News today that Hahei motor camp is on the market, as is the Whangamata one is bad news for those who cannot afford $2mil beach houses, the less well-off missing out on what used to be a seemingly Gods-own right of a beachfront summer holiday.
What happened to the policy of the Gummint buying these last remaining refuges to save them for the people ?.
It must have been a Labour policy, it obviously doesen’t fit in with “the market will provide”, for the few.
Council/DOC owned camping grounds are on reserve land that cant be sold without revocation of reserve status and that needed to be signed off by the minister of conservation*
They tend to be either leased to a mum and dad operator or run by the council/DOC itself.
* = unfortunately the government sneaked through a law change enabling councils to revoke reserve status without needing ministerial permission, meaning Tory-led councils can flog off parks and reserves with government ‘encouragement’.
I started reading it under the impression it was about how 9-11 troofers could maintain bizarre ideas in the face of evidence. Then I realised it was positing the troofers were right and the rest of us (the sane people) were the ones with the bizarre ideas. So I stopped reading it.
So, yeah, I let my prejudices get the better of me. Because I’ve wasted far too much time investigating the claims of troofer types and they never amount to anything more than paranoid fantasies.
Maybe you could provide a bullet point summary of the key information that will change my mind?
WTC7.
I’ve never heard one of the people on this website who personally attack those who apply critical thinking to the events of 9/11 explain WTC7.
Until they do, I remain sceptical to the official conspiracy theory about 9/11
hi paul,
the thing that strikes me is the abusive reaction that occurs when this subject comes up.
so far: deranged, paranoid fantasies, stfu, parroting drivel.
i am waiting to be accused of being right wing for daring to question the status quo version of events re wtc t7
ten years ago people probably had a bit more tolerance. But since then no new evidence has been presented, and many lies have been debunked (no airplane debris around the pentagon, “within its own footprint”, “freefall speeds”, yadda yadda). In contrast, the official story still stands up.
So I for one am a bit bored with nutbars making a stupid nutbar hobby around the deaths of 3000 people. Oh, and if you’re worried about being called right wing, I’m worried that a legitimate critic of the US can be silenced by comparing them with people who think mini-nukes or nanothermite demolished any of the WTC buildings.
It’s boredom. You all repeat the same long-debunked zombie arguments, and you haven’t produced a scrap of evidence in fourteen years, and not a single member of the conspiracy has come forward, and you all can’t even agree which tune to sing.
It’s like a multi-orchestra Ives collision, only not as melodious.
hi oab,” I’ve issued this challenge before and I will again: what, precisely, is wrong with the engineering calculations involved in the NIST WTC7 report?”
the wrong with the report is that there is no forensic/physical evidence at all, they are based on computer modelling.
modelling based on input data you and i are not priveleged to know about.
therefore you can not be shown the significant flaws.
@ One Anonymous Bloke at 8.57 pm [no Reply button!?]
I have no intention in ‘accepting your challenge’ and I have no idea what or whom I am “stalling”. It just seemed to me that you might not have the faintest idea of basic concepts of S & M.
Thanks for taking the time to post the link, Paul. Sure, it’s meaningless psychobabble, but after 13 and a half years without evidence, I guess there’s not much left for deniers to focus their hopes on.
Apart from an extensive engineering report, that is. And hours of computer modelling, and forensic analysis, and sums.
Which you don’t understand, a sad fact that is becoming more and more obvious. Christ, in the years of rote-learning drivel, you could have actually got a degree in civil engineering.
911 – a bit like christianity in the variation of beliefs – which 911 belief variant are you paul? If you aren’t sure which bit you are in to – check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories
But I’ll assume you are up to speed with most of them – do you think planes were involved? do you think Flight 93 was shot down? Do you think that Mossad and the CIA did it? Insider trading?
I’m interested because it is pointless discussing this subject without knowing which variant a person believes and you obviously believe this is a worthy subject to discuss because you’ve put it up on OM.
Winston Peters had every right being upset that Corin Dann tried it on, by wanting to take a live interview with the Northland buy- election losers, Nationals candidate Mark Osborne and campaign manager Stephen Joyce first. After all who convincingly trounced National giving John Key and campaign ‘master stroker’ Joyce their first blood nose since National beat Labour all those years ago.
I saw first hand what was what the following morning in Russell as I was there walking my dog and walking a hangover from the night before’s election party. Dann was up to no good trying to con Peters into a pre recorded interview, presumably so they could
try thy ole ‘edit and mash number.’ Peters was far too aloof for that dirty trick and rightfully held his ground taking the interview live. However Dann still got his way in sorts by interviewing Joyce & co first and making Peters stand around in the rain waiting for the cross. When Dann finally did interview Peters he snarled and treated him with disrespect.
What a nasty little National cheerleader Dann showed himself to be.
While the back end of the article had some useful comments – exactly what is the big oil benefit- the beginning was absolutely cringing.
Yes Winston had every right to not tolerate the fawning over the losers but FFS to compare Northland to a woman who woke to find the wrong guy in bed with her? Wrong on so many levels -sexist, implying that they would have been better waking up to Osbourne , they had a hangover , etc. Demeaning to women, to men, the voters who voted..
Maybe Paul needs to look at his own life if any of this was an acceptable metaphor.
Yup. If people here wanted a non-pokey stick, sans finger pointing discussion on rape culture, then there was the spring-board right there – blaring sirens, flashing red lights and all.
This might be a better starting point. Luddite Journo on Rape Myths in NZ and the NZ media, using a breaking story about an All Black who has been arrested on sexual assault charges and how the media are covering this. Good analysis.
In 2013, research from the specialist sexual violence sector looking at how the media report on sexual violence in Aotearoa showed some disturbing stuff: journalists do not understand the law and they do not interview experts, with no articles featuring commentary from specialist academics or researchers and just 8% featuring commentary from community experts.
