to takes you to a page in which there is no mention of climate change.
There are no other obvious mentions of climate change on the Green Party official home page.
To find mention of climate change click on the “Issues” tab at the top of the Green Party home page.
http://www.greens.org.nz/issues
This sets out the Green Party Priorities for 2011-2014
Which are:
100,000 kids out of poverty by 2014
http://www.greens.org.nz/endchildpoverty
Our plan to clean up New Zealand’s rivers and lakes
http://www.greens.org.nz/cleanrivers
Green jobs for New Zealanders
http://www.greens.org.nz/greenjobs
But no mention of climate change
Not once in any three of these admittedly worthy priorities, is combating the impending danger of climate change mentioned.
Below the Green Party 3 main “Priorities”. The Green Party say, “Other priorities that we are focussing on include”
“Keep Our Assets” http://www.greens.org.nz/koa
“Rebuilding Christchurch” http://www.greens.org.nz/visionchristchurch
“Conservation” http://www.greens.org.nz/conservation
“Transport” http://www.greens.org.nz/transport
“Equal pay” http://www.greens.org.nz/equalpay
“Fracking” http://www.greens.org.nz/fracking
“Gambling” http://www.greens.org.nz/gambling
Again very worthy issues, once again climate change is left out.
Below the list of Green Party “Other priorities that we are focussing on include”, is a heading;
“Other issues” http://www.greens.org.nz/campaigns/all
Clicking on this link shows all the “Other issues” that are not Green Party “Priorities” or even Green Party “Other priorities”
“Other issues” are set out in alphabetical order, presumably signifying that not one, is of any more significance than the others.
These other “Other issues” are:
“Economy”
“Environmental and resources”
“Fairness and society”
“Health and food”
“International relations”
“Politics and law”
Under the second heading in the list under the heading “Environmental and resources”. First up, is climate change.
However this is misleading, as climate change is only first up, because this list is also set out alphabetically. The only signifcance that climate change has, to the 59 other Green Party “Other issues” is that it starts with the letter ‘C’.
Despite Naomi Klein’s warning to the left and the environmental movement that climate change has the power to undo all our current campaigns and past victories, the New Zealand Green Party have decided to bury this issue as deep as they can get away with.
Sorry if I haven’t caught up but did anyone hear Shearer on Radio Live yesterday with Garner on asset sales?
Utterly awful.
Well. That was interesting!
consistently awful but what does that matter as long as the mallarfia is happy
That is something Shearer has going for him, at least he is consistent.
Dominion Breweries can have this for nothing: “David Shearer will get better. People should just give him a chance.”
Based on that performance, Shearer belongs in ACT.
Q: Mr Shearer, do you know your arse from your elbow?
A: Well, ah… yes,… I wouldn’t be too rash… I mean yes, I have a rash that itches, no, er, I mean I have to, I have an arse, and I have an elbow… two elbows… or one elbow and two arses… though I suppose you mean any elbow…I’m well,… I mean really arses and elbows are… you know, part of the same body, and I don’t think, ah, that it’s quite reasonable to you know, talk about them as if they were different things… I mean even if I do have an arse in the middle of each arm and I sit on my elbow, they’re all part of me… I mean you have arses and an elbow too… and spleens. I breathe with my pancreas. Er… I mean we have to consider glands as well, I’m not sure if you can pile glands up, like dominoes. I mean lego. I know glands are not lego, well I’m not sure glands are not dominoes or lego, but I mean if you had a stack of salivary glands and elbows, you couldn’t , er, make a model house out of them like you can with lego, or dominoes… er, what was the.. oh dear, where’s my bit of paper?
A bit more seriously, this is just incredible. My flabber is utterly ghasted. Shearer got up and beat his breast about asset sales and now can’t even say why he did that, and is desperately distancing himself from any commitment to hanging on to them. It’s a betrayal, moreover it’s a public betrayal, criminally undermining confidence in his party.
How on earth can anyone have confidence in this drongo?
I just hope there’s more of it and that no PR fix-it brigade comes in and masks his incompetence just enough to hold off his ousting so we’re left with the un-fixable buffoon that he is. Keep going, David, may you reach rock bottom. It’s the only hope we’ve got.
I missed it and find the site impossible to navigate around. Could someone be kind and post a link please?
http://soundcloud.com/whaleoil/david-shearer-um-asset-er-what
Here you are. There is a thread of sngry commentaty below at no 8
Their audio page (where all their broadcast audio is archived in 15 minute blocks) is here: http://radiolive.co.nz/audio.aspx but it doesn’t seem to be working at the moment.
I think Whaleoil has a very short edit of part of the interview on his site.
The beautiful Wairarapa; where religion meets bigotry.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/8380757/Church-uncomfortable-with-Moas-lifestyle
And it’s the Green Party who get quoted on this, not Labour.
That’s because there is no place for homophobic attitudes in the Green party.
They know where they stand.
It’s not a phobia.
Stop using rhetoric and propaganda, Ms felix. Of course that would mean you would have to dump the nonsense about Feminist “science” etc as well.
Please point to my comments about feminist science.
You are a feminist, no? But you haven’t jumped on the Feminist “science” bandwagon?
How about Feminist epistemology, know anything about it?
Please point to my comments about feminism.
OMG!!!! You’re not a feminist?
Please point to my comments about feminism.
What’s your point? You are a feminist no? It is that ideology that informs the opinions you post here, no?
As you haven’t pointed to anything I’ve written that indicates a “feminist science” (whatever that is) or “feminist ideology” then I’ll accept your apology as soon as it’s offered.
kp this is the worst tr0ll fail I’ve seen in some time.
Never mind k_p, when you get another ban you can always try your luck at TDB
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/03/05/this-is-no-country-for-women/
Damn you, CW.
It’s alright, I doubt he’ll get past the pre-moderation hurdle.
How about ‘sapphic paranoia’ then?
How about “aversion to manhaters” then?
Sure. Can’t say I’ve know that many manhaters though, so I guess you have a very rare condition. Unless you mean aversion to women, in which case we have several useful words already.
“Can’t say I’ve know [sic] that many manhaters though,”
There’s lots of manhaters around, perhaps your pro Feminist ideological blinkers stop you seeing them?
Are you a feminist or a moral relativist?
Ever consider the possibility that people hate you because of your own unique personal characteristics, rather than because you’re a man?
There might be a good chance of it, unless they say things like “we are uncomfortable with the fact you have a penis”.
“There’s lots of manhaters around”
That either says something about your personal life, or you need to provide a citation.
“There’s lots of manhaters around, perhaps your pro Feminist ideological blinkers stop you seeing them?”
Or maybe I just care more about humans than you do.
“Are you a feminist or a moral relativist?”
Both (non-academically). But not in ANY way that matches what goes on in your head about those things.
Ouch!
Stop pigeonholing people.
lolz
True, “religion”, but in this instance not Christianity.
Aren’t you and the pro gay crusaders moral relativists?
So how can you make a normative statement about what a religious individual objects to?
Love the way you bung people into categories and then imply inconsistency because they don’t follow the precise category description you dictated.
And even his categories make no sense.
A ‘pro gay crusader’ may or may not be a ‘moral relativist’, but if they are they won’t be the type of relativist who ‘can’t make normative statements’.
Dispatch from the English class war:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287402/Healthy-happy-Queen-leaves-hospital-smiling-treated-nasty-stomach-bug.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86jb14b-jNI&list=UUGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A&index=2
While homeless man freezes to death in Kent to the south east.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb07UL3olGs&list=UUGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A&index=4
The dead man was uncared for scum but the mega rich Queenie gets a bug and everyone’s bowing and scraping, sort of society the market’s shoeshine boy Key wants here. 🙁
Good consistent work in the ranks
WELFARE DISASTER LOOMING AS SERVICE SHUTS DOWN
BIAS interview on 9 to noon yesterday:
The Herald headline: Minister defends continued underfunding of beneficiary aid service:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10869162
Benefit advocates help the government deliver it’s welfare service properly by cleaning up the mess left by overworked (or let’s face it…just bitchy) case managers. They ensure mental health consumers continue to receive welfare. They SAVE the government money by negotiating with Work and Income and preventing review of decisions (costly and time consuming for the ministry).
This service needs help or it closes in three weeks: http://bais.org.nz/ (website has been hacked so donate page missing !) Might take a phone call or two.
BAIS is registered as a charity with the NZ Charities Commission: CC10594 so please give these guys a hand.
IMHO the government should fully fund these. It’s a tough funding environment out there but we can change it by voting with out donations and claiming it via tax back.
To hear the minister crow about the drips and dribbles of funding benefit rights services are funded on makes me sick. They only stay in existence because the volunteers know what is at stake – everyday people going without in a country with a SOCIAL CONTRACT to support them at their most vulnerable.
Damn edit function!! Beneficiary Advocacy and Information Service is BAIS, not Bias as I typed.
Freudian slip by the looks of it.
Thanks AWW.
Maybe a post in itself?
Yea, does need a voice. Might be better if someone with experience of dealing with BAIS writes it. I’ve only sent them an email once and deal with the Benefit Rights Service (BRS) in Wellington central.
An interesting item on msm reporters who are compromised by conflicts of interest in their undisclosed family and friendship connections with politicians.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/03/05/full-disclosure-or-do-you-know-where-that-journalist-has-been/
Note to Bomber –Proofreading – crowd source if necessary. I was also shocked at the recently published edition of ‘Werewolf’ which was so shot through with every kind of error that I wondered if they had accidentally published an earlier unedited version. I’m vehemently opposed to policing this kind of thing in the conversation amongst commenters, but in the format of a magazine or a newspaper, too many typos, spelling, punctuation etc. mistakes jar and detract from credibility, yet they can be corrected without changing the writer’s actual words, one jot.
God that sounds pendantic even to my ears.
To me, if you can’t be bothered using good grammar and good spelling to express your ideas, have you actually thought through and value what you are trying to say? And have you even bothered to check the facts that you are using?
Actually, I don’t think those things necessarily go together, CV. I have often noticed spelling errors in Bomber’s Tumeke posts. Maybe he needs to get someone else to do the proofreading – spelling and written grammar may not be his strong point.
+1 js.
There is a feedback form on TDB 😉
This is really interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LPdTXRjIKQ
A clip from Brewsters Millions where a guy inherits or wins a lot and spends it on lampooning the electoral system.
Interesting (and slightly disturbing) piece on Grillo here too that might interest you.
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/how-beppe-grillo-stole-the-lefts-clothes
Shearer removes every reason for Labour members to fight against asset sales. The Party Leader does not believe in the Asset Sales Campaign.
He is absolutely clueless and moronic on finance. He has ZERO mention of strategic asset policy.
He is a ****ing disgeace to the Labour Party. Roll on Christchurch.
Please Trevor, keep him off the radio, and TV, just like you did in the period prior to the Confidence vote.
The Duncan Garner show from yesterday is here.
http://soundcloud.com/whaleoil/david-shearer-um-asset-er-what
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Audio.aspx
I’m sure he’ll get better with more media training.
And the poll trend? Most likely a rogue trend.
No really, I’ll do the dishes later.
These things take time mate. Give Shearer another 6 months. He’ll fire up voters imaginations by then, I’m just sure.
I see even Winston is promising to buy back the power shares at cost.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8380541/Today-in-politics-Tuesday-5-March-2013
Yep, I’m sure too.