This means that our news is full of rape myths, because journalists are like everyone else – they grow up in our rape culture. Despite the importance of the role of the mainstream media in educating the public about sexual violence, the only compulsory reading for student journalists in New Zealand features just three sentences about sexual violence in a 453 page book, and they are not helpful for unlearning rape myths (my emphasis):
“It is illegal to report the victims’ names in any sex crime; it can be unethical and untasteful to describe a sexual crime in graphic detail. It is particularly important to be cautious about taking sides in the reporting: with emotions running high, false complaints are often made regarding sexual offences. Both sides can be very believable in their differing accounts.”
For the record, Police estimate 8% of reports about sexual violence they receive are false. It’s far more common for people to choose not to report to the Police – just one in ten survivors report. Both of these figures come from New Zealand Police, that bastion of feminist activism.
(btw, I think a conversation about rape culture without people thinking there is stick poking going on is almost impossible, here at least. The reasons for that are a complex mix of people taking things personally to the exclusion of the politics, and low tolerance all round leading to not a lot of listening/effective communication)
btw, I think a conversation about rape culture without people thinking there is stick poking going on is almost impossible, here at least. The reasons for that are a complex mix of people taking things personally to the exclusion of the politics, and low tolerance all round leading to not a lot of listening/effective communication.
If the ‘target’ was a neutral (ie, off-site) one, as opposed to ‘half’ the bloody commenters on a particular post, then both the perception of a pokey stick being used and actual pokey sticks being used would be greatly diminished, no? (shrug)*
* really wish there was a thingy jig that produced a shrug. Anyway. (shrug)
Yes, that’s true and certainly lessening such in your face approaches to discussion would help a lot.
I think it’s also true that there are always going to be be people upset personally by the politics. And what do we do with people commenting who are perpetuating rape myths? Once responses to that start, it becomes personal and I don’t see any way around that presently (there’s also the history now, and whether people can get past that). The other unfortunate dynamic is that the conflict happens within groups that should otherwise be political allies (eg the left). I can’t see that changing much until there is greater acceptance within the left of its own issues around gender.
Paul Little is entitled to his opinion but his piece was boringly predictable and did not contain one single original thought or novel insight. Same for Rodney Hide’s piece. At least John Armstrong, John Roughan, and Fran O’Sullivan occasionally surprise me with a really nice angle or insight. There are some whose columns I almost never read, e.g. Mike Hosking’s.
Of course he is entitled to his opinion – “Northland was stupid to vote for Winston when they could have voted for NACT” but really – what a way to express it.
Imagine how much offence would have been generated by comparing NACT to say a streetwalker (who no doubt is more honest and principaled anyway) .
For decades, compulsory voting has done what it was supposed to do: maintain high and socially even turnout levels that are the envy of the industrialised voluntary-voting world. Prior to its introduction at the federal level in 1924, turnout was hovering in the 50–60% range (of registered voters). Since then, it has remained steady for many decades at around 93%.
While Australia’s young are less inclined to vote than older cohorts, because of compulsory voting 83% of 18-25 year olds still turn out to vote. Compare this to Britain where only around 44% of young people vote, or Canada where the figure hovers at around 37 to 38% or, worse still, the US. There, in the recent midterm elections, only 22% of young people bothered to cast a ballot.
IIRC, our young also don’t vote in droves.
Many studies have indicated that government attention and spending are directly related to the size of electorate cohorts. Older people vote and so governments spend far more per capita on them than they do on the young. Governments are also a lot more responsive to the policy concerns of older voters.
We see this here as governments continue to fail to do anything about bubbling house prices because it will upset the older voters who a) own houses and b) don’t want to see their paper wealth decrease.
Libertarians like Finn think that the cost of losing their freedom to stay away on polling day is too high. But what about the real-life cost to freedom of being poor, homeless, unemployed and under-employed? In every advanced voluntary system the world over, the less likely you are to vote, the more likely you are to experience one, some, or all of these things.
But in compulsory systems where voting is universal and socially even, government attention and spending is more evenly distributed. Simply put, there is less wealth inequality in compulsory systems.
Definitely worth considering. I think it’s time that we went to compulsory voting in NZ.
Indeed.
But one could argue that nobody would be forced to join a union for a specific job. After all, the tories think that working at a specific place is a choice, right? Can’t have your cake and eat it too.
We pride ourselves on religious freedom in this country, and one way to support religious freedom, is to support the right not to vote on religious grounds. We have a system where by people exercise their citizen duty by enrolling to vote. And can simply not vote, without jumping through hoops.
I also think we need to ask, rather than use force – why young people are not voting and do not want to vote. I inclined to believe they see through the corruption and hypocrisy of our politicians. Coupled with the fact, the corporations and the 1% are the ones welding power, and no vote or democratic outcome – will make a damn bit of difference with those worshippers of cupidity.
Voting could change the system if more people voted. Not voting will certainly entrench it.
IMO, the big difference between those who don’t support compulsory voting and those of us who do is a matter of perspective. They view voting as a right which people can choose to use or not while I view it as a responsibility that cannot, and should not, be avoided.
We must all have a say in our governance so that our full wisdom is brought to bear rather than just the desires of the rich and elderly.
Draco I understand where you’re coming from with this particular ‘compulsion’
IMO making voting compulsory would not equate to systematic change in an of itself
Making voting compulsory could lead to more people politicizing themselves which in turn could lead to grass roots level change through awareness but the established and entrenched will adjust as necessary to retain control the same way it has done for decades
Compulsory voting is likely to lead to little more than higher invalid vote count and fines (assuming the Australian model of compulsion) as the only way the system knows how to ‘encourage’ people is through monetary penalty
Using Northland as an example of where engagement was in higher numbers but look at what the catalysts were to achieving greater engagement
The establishment is no longer for the people and is in dire need of replacement not greater involvement is propping it up
There are many who have chosen the options of distraction and there are many who have chosen a multitude of other options
At some point in the timeline there will be a convergence as the many chosen options are dwindled into a few available options out of absolute necessity
It is once we arrive at that juncture of absolute necessity we will see what those few options actually are and how humanity individually and collectively responds
Too late by then. My comment was more about people who think they know what the future is, or how things will play out. If there’s one thing we can know about the situation we are in, it’s that the ball is in the air and we don’t know where it’s going to land.