In fact for the past three years I’ve been sure that Labour would get it right in the next six months. It is teh one ting the Party is consistant about.
A pity the voters don’t see it that way.
(the sound you hear is a mixture of hysterical laughter and tearful sobs)
“Give Shearer another 6 months”
Give Shearer another 21 months 😉
Oh, that’s just so mean!!! 🙂
Assuming a November 2014 election, E-day is only 18 months away. Unless of course you are talking about the normally scheduled February Leadership vote which occurs after each election…which would be exactly 21 months away…
I make it about twenty calendar months plus about two weeks. May be wrong…
Ahhh. There are 12 months in a year. When did that happen???
Around 700BC.
You mean give fecking Key another three years .
But you two have been saying the same for a lot more than six months!
But you two have been saying the same for a lot more than six months!
edit: reply to felix v and CV.
(not sure what’s what. Hit reply button and the original came up)
Oh I’m sure it’s just a Jedi mind trick…those polls aren’t really as bad as you think they are…
Go easy … Shearer is busy going round the country stirring up apathy.
Jesus, that’s terrible.
I look forward to the election debates, LOL it’s going to be a slaughter.
Exactly what the hollowmen wanted, the thought of DC up against Slippery made them go all out helping the mallarfia ensure that’s now not going to happen.
well meaning dithering inexperienced bloke up against well trained sharky dishonest money trader, shall we lay bets now.
Q: Who would you rather have as Prime Minister in 2014: David Cunliffe or John Key?
Robertson, King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al: David Shearer – and he will be!
Q: My question was whether you would prefer David Cunliffe or John Key.
Robertson, King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al: Napoleon!
Q (rolls eyes): I repeat my question.
Robertson, King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al: Richard the Lionheart, Qin Shi Huang, Augustus, Ramesses II!
Q (facepalm): I don’t mean DEAD historical figures, my question was-
Robertson, King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al: Gandalf!
Q (tearing hair): – nor do I mean fictitious characters.
Robertson, King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al (after a brief pause): Historical inevitability!
Q:What?
King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al (now they roll their eyes): You don’t understand how democracy works do you? Let us put it clearly: Whenever National comes to power due to the foolishness of the people and David Cunliffe, they are punished by that government which then – being aware of historical inevitability, politely cedes power to us in the next term after we have released a sufficient number of press releases. We really don’t see what all the fuss is about.
Q (staring blankly and speaking in a halting monotone); Um. Yes. Well then… Um. My question remains: Who. Would. You. Prefer. To. Be. Prime. Minister. In. 2014: John. Key. Or. David… Cunliffe?
King, Goff, Mallard, Hikins, Curran, Fenton et al: JOHN KEY!
Robertson: ME!
I fear you are right Rhinocrates. There is no other explanation.
Jesus Christ Shearer’s fucking hopeless. He hasn’t got a clue at all. At the rate he’s going Key could shoot someone on Queen street, at lunchtime and still be re-elected.
Let it spray
NZ inc – Lab Experiment, and how your *friendly* governmental stooges work hand in glove with corporations, to allow it, then cover it up!
Hey Muzza. Yep, watched that doco last year. Ha! It never ends. Am in the thick of dealing with regional council in regard to an aerial agri chemical spraying co for three breaches of the regulations right at the moment. Don’t want to say too much about that case. Just to add that we have a poor history of health and safety and lax regulation when to comes to using and abusing agri chemicals in NZ.
“The poisoning of New Zealand” by Meriel Watts (published in 1994) gives some background to that history. There may or may not have been regulatory changes within the years since that book was published but the challenge of holding the likes of monsanto, dowagro, nufarm etc to account remains the same. Bloody tough.
Hi Rosie,
All the best with that, and thanks for the book tip.
NZ genuinely has a disgraceful history, on many counts. Yeah there are good people throughout the country, but the sad state of the nation, is now a reflection on all people, including the good ones.
Keep at it Rosie
Cheers
agricultural spray chemicals killed my father eventually; he was riddled with tumours by 34
So sorry to hear about your Dad RT @ 9.1.2.
I wonder how many of the generations before us (and indeed those who are still with us) suffered ill health that wasn’t diagnosed correctly and/or early death due to the effect of unsafe practices when working with agricultural or industrial chemicals.
A relative of mine was one of those victims of a certain notorious timber mill in the Eastern B.O.P. He lived with a chronic work related respiratory illness which eventually took him.
Still, despite all efforts the “She’ll be right” attitude is still prevelant within our culture. The examples are around us all the time.
The census – all that effort and the useful and important things that weren’t init!! For instance I do a lot of volunteer work which wasn’t mentioned in this census. All retired people should be barracking for volunteer work to be counted as work and a contribution to society. There has to be action by older people against the 70 age limit to the old age pension, which is what it is in NZ.
I see being expected to contribute to society in some meaningful way fro the whole of one’s life, but especially when society pays you a pension, as being a reasonable and rational and practical thing which mitigates against the idea of us being self-centred elderly royalty, which many now are at the top end . If we thinking older people don’t get together and present a defence to current thinking and upward age limits most older lives are going to be times of worry and sometimes misery under the Labour push. This is a very TINA mentality – just a repeat of the thinking, or lack of it, in 1984.
It irks me to see on the form a space for working on the family business for no pay (and also I believe that ‘work’ is counted from the first completed hour). I spend probably about 20 hours a week as a volunteer, which is invisible. Marilyn Waring’s book Counting for Nothing findings still apply.
No wonder we can’t get ahead in this country – we have good thinkers here but we have pathetic little burkes that talk their way into a profession or money and then bureaucracy or parliament who never realise the breadth of what they don’t know that they don’t know. There should always be pilot schemes testing different ways of managing the country which are formulated from a wide number of ideas and input, and then evaluated against set criteria.
Listening to Peter Dunne this morning on child support liability and exponential imposts of penalties impressed me on the narrow understanding of the world many of these twerps have.
He talked about partners having a vendetta against each other as the main reason for not paying. A lot of the time it’s just that they can’t afford to support two households, or they don’t want to, or else they are alcoholics and can’t afford the happy-go-lucky habit and free spending trend that goes with trying to be happy all the time.
What government doesn’t understand is that often the family is better off without such a role model and the further away with infrequent contact with the other parent, the better for the child’s moral development and the stability and happiness of the family..
Indeed volunteer work is very important to society and the economy:
prism: The census – all that effort and the useful and important things that weren’t init!! For instance I do a lot of volunteer work which wasn’t mentioned in this census.
question 45:
Ack! need edit function: Should be:
Question 45:
Answer options include, housework, gardening etc; caring for others plus:
other help or voluntary work for or through any organisation, group or marae
Other questions include options for unpaid work within family business or farm.
[Click to Edit | Delete]
Thanks karol
It is in my mind though that volunteer work for the community has been listed separately in a previous census. Unpaid work within family business or farm is merely working for your own interests, your household or wider family – not the same thing. I think it isn’t sufficient to just have community or volunteer work touched on so generally. There isn’t a question of how many hours, just whether done ever in the last 4 weeks.
And working at housework gardening without pay is what people do for each other in their own home. If it is supposed to mean – for other people outside your home it should say so. The census isn’t worded so as to find really useful statistics. For instance it would be interesting to ask – how many women are home nearly all the time caring for children or other family members – on maternity leave for a year, or working for pay part-time under 15 hours, working for more than 30 hours with children in child care? How many men? How many grandparents are caring for grandchildren regularly? How many hours per week.
There are things we ought to know if we were a functioning vital people-embracing country. But sadly we embrace businesses that can boost our politicians and entertain us, we would rather have a matinee idol cracking jokes and finishing every sentence with a confident ‘No worries mate, it’ll work out fine” than a thinking, caring pragmatic person who has buckteeth and a hunchback.
prism, yes there could be more specific questions about hours, etc. However, qu 46 does ask about housework, gardening, etc, within your household, and separately asks about caring for a child, with your household, and not in your household, plus separate questions about caring for someone with illness or disability within your household and not in your household.
There is a separate question elsewhere asking if you are on the DPB, and of course, separate questions about paid and unpaid hours worked.
There also needs to be a balance between the number of questions asked, and the amount of meaningful information sought.
You mention in the first paragraph that
“There has to be action by older people against the 70 age limit to the old age pension”
I don’t understand what you are talking about. Can you please clarify what this is?
alwyn I’ve read your posts before and you often don’t understand. Seems you have a lot of thinking and learning to do. So by all means keep asking and someone will help. I usually can get info and different points of view here.
You have heard surely alwyn that Labour is talking about raising the age limit for receiving superannuation (old age pension under a fancy name) to 70 years, probably over a period of years? I have been thinking of the unpleasant results to the people affected and have decided I am against it.
Google says on the meaning of the word superannuation
1 Regular payment made into a fund by an employee toward a future pension.
2 A pension of this type paid to a retired person.
As NZ pays out of current taxation the income support for retired people, this is not superannuation. But everyone likes that word better than old age pension which is not a cool term especially to the wealthy.
The reason for paying all old people from current taxation, to add to your putea of knowledge, is that it is hard to build and maintain solid funds going forward! that match inflation when conservatively invested. And before we tackled inflation which at one time was rampant, it was impossible. Now the Super Fund is trying to build up a fund to limit the shock when an extra lot of baby boomers come to The Age. Company pension funds also are difficult to maintain because they are notoriously tempting to dip in to by those high up in the company having risky investments going belly-up or yacht and mansion house maintenance problems.
Thank you for replying, at least.
However just how I was expected to connect the statement you made to Labour’s last election policy is rather a stretch.
Your statement, and I quote it in full, was “There has to be action by older people against the 70 age limit to the old age pension which is what it is in New Zealand.”
For your information “what it is in New Zealand” at the moment is 65, not 70.
What labour proposed was that it be raised to67, not 70 and that the age of 67 would not be reached until 2033. How that becomes 70 now, which you appear to believe, is rather unclear.
As to the rest of the response you made, my only addition would be to suggest that it is just as hard for the state to maintain a fund as it is for a company. If you don’t understand that have a look at the tribulations of the various state and city super schemes in the USA, many of which are insolvent.
I don’t trust ANY politician with access to funds such as the Cullen fund, which is in theory supposed to pre-fund superannuation. One has only to read material on the Green party blog, or web-site, to see all the hare-brained ideas for spending the fund. Alternatively just read the material on this blog for how to spend the money on non-productive assets.
Incidentally you can’t really pre-fund superannuation for anybody. Any consumption by a non-working person must be from production by a currently working one. Imagine if every single person was retired. Just where would the goods they wish to consume come from?
alwyn I said that the old age pension is what we have in NZ. And I made the point that it is not actually superannuation. And the 67 year limit has often been stated to be just a step on the way to 70 years.
And you appear to be in a bog not a blog as you don’t like government funded pensions and you are vague about the value and sustainability of company and government funds alike. Oh dear, we are up the creek without a paddle in this case.
Last comment on this (at least by me).
Of course it is an old age pension. However evryone calls it National Superannuation so why shouldn’t we?
OK, no doubt there are people who say we should move to 67 or 70 or whatever.
You however said it was 70 NOW, not some vague option for the future. Perhaps you are like a Maths Prof I used to have who said that “one is just a first approximation to infinity”
I do like Government pensions. In fact I regard them as an essential thing to ensure that the elderly have an income in retirement. People can try and invest to help with their retirement but I think a basic state supplied old age pension is the only way to keep a significant portion of the elderly from penury.