It appears as if we have not hit rock bottom as a species yet which is disturbing and unsurprising at the same time
To me that is an indicator the juncture has not been reached so I would hope that it won’t be “too late” when it does come because as a species like with addicts it seems we will have to collectively ‘bottom out’ prior to reaching the road to healing
It’ll be too late in terms of climate change. We have a window, closing fast. Waiting for the crisis that will force people to change will be too late.
The sourness of the Paul Little article is very telling. A mark of the perennial, passive-aggressive media dissemination of the Crosby Textor construct narrative – “Key is gold !”. And its extension – “……ergo, all challengers are base”.
Oh “Boo !” Paul Little…….were there the foundation for “John Key quipped…..” you and your mates’d be writing it up as the political howler of the new century. Some would say many of your PC’s templates need serious modification if not deletion. That ain’t gonna kill ya.
Little’s sourness (not saved by cursory mention of Northland issues) reminds me of when Helen Clark appointed Peters foreign minister all those years ago – the Press Gallery in high dudgeon in the flavour of – “We simply will not tolerate this !!!”
funnily enough, I was just thinking today that both the frequency and degree of outright nutty arguments have decreased markedly over the last week or so. And then 9/11 comes up again…
Khalida Jarrar is one of the central leaders of the PFLP, a member of its politbureau.
On April 2,dozens of soldiers of the Israeli occupation forced their way into her home in Ramallah and arrested her for “terrorist” involvement – the usual Israeli designation for anyone resisting the occupation.
After holding her for a while at an Israeli detention centre in the West Bank, they moved her to a prison in Israel.
Jarrar is particularly involved with the rights of Palestinian prisoners and the liberation of Palestinian women.
Think about the sort of vote Social Credit had. Although many people who voted SC at their height are probably dead now and SC hasn’t existed as a mass force for 30 years or more, there will be plenty of people with some sort of memory of them. There was always a natural Social Credit constituency in rural areas and NZF could easily mop up whatever elements of it still exist.
Whereas other parties – Alliance, ACT, Anderton’s Progressives, Mauri Pacific, Peters’ outfit – have come and gone (and I suspect the Maori Party will go too) – the two MMP-era parties that have a future, because they have a constituency, a stable socio-political base, are the Greens and NZF.
NZF is to the left of Labour on economic policy and to the right of them on social issues. And there’s enough people like that, especially in the regions, to give them a couple of electorate seats and maybe 10% of the vote, possibly even get them back to 1996 levels (I think they got over 13% of the vote that year, I recall they had 17 MPs) as long as they have Winston and provided they manage the succession well. I think either Ron Marks or Shane Jones would do, to keep that base. I think the leader of NZF, for some time anyway, interestingly, will need to be Maori.
One thing about NZF that is also often forgotten is just how big their core base of support is in the Maori seats. They’re the only party apart from Labour to have held all the Maori seats. Moreover, when they captured all the Maori seats, they also won the party vote in all of them but one. They did far, far better than the Maori Party at its height. While that support dropped away, Winston is not just popular among old National types who recall the days when National pursued Keynesian economics; he’s also really popular among Maori because he’s seen as a ‘Maori boy made good’ who sticks it up to the establishment.
So are the so-called ‘left’ parties now going to drop the ‘two ticks’ policy for the 2017 General Election?
ie: Campaign hard and strong for the PARTY vote, but campaign strategically for the ELECTORATE vote, especially in pivotal seats?
Given that ‘doing a Northland’ has proven to be rather spectacularly successful?
ie: Vote strategically for the candidate that has the best chance of taking the seat off National, or National’s coalition allies?
In my view, that doesn’t mean so-called ‘left’ political parties not standing electorate candidates in pivotal seats, but campaigning on the issues, for PARTY not ELECTORATE votes.
The reason why I say ‘so-called left parties’ is because, in my view, that terminology became redundant after the 1984 – 87 Labour Government introduced the neo-liberal ‘Rogernomic$’ reforms.
In my view – the line in the sand is ‘public majority’ vs ‘corporate minority’ and those who serve their interests….
What I have found is a useful yardstick in deciding ‘who is the MAIN electoral enemy’ – as it were – is to check the ‘mood of the boardroom’ (BIG business CEOs) – find out who THEY would prefer to run NZ in the House – then do the opposite.
Because, in my opinion, that’s how our NZ ‘democracy’ works – according to the ‘Golden Rule’.
ie: Those who have the gold make the rules, and we get the government that the majority of BIG business wants us to have.
1) It is a counter-productive dichotomy to view politics as warfare between friends/allies versus enemies to produce “winners & losers”. This is 20th-century politics; it is time to invent and develop new paradigms;
2) It runs counter to critical independent thinking and taking full ownership of one’s own choices.
1) It is a counter-productive dichotomy to view politics as warfare between friends/allies versus enemies to produce “winners & losers”. This is 20th-century politics; it is time to invent and develop new paradigms;
Matthew Gardiner, the Northern Territory unionist who fought against ISIS has been arrested on return to Oz. He could be looking at a lengthy jail term for doing independently what Australia wants to train the Iraqi troops to do for themselves.
Look at the photo of Matthew Gardiner. An intelligent, compassionate and rational person who is on the same side as the Western powers. So, who is mad? The Australian law enforcers that’s who. Someone should arrest them and now?!!
Whose fault? Our fault. Don’t read if you want to remain ignorant
Hidden in an unknown corner of Inner Mongolia is a toxic, nightmarish lake created by our thirst for smartphones, consumer gadgets and green tech, discovers Tim Maughan…
We reached the shore, and looked across the lake. I’d seen some photos before I left for Inner Mongolia, but nothing prepared me for the sight. It’s a truly alien environment, dystopian and horrifying. The thought that it is man-made depressed and terrified me, as did the realisation that this was the byproduct not just of the consumer electronics in my pocket, but also green technologies like wind turbines and electric cars that we get so smugly excited about in the West. Unsure of quite how to react, I take photos and shoot video on my cerium polished iPhone.