I am not “vague” about the value and sustainability of pensions at all. I know that there will be a proportion of investments that become worthless and that some company schemes in particular that will fail, for any of a number of reasons. They don’t all happen because of people like Robert Maxwell. Some are just bad luck.
I don’t think that trying to build up massive funds, under Government control will work in the long run. I do not trust politicians to leave them along. They want to interfere in the investment decisions to fulfill their own little dreams. Look at the people on this blog who want to say where the Cullen fund should put its money. Everyone thinks that hey know best. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?
My final comment about it being logically impossible to pre-fund pensions for all, without affecting those who are working when the pension is paid, is of course true. It is merely an example of something that is true for an individual is not necessarily true for society as a whole.
Shit dude, so you trust bankers, finance companies and Wall St to look after your investment funds instead?
The NZ Government is 100x more solid than any of those agents buddy.
Oh dear, I said I had finished commenting on this subject but I can’t resist.
No I don’t “trust” them at all.
I think that Cullen set up the fund for the wrong reasons, which is a separate matter, but at least he did his best to keep the investments out of the hands of his fellow politicians. They always say that a poacher makes the best gamekeeper.
That is the structure of the “Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation” (or whatever they are called) who pick the people who will invest the assets. They are supposed to be independent of the politicians. Unfortunately the bigger the pot gets the more temptation there is for the Poly’s to interfere. Even John Key got in at one point when he suggested that a certain percentage should be invested within New Zealand. Luckily he seems to have thought better of that. The Green party are probably the most interested in choosing the investments of course. Certainly they are worse than Labour.
In terms of having bankers, finance companies etc looking after my investment funds, no I don’t trust them. This is one of the flaws in Kiwisaver where you are required to have your Kiwisaver investments with one of these organisations. That is where the Australian superannuation system is better. People are allowed to manage them themselves. Not that great a percentage do but you CAN do so. Why can’t we have that here?
In terms of the Government part of Superannuation, or the universal old age pension, I don’t think we need a fund at all. Pay it out of current taxation, however that is raised. As I said, wherever it is being paid from it is being provided by those who are working at the time it is spent.
alwyn
I didn’t say it was 70 NOW. I did manage to incorporate two things in the one sentence in an unclear manner. So sorry. I’ll keep sentences shorter from now on.
That’s what universities are for and these pilot programs could then be tested at the local government level and filter up. Unfortunately, our central government tends to think it knows best especially when under control of the National Party.
And that comes back to that false right-wing ideology that the family is more important in a child’s life than anything else even when it is dysfunctional.
DTB
True about universities, but this bunch once they started to read, went straight on to textbooks that gave improving stories about how to make money. They went to university to do business courses or ones that fitted their conservative brains and just reinforced all their prejudices while there. And probably met their future partner there and parented more self-centred little know-alls.
And that’s what is important in a child’s life for them to achieve a comfortable lifestyle. And the rest can go scrabble for what they can get and be punished for not being wealthy.
Interesting how the National Party goes in for Central Planning. I thought they considered that was a Communist disaster – the Five, Ten Year Plan etc. And the Great Leap Forward.
We did have a Great Leap in 1984 of course followed by strides in other years and have now sunk to incrementally and sneakily removing screws from the body politic and NZ Inc and soon the muffler may fall off, or the crankshaft will be flat (quoting Toad from Wind in the Willows).
It does pay to view the whole enterprise of NZ under the mendacious politicians as a sweeping filmic epic and then you’re so busy waiting for the next fascinating instalment that you don’t realise that you’re the featured actor and it’s your house that is in flames.
personally (in case you were wondering)
-Mon, community meal
-Tues, foodbank
-Wed, counsel
-Thurs, counsel
-Everyday, grow veges to distribute around the “cul-de-sac”
You’re a real trooper Rogue. Do you counsel others, or go to counselling yourself on Wed and Thurs?
Growing veges everyday sounds interesting. Have you followed the city gardens movement I think mainly in parts of the USA?
Rogue Trooper (from AD2000) had his unit violently betrayed by the very top. He then spent years on foot, trudging and fighting through the chemical wastelands of Nu-Earth, to find those responsible for the massacre of the people he cared about. Awesome.
I don’t see why they need names and addresses. I don’t recall providing that information previously, though of course it has been seven years since the last one and I may be wrong. I would have thought they would only be interested in the numbers in the various categories, not the identities of the persons concerned.
some of those present might like a mid morning snigger,
http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/11512_421363211281353_200370615_n.jpg
That’s funny.
Apparently she operated some cult like think tank / educational outfit in NY.
Can see why the free market zealots are in love with her.
[lprent: Your comment pattern this morning looks like a troll. You seem to be haranguing people trying to start a flame war. If you want to discuss something then write something substantive about what your topic for others to disagree with. Don’t just harass with assertions that you provide no backing for. I can, if you’d prefer, demonstrate on you why that tactic isn’t a good idea for “debate”. Your choice really.. ]
Comment editor seems to not be working. Loads as ‘comment successfully loaded’ and blank text boxes.
Don’t seem to be able to delete posts either.
Same system – re-edit. There is hopefully a chorus tech coming in to look at my network link on behalf of Orcon support (who have spent the last week getting upset after I told them that I wasn’t happy about factory resetting my Genius). At present the link is reconnecting every 15 minutes or so.
I’m looking for a new network supplier. Anyone got bad things to say about Actrix?
I can only get ADSL+ at present. The UFB in Grey Lynn doesn’t appear to go into apartment blocks.
I just have to stop being social and going to weddings and the like to get some more time. I really need some time off..
I had that. Lasted for about a week. Orcon finally decided that I was right and that a tech needed to be sent out (it really is irritating trying to explain to the helpdesk staff that I actually know more about the network, fault finding and the processors than they do). On the day the tech was came my internet went down for about two hours and then came back up rock solid but at only 5mbps. For it to be down that long I figured that they must have been doing some work on the cabinet or possibly the exchange (not bloody likely) but the tech didn’t know if anybody was working on the cabinet – he wasn’t – but he turned up a couple of hours after my internet came back up. He replaced a couple of connectors in the DP and I got 17mbps back.
The problem is that you’re not dealing directly with Telecom. When an ISP sends a Telecom tech out and there’s nothing found to be wrong with Telecoms network they get charged a huge amount and so the ISP will work very hard not to send out a tech. It results in poor service.
Yeah it is a problem. But supposedly Chorus isn’t part of Telecom any more….
The reason I moved from Telecom many years ago was because their plans sucked* (and I see they still do), but most importantly because it always took a bloody long time to get through to anyone who knew what my problem was – usually routing or network connection.
$14/mo for national calling OR 24c/min? WTF.
wanna know how much Parata’s bad relationship with Lesley Longstone cost?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1303/S00061/lesley-longstone-severance-payment-released.htm
Near half a Million bucks thats obscene.
I know. It’s insane. In most circumstances if your boss doesn’t think you’re doing the job right, or if you don’t think the boss is doing the job right, you end up when you leave with a couple of weeks pay. Can’t understand why the hell you get a fortune to leave at the top end of the business in the same situation.
This’ll cause a few nightmares.
So. According to leighton smith it is really good that teachers are out protesting as it is preferable to them being in the classroom “spreading misinformation” According to the information I heard the teachers were doing it BEFORE school so as not to disrupt their classes.I get really annoyed with these radio has- beens who do not even take the time to get their facts right. Was in my daughter’s car so took a while to find the knob to turn the KNOB off.
You know what? …. WOT! said fred.
I look at all the various categories of posts on here: ‘Throw another Mill on the Barbie’; The constitutional ….etcetera; Asset sales et al.
WHERE THE FUCK IS LABOUR?
missing in action, and quite probably having a lay down (gathering their strength of course for some pathetic assault in future).
A Main Stream Media of a right-wing bent, a piece of journalistic couch material disguising herself amongst the various fabrics that create one-off wearable wardrobes – hell bent on a bit of rough-trade.
FFS there’s a cliff that saw herself amongst an era long gone (bring up the African drums).
You probably don’t get it atm. QUITE OBVIOUSLY neither does Trev, but prepare yourselves for the aftermath.
I hadn’t been aware that Trev n Jane as an item were public knowledge (as I’ve seem elsewhere)., but their positions as representaives – FIRSTLY as politicians, and secondly as representatives of a supposed 4TH ESTATE, pretty much says it all.
No no no, these are also the people I expect to be the folk that squeel like pigs in the not-to-distant
Shearer has been in most of the MSM, over the past 48 hours. Today he was doing Newstalk ZB, Radio NZ, yesterday Radio Live, etc.
So let’s be fair. He’s been seen and heard in the media. Unfortunately, that’s when the problems start …
Four press releases so far today, is where they are.
Em – er -yes…indeed. Maybe. Hard to tell really.
Pretty sure that doesn’t link to what you think it links to…
I hope you’re right there, Blue.
much lols! For the census and gender thread, for those who didn’t pick it.
And now for something completely different
Checks – yes, that’s the one 🙂
Also just checked me work emails – fortunately that cut&paste error was the only one. Could have made for some interesting discussions, though 🙂
4 press releases and the number which have newsworthy statements is…
Good that Christchurch recovery is so important, too bad they demoted their key Christchurch MP to Siberia
oh, sorry – forgot you were playing “Fantasy Politics”, with your pick for team labour having a different line-up under Captain Cunliffe.
The point being that the “missing in action” rhetoric is just more bullshit. Like the “Siberia” line.
My pick for team labour has a different line-up regardless of who the leader is.
I wonder how long it will take until you lot figure out that criticism of Shearer and his decisions has bugger all to do with Cunliffe or anyone else.
Are we all talking exclusively about you again? Joy.
Nope, and a weird thing to say McF.
Am I not allowed to add my 2c to this thread?
Just making sure. I seem to recall that last time Hopefully that goes to “reshuffle for unity” – on my form so far today it’ll probably go to an obscure statsNZ paper on ethnicity and the census) we ended up talking at cross purposes past each other because you thought my comments about recurring themes in comments here were comments about specific quotes you make.
If we’re not talking specifically about you, chapter and verse, then a lot of the time here I think that people are letting their disappointment that Cunliffe isn’t leader affect their assessment of what labour and Shearer are doing or saying. Just because a tory MSM aren’t picking up doesn’t mean that Labour are doing nothing.
“a lot of the time here I think that people are letting their disappointment that Cunliffe isn’t leader affect their assessment of what labour and Shearer are doing or saying.”
Meh, maybe so. It’d be a lot more convincing if the general public as polled and surveyed didn’t generally agree though, wouldn’t it?
Unless the polls and surveys are also heavily weighted toward embittered Cunliffe supporters of course, but I don’t think that’s any more likely than people on this forum saying they don’t think Shearer and Labour are much good for any other reason than, well, that they don’t think they’re much good.
“Just because a tory MSM aren’t picking up doesn’t mean that Labour are doing nothing”
Lolz. The tory msm have been Shearer’s biggest cheerleaders all along.
Really? The polls show us that Labour are shit at getting media coverage?What do the polls show us, really? The Labour needs to be more like National? Oh dear, in that case Shearer is indeed doing a shit job. Or maybe Labour need to be a counterpoint to National? In that case, Shearer and labour are shit the other way. Or maybe that it’s not all about whatever Labour does, but other shit counts too? Like National’s strategy of isolating key from competence and responsibility, or the fact that a lot of traditionally “left” people love to shit on Labour and Shearer, both the MSM commentariat and “left wing bloggers”?