This example is precisely why I switch off when it comes to discussions and articles about ‘climate change’
There are prerequisite activities not to mention systematic changes to the current ‘capitalist consumerist model’ which far precede any functionally useful discussions around ‘climate change’
Until the prerequisites are being addressed and actions taken to radically alter the mode of operation such wastelands will continue to multiply and expand
Regardless of your views on Easter Sunday/Good Friday trading, you all have to admit, that it is stupid to forbid the selling of alcohol on Easter Sunday. This is sort of the stuff that happens in Saudi Arabia…
hi millsy, not everyone would have to admit it is stupid to forbid sale of liquor on easter sunday.
people who are made to give up their time to sell it for a start.
Global warming / climate change .
Just finished watching Tony Robinson on prime , Birth of Britain .
It seems about three hundred thousand years ago Britain was at least 5 degrees warmer than today , all sorts of animals roamed the country , lions , hippos etc etc .
O’dear along came an ice age , followed by , you guessed it , global warming and of course the ice melted .
Science has proved it’s about a 300 thousand year cycle , plenty of proof this happened .
One thing for sure global warming at the time wasn’t man made .
Ignorant rto. Somebody said it happened 300,000 years ago. Is he a Climate change denier? They’re very good at making things up. Even so there are other reasons why it might have happened 300,000 years ago. Today it is largely due to a rapid increase in CO2 output caused by humankind. Hope you have grandkids. Serve you right if they die before their allotted time. More than likely they will view people like yourself with utter contempt for being so stupid (mind you most deniers can’t help that) and blind and landing them and their kids in such a terrible mess.
I watched it too, RtO. You’re almost there. Well done! Everyone give RtO a little golf clap for being so brave as to admit the recent climate change exists.
The last little baby step you need, RtO, is to discover the timescale of previous climate change events, and compare that with the timescale of this one. Google “snowball earth” if you really want to learn something.
Then for good measure, compare that with the timescale of the climate change in the Anthropocene. And the trend in the atmospheric carbon isotope ratio.
Then you can reflect on the fact that Tony Robinson can be sure of his facts because Climatology, which you claim is a hoax.
And then you can imagine my contempt and derision.
As someone who has some understanding of metal – I know that the heat generated from burning airplane fuel (kerosene) cannot possibly melt steel, and cause the Twin Towers to collapse in their own footprint at free fall speed.
You are not allowed to question 9/11 on this site.
Free thinking is banned on this subject.
Personal insults are the substitute for critical thinking and discussion.
Perhaps the fact that your modus operandum is to insult people’s intelligence by raising long-dead zombie arguments rather than admitting you’ve got nothing substantive to say, has something to do with the reaction you get.
Sums. Hard work. NIST report. Fourteen years of this inept flailing.
That’s what I tried to explain to the auditors, but they wouldn’t listen… /sarc
Seriously, are you arguing that the NIST report is wrong even if all its sums are correct? That the sums are correct, but that the conclusions the sums lead to are incorrect?
So, muphrey, when you wrote”Q. Who here knows the content of the 28 redacted pages of the report ?” in a subthread specifically about the NIST report, your reference to “the report” was a reference to a random one of the millions of other reports published in human history rather than the report that was the topic of discussion?
Thanks for your contribution. One day you might avoid being a waste of column-space.
For me, it feels a bit like when I get climate deniers on here.
When I notice it, I tend to shift from the acerbic to the outright sarcastic in my comments to them. When I have time, I take a dissection tool to whatever the fools arguments are. Basically I tear at their knowledge and their egos. Mostly because having done some training around the science, fantasists on the subject just piss me off. Since I’m not a climate scientist, I don’t need to be polite and don’t really feel constrained by their usual restraint when dealing with scientific illiterates.
This is also known as free thinking and (relatively) free speech. For me it is pleasant fun and robust debate.
The same applies to 9/11, chemtrails, vaccinations conspiracies, fluoridation and a whole pile of other theories. I generally ignore most of those. But so far I haven’t seen much evidence that convinces me that there is anything substantive on them. But they still get allowed, with the usual extremely skeptical audience.
As a moderator, about the only I usually notice ‘free-tinker’ behaviour if they start astroturfing comments, doing the diversion off topic in other posts that aren’t on those topics, making assertions of fact without linking or explaining, or when they start doing the whine that people disagree with them and are unpleasant in how they point that out. With a subtext that free speech should be allowed for them, but not for others. These are all behaviours that aren’t permitted to exist on the site to any large extent. I usually point them to policy, and if it keeps repeating, I escalate from warnings to bans.
But if it is just robust debate, I just keep an eye on them to see if anything is going over the line.
Gosh have you seen this, we know that the Nats have infiltrated all the public services and filled them at taxpayers expense with flunkies but still… astonishing the level of control!
Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy was advised to ignore calls and don’t answer the phone following concerns raised over foreign drivers.
Last month, the Otago Daily Times requested an interview with the commissioner after publishing a story on a Dunedin man who snatched keys from a foreign driver.
Following her refusal to front, the ODT filed an Official Information Act (OIA) request for all documents received or sent by the commissioner on the topic.
The first email, from an undisclosed employee of the Human Rights Commission immediately following the OIA request, advised the commissioner to “ignore calls and don’t answer phone”.
“Media are after you for comment on foreign drivers getting keys taken off them … we really don’t want to get into this … Police have had their say, PM is all over it etc etc so we are best to leave it at this.”
A follow-up email to the commissioner said: “I want to keep comments from me so that you are not seen to be commenting on this issue at all … Right now we’ve had no complaints and it’s an operational policing issue that needs to be sorted out at that level immediately, it is also anecdotal with a lot of media hype.”
My God maybe good news after all, is MSM stepping up with real news???
I agree with the final bit in that link (it’s not a race relations issue). But the emails seem weird. Pity the ODT didn’t report on that more fully. I do wonder if it speaks more to Devoy’s um lack of experience in the job and staffers trying to save themselves some bother, than Ministerial interference. Isn’t the HRC one of the depts getting cut?