Polls tell us what is, not why. They tell us, for example, that things are improving for labour, if sluggishly.
I’ve no idea if the MSM are picking up Labour inputs or not. Tim reckoned they were “missing in action”. I actually watched the late news tonight, saw hipkins and shearers on the longstone thing. And shearer on the mighty river thing. No idea what tim was talking about.
But whatever, between 2pm and 1030pm the MSM suddenly started interviewing the labour front bench to support Shearer from Tim’s scathing attack, or I suggest that Tim’s own perception bias is at fault.
For a non-Labour supporter I always enjoy your unfailing (although mostly oblique) support of the current Labour/Shearer orthodoxy.
I usually find it pretty funny, too.
It’s almost like people are too lazy to add Labour and Greens and Mana, and draw a shallow line between now and mid-2014.
Labour are necessary but not sufficient for a left wing government, regardless of their specific poll result. Their internal politics are largely irrelevant, bar shit overflowing and poisoning the public sphere (e.g. a repeat of the chris carter bs).
Nothing is assured, but I don’t see any reason for overly aggressive capitalisation of comments, bizarre analogies of death or hardship, or allegations that Labour are absent, sleepwalking or phoning it in.
Labour is a centrist market oriented party focussed on the votes of median and upper income households. Labour may be part of a left wing government, but since it’s instincts are centrist and market driven, that government will not be left wing because of it.
So you don’t think that those allegations hold water?
Feel free to keep setting the bar so fucking low that even a Chihuahua running by is gonna get a concussion.
Labour will not be the entirety of the next government, even if it might be Labour-led. Assuming that a labour-led governent will be the same as a labour 50%+ sole government is not realistic.
Labour aren’t absent. They are issuing releases, being interviewed in the press, and getting out and about.
Labour aren’t sleepwalking or phoning it in: those imply that Labour don’t really want to be in government.
They are plodding, lack fire and need a bit of an imagination transplant. They have some MPs that are a bit weak and lack experience, from what I see. They have a risk-averse media strategy and have too small a team looking for deficiencies or innovation in new policies – in fact I might go so far as to say there is little or no contingency anticipation at the tactical policy level, and possibly too much policy conservatism at the strategy level. And most of them, including Shearer, need to have like a daily spitballing session where they look at their interviews and think of how they could have done better, or what they would have said in their colleague’s place.
But the thing is, I don’t get worked up about those shortcomings that I see. Because left ain’t labour, labour ain’t the left, and the smaller parties will provide the guts that labour currently lack.
Really? The polls show us that Labour are shit at getting media coverage?What do the polls show us, really? The Labour needs to be more like National? Oh dear, in that case Shearer is indeed doing a shit job. Or maybe Labour need to be a counterpoint to National? In that case, Shearer and labour are shit the other way. Or maybe that it’s not all about whatever Labour does, but other shit counts too? Like National’s strategy of isolating key from competence and responsibility, or the fact that a lot of traditionally “left” people love to shit on Labour and Shearer, both the MSM commentariat and “left wing bloggers”?
lolwut? Was that directed to me? ‘Cos all I said was that people don’t seem to think much of Shearer and Labour at the mo.
McFlock reckons people who think that must have some irrational, illogical dislike of Shearer.
Actually fv, you also speculated as to why the polls might begiving the results that you appealed to.
In case you hadn’t noticed, we had been talking about why people weren’t into labour. I think the general population has slightly different reasons for their poll results than e.g. shearer didn’t promise to renationalise telecom today, he must be a neoliberal, cunliffe would have done it by now
So the senior lawyer in Labour’s ranks, the Christchurch MP that has worked tirelessly for the area gets told that she has to go for the sake of “renewal”.
She did nothing wrong.
The decision to demote her was utu for not kissing Shearer’s arse.
Not to worry, still got Shane Jones eh?
Aye.
Half of the hardened left activists may have fucked off but they rejoice because they still have the magnificence of Shane Jones.
JM&J.
Soon to be joined by John Tamihere! Start drinking those pints of Brut 33 and Party like it’s 1975!
Or his elbow, since he can’t tell the difference.
According to McFlock, Dalziel being demoted to “Siberia” by Shearer is an irrelevancy.
He probably thinks it’s renewal etc.
Nah mate.
I just think comparing the back benches at however many hundred $k p.a. with a multi-week train ride to a barren wasteland, starvation diet, overwork, and subzero temperatures is a bit, well, …, a bit shit, really.
One of Labour’s most experienced MPs, who has been doing a great job advocating for her constituents in a destroyed city, gets rewarded by being shoved down the rankings.
If that’s not political Siberia I don’t know what it is.
(Hey you didn’t think I was meaning actual geographical Siberia, did you? btw I know people from there and they think that it’s a fine place).
Oh noes, she’s got a different seat in the house and only a base MP salary! Fuck, that makes a comparison to the Gulag Archipelago totally reasonable!
I got that it was an analogy. I just think it was an analogy that was stupid, irrational, lacked perspective and actually sort of ilustrated my point that the major problems people here seem to have with Shearer and Labour probably come from the commenters’ own lack of rationality and perspective.
You’re blind as a bat mate.
must be snowblind, being an oppressed mass in Siberia and all. Fuck, I must be, seeing as I’m on a fraction of her salary and can’t make speeches in the house.
Maybe the analogy you could have used was “sin binning” – off on the sidelines for a bit, but still able to get back into the game if you’re prepared to play reasonably.
Fuck, here comes the analogy police
Hey please explain on what grounds you think Shearer judged that Lianne Dalziel was not fulfilling her role as a Labour electorate MP “reasonably”.
inorite? It’s like the ge5tapo.