I am not a criminologist or organisational sociologist, so I cannot offer a data-driven opinion on the effectiveness of military-syle so-called ‘boot camps” when it comes to rehabilitating juvenile delinquents and youth offenders. They are popular in the US and … Continue reading → ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Austin, Lecturer in Theatre, The University of Melbourne There has never been an opening ceremony quite like it. For the first time in Olympic Games history, the ceremony took place outside a stadium arena. Despite a rainy and miserable Paris ...
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 ...
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News today that Hahei motor camp is on the market, as is the Whangamata one is bad news for those who cannot afford $2mil beach houses, the less well-off missing out on what used to be a seemingly Gods-own right of a beachfront summer holiday.
What happened to the policy of the Gummint buying these last remaining refuges to save them for the people ?.
It must have been a Labour policy, it obviously doesen’t fit in with “the market will provide”, for the few.
were they council owned?
They look to be privately owned.
Council/DOC owned camping grounds are on reserve land that cant be sold without revocation of reserve status and that needed to be signed off by the minister of conservation*
They tend to be either leased to a mum and dad operator or run by the council/DOC itself.
* = unfortunately the government sneaked through a law change enabling councils to revoke reserve status without needing ministerial permission, meaning Tory-led councils can flog off parks and reserves with government ‘encouragement’.
‘Why Do Good People Become Silent—or Worse—About 9/11?’
By Frances T. Shure
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41437.htm
For trp and others in denial about 9/11
Is Open Mike the place where the deranged and strange are allowed to play?
If so, I’ll avoid it.
Though I’m premeptive mock Pasupial’s feeble protest. Nice to see he’s in the right place.
So you actually read the article?
Of came to a prejudiced opinion?
I started reading it under the impression it was about how 9-11 troofers could maintain bizarre ideas in the face of evidence. Then I realised it was positing the troofers were right and the rest of us (the sane people) were the ones with the bizarre ideas. So I stopped reading it.
So, yeah, I let my prejudices get the better of me. Because I’ve wasted far too much time investigating the claims of troofer types and they never amount to anything more than paranoid fantasies.
Maybe you could provide a bullet point summary of the key information that will change my mind?
WTC7.
I’ve never heard one of the people on this website who personally attack those who apply critical thinking to the events of 9/11 explain WTC7.
Until they do, I remain sceptical to the official conspiracy theory about 9/11
What’s to explain?
I’ve issued this challenge before and I will again: what, precisely, is wrong with the engineering calculations involved in the NIST WTC7 report?
Just to be clear, I want to be shown the significant flaws in NIST’s computer modelling and calculations. Or stfu.
The silencing of dissent.
No, the challenge to do some maths instead of parroting drivel.
hi paul,
the thing that strikes me is the abusive reaction that occurs when this subject comes up.
so far: deranged, paranoid fantasies, stfu, parroting drivel.
i am waiting to be accused of being right wing for daring to question the status quo version of events re wtc t7
ten years ago people probably had a bit more tolerance. But since then no new evidence has been presented, and many lies have been debunked (no airplane debris around the pentagon, “within its own footprint”, “freefall speeds”, yadda yadda). In contrast, the official story still stands up.
So I for one am a bit bored with nutbars making a stupid nutbar hobby around the deaths of 3000 people. Oh, and if you’re worried about being called right wing, I’m worried that a legitimate critic of the US can be silenced by comparing them with people who think mini-nukes or nanothermite demolished any of the WTC buildings.
It’s boredom. You all repeat the same long-debunked zombie arguments, and you haven’t produced a scrap of evidence in fourteen years, and not a single member of the conspiracy has come forward, and you all can’t even agree which tune to sing.
It’s like a multi-orchestra Ives collision, only not as melodious.
Q. Who here knows the content of the 28 redacted pages of the report ?
NIST’s reports are in the public domain and contain no redacted pages, let alone 28. Please try and pay some attention.
Q. Why would you assume I was referring to a NIST report ?
I couldn’t care less what you’re wanking on about. I issued a very specific challenge regarding NIST, and you failed to change the subject.
hi oab,” I’ve issued this challenge before and I will again: what, precisely, is wrong with the engineering calculations involved in the NIST WTC7 report?”
the wrong with the report is that there is no forensic/physical evidence at all, they are based on computer modelling.
modelling based on input data you and i are not priveleged to know about.
therefore you can not be shown the significant flaws.
What you call “input data” is simply the initial state of the model. Which is, duh, in the model.
It seems to me that you are conflating variables with parameters.
It seems to me you’re stalling rather than taking up my challenge.
@ One Anonymous Bloke at 8.57 pm [no Reply button!?]
I have no intention in ‘accepting your challenge’ and I have no idea what or whom I am “stalling”. It just seemed to me that you might not have the faintest idea of basic concepts of S & M.
S&M? Building 7 collapsed because of faulty nipple clamps?
“the wrong with the report is that there is no forensic/physical evidence at all, they are based on computer modelling.”
That sounds suspiciously similar to the rhetoric that climate science denialists use.
Thanks for taking the time to post the link, Paul. Sure, it’s meaningless psychobabble, but after 13 and a half years without evidence, I guess there’s not much left for deniers to focus their hopes on.
I agree no plausible evidence has been presented by the US govt to explain WTC7
Apart from an extensive engineering report, that is. And hours of computer modelling, and forensic analysis, and sums.
Which you don’t understand, a sad fact that is becoming more and more obvious. Christ, in the years of rote-learning drivel, you could have actually got a degree in civil engineering.
911 – a bit like christianity in the variation of beliefs – which 911 belief variant are you paul? If you aren’t sure which bit you are in to – check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories
But I’ll assume you are up to speed with most of them – do you think planes were involved? do you think Flight 93 was shot down? Do you think that Mossad and the CIA did it? Insider trading?
I’m interested because it is pointless discussing this subject without knowing which variant a person believes and you obviously believe this is a worthy subject to discuss because you’ve put it up on OM.
Good post…^
Paul Little should stop playing ‘Chicken Little.’