More like the Ministry of Public Enlightenment
now you’re sounding like vto
Hey please explain on what grounds you think Shearer judged that Lianne Dalziel was not fulfilling her role as a Labour electorate MP “reasonably”.
How the fuck should I know? I’m not in caucus. I know it’s not because she chose sides against Shearer, because there wasn’t an alternative challenger for the leadership.
But her demotion sounds like, oh, a demotion to an important and well-paid position, not a train ride to Siberia.
Ignoring all cold war analogies, she was demoted and it’s not unreasonable to want to know why.
Indeed. If that’s what rocks your boat. But frankly it could well be unreasonable for a party leader to explain every placement decision to bloggers.
And cv asking me for speculation was just stupid.
Oh, I dunno. The lack of concision, the ambiguity and general confusion is all kind of apt, don’t you think?
What’s apt is describing a simple and obvious clipboard error as “lack of concision, the ambiguity and general confusion”.
I’m horrified by this case of torture in Fiji and I really want our government to bring more pressure to bear on the regime in those imprisoned islands.NZ eased sanctions in 2012. Clearly that was a mistake. Restore them and extend them.
But Fiji is WhaleSpew’s favourite democracy and we just don’t understand them. The terrorist in the video won’t think of stealing any more lightbulbs now, will he?
Colonel Trotter has also been scathing of ‘democracy purists’ who just don’t understand that sometimes you need a strong man it make it all gooder.
Do you mean Chris Trotter – it doesn’t sound like a complimentary view.
News Flash: Share Scalpers crash Mighty River Powers website!
That’s right those same greedy people ( Trevor Mallard refuse to comment on speculation that he is interested) that buy concert tickets to on sell for huge profits are at it again this time looking to wound us with the buy up of ‘our’ power assets shares!
Ha ha ha ha ha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1acEVmnVhI
(the Killer in Me is the Killer in U, Jim.)
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/02/22/encode-gets-a-public-reaming/
Ugh, need moar coffee…
redundency
Advisers in shock as taxman wins big case
Senior tax practitioners are in shock after the Inland Revenue Department won another key tax avoidance case in the Court of Appeal, with implications for at least 16 companies and some $300 million of back tax, interest and penalties at stake.
http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/advisers-in-shock-taxman-wins-big-case-5360372
Look forward to seeing the managers fired from the firms for fraudulent behaviour, no Golden handshakes, their kids put into cyf care, assets taken off them, partners getting prosecuted for benefitting from the ill gotten salary and bonus payments and both going to jail.
You will be waiting a while I am afraid DoS.
Some things are worth waiting for.
Another party political broadcast from Corin Dann on behalf of his preferred party, even this time concluding the float was so popular the ‘opposition parties’ are now irrelevant. This from the political editor of the public television broadcaster. The Tory twat should be sacked, or come clean and go work for Key openly. Mind, that would require integrity.
Just how sure are you that the Opposition is actually relevant?
They have a view and ethics demand balance and fairness in reportage. To rule them out regardless, makes his reportage propaganda.
That nice Mr Trotter had provided some of the text of David Shearer’s interview with Duncan Garner.
And naturally some very insightful commentary.
“Mr Shearer’s comments are further proof (if proof is still required) of the man’s ideological orthodoxy, economic passivity and political timidity.
No wonder the Right is so determined to keep him exactly where he is.
Perhaps it’s time to calculate the opportunity cost of David Shearer?”
Link to http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/03/05/the-opportunity-cost-of-david-shearer/
Not surprising, TDB is even more anti Shearer than this place.
Blogs are fun but they exist at the fringes of politics, Labour & Shearer are trying to position themselves more at the centre, and every policy is negotiable until a real election campaign begins.
Shearer is trying very hard to look like a reasonable dude to the average kiwi, rather than a freaky left wing zealot who calls the PM a liar.
(public perception is what wins elections, not badly presented ‘facts’)
He’s got to radically sharpen up his tv and radio presence then. He comes across like an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he gets asked questions beyond his limited script. It’s killing whatever messages he’s trying to get across.
Probably, but most kiwis don’t know and don’t care.
You are right. Up to a point Ropata, many Kiwi’s are busy with their lives and not into the minutiae like many of us on-line weirdos.
That point though is when he has a few stuff-ups on the 6.00 news and in heavily watched elections TV debates. Then most kiwis will respond negatively.
Many on these pages are experienced participants and/or observers of politicians and politics.
They had doubts about many aspects of Shearer from early on:
Shearer was given the benefit of the doubt for a long enough period;
then Shearer confirmed those doubts;
then Shearer even managed to smash the “nice guy” image;
and Shearer extends and confirms the doubts most of the times he speaks.
Seriously?
And Shearer is some kind of professional, trained in the war zone, hostile environment negotiator in-extremis?
Is there some special style of negotiation I’m not aware of where you fold all your cards before the first round has even finished being dealt, and where you give away all your chips before betting starts???
what is there to negotiate? labour isn’t in government.
he can only make a bunch of promises or commitments that tend to come back later and bite you on the arse at an inconvenient time on an election campaign
And it’s not like Savage or Kirk won by making promises or commitments to Labour voters, is it?
Perhaps this is our fate from here on in. Centrist middling mediocrity, hard to criticise the flavour because it doesn’t taste like anything.
At least National has the power of its convictions.
This.
We need a party of the left willing to stand on principle, to make promises and then to keep them. The ones we have are too busy making deals – just like National.
CV
Give those Centrists some Kaitaia Chilli – get them moving. It should be come a ritual for every new left government to have crackers and chilli to underline their commitment to keep hot and keen for the people’s betterment.
And National’s convictions having power, I wouldn’t like to rely on that energy for when they have sold all the electricity assets and dug down to all the oil and gas. After that they we will find they haven’t have any power in reserve for us.
That may be where they are but they’re not staying there and are rapidly moving to the centre of politics.