Winston Peters had every right being upset that Corin Dann tried it on, by wanting to take a live interview with the Northland buy- election losers, Nationals candidate Mark Osborne and campaign manager Stephen Joyce first. After all who convincingly trounced National giving John Key and campaign ‘master stroker’ Joyce their first blood nose since National beat Labour all those years ago.
I saw first hand what was what the following morning in Russell as I was there walking my dog and walking a hangover from the night before’s election party. Dann was up to no good trying to con Peters into a pre recorded interview, presumably so they could
try thy ole ‘edit and mash number.’ Peters was far too aloof for that dirty trick and rightfully held his ground taking the interview live. However Dann still got his way in sorts by interviewing Joyce & co first and making Peters stand around in the rain waiting for the cross. When Dann finally did interview Peters he snarled and treated him with disrespect.
What a nasty little National cheerleader Dann showed himself to be.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11427934
While the back end of the article had some useful comments – exactly what is the big oil benefit- the beginning was absolutely cringing.
Yes Winston had every right to not tolerate the fawning over the losers but FFS to compare Northland to a woman who woke to find the wrong guy in bed with her? Wrong on so many levels -sexist, implying that they would have been better waking up to Osbourne , they had a hangover , etc. Demeaning to women, to men, the voters who voted..
Maybe Paul needs to look at his own life if any of this was an acceptable metaphor.
+1 RB, on so many levels, and unnecessary to make the points.
Yup. If people here wanted a non-pokey stick, sans finger pointing discussion on rape culture, then there was the spring-board right there – blaring sirens, flashing red lights and all.
Oh well…. 🙁
This might be a better starting point. Luddite Journo on Rape Myths in NZ and the NZ media, using a breaking story about an All Black who has been arrested on sexual assault charges and how the media are covering this. Good analysis.
http://thehandmirror.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/telling-stories-about-rape.html
(btw, I think a conversation about rape culture without people thinking there is stick poking going on is almost impossible, here at least. The reasons for that are a complex mix of people taking things personally to the exclusion of the politics, and low tolerance all round leading to not a lot of listening/effective communication)
Thanks for the extract and link Weka.
Also thanks from me too
btw, I think a conversation about rape culture without people thinking there is stick poking going on is almost impossible, here at least. The reasons for that are a complex mix of people taking things personally to the exclusion of the politics, and low tolerance all round leading to not a lot of listening/effective communication.
If the ‘target’ was a neutral (ie, off-site) one, as opposed to ‘half’ the bloody commenters on a particular post, then both the perception of a pokey stick being used and actual pokey sticks being used would be greatly diminished, no? (shrug)*
* really wish there was a thingy jig that produced a shrug. Anyway. (shrug)
Yes, that’s true and certainly lessening such in your face approaches to discussion would help a lot.
I think it’s also true that there are always going to be be people upset personally by the politics. And what do we do with people commenting who are perpetuating rape myths? Once responses to that start, it becomes personal and I don’t see any way around that presently (there’s also the history now, and whether people can get past that). The other unfortunate dynamic is that the conflict happens within groups that should otherwise be political allies (eg the left). I can’t see that changing much until there is greater acceptance within the left of its own issues around gender.
+1 I don’t think he will have emerged from under the rock he has self inflicted himself to hide under by Tuesday. He will be a no show at work.
Paul Little is entitled to his opinion but his piece was boringly predictable and did not contain one single original thought or novel insight. Same for Rodney Hide’s piece. At least John Armstrong, John Roughan, and Fran O’Sullivan occasionally surprise me with a really nice angle or insight. There are some whose columns I almost never read, e.g. Mike Hosking’s.
Of course he is entitled to his opinion – “Northland was stupid to vote for Winston when they could have voted for NACT” but really – what a way to express it.
Imagine how much offence would have been generated by comparing NACT to say a streetwalker (who no doubt is more honest and principaled anyway) .
Compulsory voting, much like democracy, beats the alternatives
Significantly better than ours.
IIRC, our young also don’t vote in droves.
We see this here as governments continue to fail to do anything about bubbling house prices because it will upset the older voters who a) own houses and b) don’t want to see their paper wealth decrease.
Definitely worth considering. I think it’s time that we went to compulsory voting in NZ.
Agree +++ and compulsory unionism.
Compulsory unionism violates the UN declaration of Human Rights as well as the NZ Bill of Rights.
(Disclaimer – before anyone says otherwise I have no problem with unions and support unionisation)
Even if that were true, there are a myriad ways around that, from closed shops to preventing freeloading on collective conditions.
It is true. Article 20 of the UN declaration of human rights specifically outlines the freedom of association.
Indeed.
But one could argue that nobody would be forced to join a union for a specific job. After all, the tories think that working at a specific place is a choice, right? Can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Take it up with the UN
lol did they have a problem with NZ before the employment contracts act?
Surely, you could just ban freeloading on collective conditions?
Anyone not in the union has to go through a negotiating process to achieve their Ts and Cs.
And if they end up getting the same or better Ts and Cs than the union, then the union takes action.
I thought there was a move in this direction in the final Clark administration. Whatever happened to it?
too little, too late.
I’ve heard that prior to the ECA the situation was not technically “compulsory” unionism. Still managed to get a unionised workforce, though.
Disagree with compulsory voting.
We pride ourselves on religious freedom in this country, and one way to support religious freedom, is to support the right not to vote on religious grounds. We have a system where by people exercise their citizen duty by enrolling to vote. And can simply not vote, without jumping through hoops.
I also think we need to ask, rather than use force – why young people are not voting and do not want to vote. I inclined to believe they see through the corruption and hypocrisy of our politicians. Coupled with the fact, the corporations and the 1% are the ones welding power, and no vote or democratic outcome – will make a damn bit of difference with those worshippers of cupidity.
We dont need cumplsory voting, we just need decent candidates and policies.
Compulsory voting for a system which kills and maims and impoverishes …
No thanks
Voting could change the system if more people voted. Not voting will certainly entrench it.
IMO, the big difference between those who don’t support compulsory voting and those of us who do is a matter of perspective. They view voting as a right which people can choose to use or not while I view it as a responsibility that cannot, and should not, be avoided.
We must all have a say in our governance so that our full wisdom is brought to bear rather than just the desires of the rich and elderly.
Draco I understand where you’re coming from with this particular ‘compulsion’
IMO making voting compulsory would not equate to systematic change in an of itself
Making voting compulsory could lead to more people politicizing themselves which in turn could lead to grass roots level change through awareness but the established and entrenched will adjust as necessary to retain control the same way it has done for decades
Compulsory voting is likely to lead to little more than higher invalid vote count and fines (assuming the Australian model of compulsion) as the only way the system knows how to ‘encourage’ people is through monetary penalty
Using Northland as an example of where engagement was in higher numbers but look at what the catalysts were to achieving greater engagement
The establishment is no longer for the people and is in dire need of replacement not greater involvement is propping it up
We have two ways to change the system:
1. Voting for change
2. Bloody revolution
That’s it. There is no other way. You say that we need to change the system and yet you don’t want to use the first.
The system(s) all of them are completely controlled
Treating the electoral system in a vacuum will not alter where we are all headed
Regrettably option two appears the higher chance of success which is hardly an endorsement for it
The path is already decided
oh, good, we can all go back to our playstations and flatscreen teevees then.
Hi Weka
There are many who have chosen the options of distraction and there are many who have chosen a multitude of other options
At some point in the timeline there will be a convergence as the many chosen options are dwindled into a few available options out of absolute necessity
It is once we arrive at that juncture of absolute necessity we will see what those few options actually are and how humanity individually and collectively responds
Too late by then. My comment was more about people who think they know what the future is, or how things will play out. If there’s one thing we can know about the situation we are in, it’s that the ball is in the air and we don’t know where it’s going to land.
(shit, did I just use a sporting analogy).
It appears as if we have not hit rock bottom as a species yet which is disturbing and unsurprising at the same time
To me that is an indicator the juncture has not been reached so I would hope that it won’t be “too late” when it does come because as a species like with addicts it seems we will have to collectively ‘bottom out’ prior to reaching the road to healing
The ball is certainly in the air
It’ll be too late in terms of climate change. We have a window, closing fast. Waiting for the crisis that will force people to change will be too late.
https://henrytapper.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/change.jpeg
HuffPost Canada is reporting that Tom Mulcair has said that if the NDP wins the upcoming Federal election it will be Canada’s last under FPTP. He’s committed to MMP NZ-style.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/02/mulcair-ndp-proportional-representation_n_6407056.html
The sourness of the Paul Little article is very telling. A mark of the perennial, passive-aggressive media dissemination of the Crosby Textor construct narrative – “Key is gold !”. And its extension – “……ergo, all challengers are base”.
Oh “Boo !” Paul Little…….were there the foundation for “John Key quipped…..” you and your mates’d be writing it up as the political howler of the new century. Some would say many of your PC’s templates need serious modification if not deletion. That ain’t gonna kill ya.
Little’s sourness (not saved by cursory mention of Northland issues) reminds me of when Helen Clark appointed Peters foreign minister all those years ago – the Press Gallery in high dudgeon in the flavour of – “We simply will not tolerate this !!!”
7 days remaining until the scheduled return of the Rawshark 2.
+100 Parsupial…and hope you saw the moon last night
I only saw the partial eclipse (about the same as the; @kristen_nz, tweet pic in this RNZ article) before it clouded over and started drizzling:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/270324/-blood-moon-seen-across-nz
Wow thanks very much…I must admit I forgot to watch…distracted elsewhere….but those picture are very good!
funnily enough, I was just thinking today that both the frequency and degree of outright nutty arguments have decreased markedly over the last week or so. And then 9/11 comes up again…
Interesting article and film about a group of workers in New York struggling on five (US) dollars an hour. They’re sandwich makers at a deli.
Five dollars an hour in the land of the free: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/five-dollars-an-hour-in-the-land-of-the-free/
Meanwhile, in Mexico, fruitpickers are taking on some of the world’s biggest and richest companies: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/mexican-farm-workers-strike/
In the south of Ireland, 6,000 workers at one of the largest retail chains went on strike on Thursday against low-hours contracts, low pay, and for full recognition of their union by the retail company: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/6000-dunnes-stores-workers-strike-in-south-of-ireland/
Here, the Cotton On distribution workers won a victory, fairly rare these days for the working class: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/workers-at-cotton-on-win-pay-and-teabreak-victory/
Paleo meets Silicone.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/67613218/nicky-watson-and-paleo-pete-to-marry
lol nice line
Free Khalida Jarrar.
Khalida Jarrar is one of the central leaders of the PFLP, a member of its politbureau.
On April 2,dozens of soldiers of the Israeli occupation forced their way into her home in Ramallah and arrested her for “terrorist” involvement – the usual Israeli designation for anyone resisting the occupation.
After holding her for a while at an Israeli detention centre in the West Bank, they moved her to a prison in Israel.
Jarrar is particularly involved with the rights of Palestinian prisoners and the liberation of Palestinian women.
Story at: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/free-khalida-jarrar/
Re: NZ First becoming a “country party”.
I think this is a natural constituency for them.
Think about the sort of vote Social Credit had. Although many people who voted SC at their height are probably dead now and SC hasn’t existed as a mass force for 30 years or more, there will be plenty of people with some sort of memory of them. There was always a natural Social Credit constituency in rural areas and NZF could easily mop up whatever elements of it still exist.
Whereas other parties – Alliance, ACT, Anderton’s Progressives, Mauri Pacific, Peters’ outfit – have come and gone (and I suspect the Maori Party will go too) – the two MMP-era parties that have a future, because they have a constituency, a stable socio-political base, are the Greens and NZF.
NZF is to the left of Labour on economic policy and to the right of them on social issues. And there’s enough people like that, especially in the regions, to give them a couple of electorate seats and maybe 10% of the vote, possibly even get them back to 1996 levels (I think they got over 13% of the vote that year, I recall they had 17 MPs) as long as they have Winston and provided they manage the succession well. I think either Ron Marks or Shane Jones would do, to keep that base. I think the leader of NZF, for some time anyway, interestingly, will need to be Maori.
One thing about NZF that is also often forgotten is just how big their core base of support is in the Maori seats. They’re the only party apart from Labour to have held all the Maori seats. Moreover, when they captured all the Maori seats, they also won the party vote in all of them but one. They did far, far better than the Maori Party at its height. While that support dropped away, Winston is not just popular among old National types who recall the days when National pursued Keynesian economics; he’s also really popular among Maori because he’s seen as a ‘Maori boy made good’ who sticks it up to the establishment.
So are the so-called ‘left’ parties now going to drop the ‘two ticks’ policy for the 2017 General Election?
ie: Campaign hard and strong for the PARTY vote, but campaign strategically for the ELECTORATE vote, especially in pivotal seats?
Given that ‘doing a Northland’ has proven to be rather spectacularly successful?
ie: Vote strategically for the candidate that has the best chance of taking the seat off National, or National’s coalition allies?
In my view, that doesn’t mean so-called ‘left’ political parties not standing electorate candidates in pivotal seats, but campaigning on the issues, for PARTY not ELECTORATE votes.
The reason why I say ‘so-called left parties’ is because, in my view, that terminology became redundant after the 1984 – 87 Labour Government introduced the neo-liberal ‘Rogernomic$’ reforms.
In my view – the line in the sand is ‘public majority’ vs ‘corporate minority’ and those who serve their interests….
Penny Bright
http://www.pennybright4mayor.org.nz
What I have found is a useful yardstick in deciding ‘who is the MAIN electoral enemy’ – as it were – is to check the ‘mood of the boardroom’ (BIG business CEOs) – find out who THEY would prefer to run NZ in the House – then do the opposite.
Because, in my opinion, that’s how our NZ ‘democracy’ works – according to the ‘Golden Rule’.
ie: Those who have the gold make the rules, and we get the government that the majority of BIG business wants us to have.
Penny Bright
“check the ‘mood of the boardroom’ (BIG business CEOs) – find out who THEY would prefer to run NZ in the House”
Good point, but HOW do we or the ordinary voters find out that info from the BB CEOs?
I strongly disagree for two reasons:
1) It is a counter-productive dichotomy to view politics as warfare between friends/allies versus enemies to produce “winners & losers”. This is 20th-century politics; it is time to invent and develop new paradigms;
2) It runs counter to critical independent thinking and taking full ownership of one’s own choices.
1) It is a counter-productive dichotomy to view politics as warfare between friends/allies versus enemies to produce “winners & losers”. This is 20th-century politics; it is time to invent and develop new paradigms;
^this
Matthew Gardiner, the Northern Territory unionist who fought against ISIS has been arrested on return to Oz. He could be looking at a lengthy jail term for doing independently what Australia wants to train the Iraqi troops to do for themselves.
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/former-labor-party-president-matthew-gardiner-arrested-at-darwin-airport-20150405-1meqhx.html
Thanks for the link te reo putake – Disgraceful from the the Australian Government.
Up’s to Bill – he has said this would happen, many times over the last few months here on the standard.
+1
Shockingly disgraceful.
Look at the photo of Matthew Gardiner. An intelligent, compassionate and rational person who is on the same side as the Western powers. So, who is mad? The Australian law enforcers that’s who. Someone should arrest them and now?!!
He has been release without begin charge, but AFP are still continuing with its enquiries in regards to his time spent of overseas.
Canada beat NZ in the world sevens in Tokyo…..!shock and awe.
Whose fault? Our fault. Don’t read if you want to remain ignorant
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth?ocid=global_future_rss
This example is precisely why I switch off when it comes to discussions and articles about ‘climate change’
There are prerequisite activities not to mention systematic changes to the current ‘capitalist consumerist model’ which far precede any functionally useful discussions around ‘climate change’
Until the prerequisites are being addressed and actions taken to radically alter the mode of operation such wastelands will continue to multiply and expand
A sobering link
Thanks MM
Regardless of your views on Easter Sunday/Good Friday trading, you all have to admit, that it is stupid to forbid the selling of alcohol on Easter Sunday. This is sort of the stuff that happens in Saudi Arabia…
Meh, I don’t know if it’s that bad to have a couple of holidays in NZ that aren’t entirely piss-focused.
hi millsy, not everyone would have to admit it is stupid to forbid sale of liquor on easter sunday.
people who are made to give up their time to sell it for a start.
Global warming / climate change .
Just finished watching Tony Robinson on prime , Birth of Britain .
It seems about three hundred thousand years ago Britain was at least 5 degrees warmer than today , all sorts of animals roamed the country , lions , hippos etc etc .
O’dear along came an ice age , followed by , you guessed it , global warming and of course the ice melted .
Science has proved it’s about a 300 thousand year cycle , plenty of proof this happened .
One thing for sure global warming at the time wasn’t man made .
zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Ignorant rto. Somebody said it happened 300,000 years ago. Is he a Climate change denier? They’re very good at making things up. Even so there are other reasons why it might have happened 300,000 years ago. Today it is largely due to a rapid increase in CO2 output caused by humankind. Hope you have grandkids. Serve you right if they die before their allotted time. More than likely they will view people like yourself with utter contempt for being so stupid (mind you most deniers can’t help that) and blind and landing them and their kids in such a terrible mess.
I watched it too, RtO. You’re almost there. Well done! Everyone give RtO a little golf clap for being so brave as to admit the recent climate change exists.
The last little baby step you need, RtO, is to discover the timescale of previous climate change events, and compare that with the timescale of this one. Google “snowball earth” if you really want to learn something.
Then for good measure, compare that with the timescale of the climate change in the Anthropocene. And the trend in the atmospheric carbon isotope ratio.
Then you can reflect on the fact that Tony Robinson can be sure of his facts because Climatology, which you claim is a hoax.
And then you can imagine my contempt and derision.
For the public record – I absolutely support architects and engineers for 9/11 truth, in their quest for an independent inquiry.
http://www.ae911truth.org
As someone who has some understanding of metal – I know that the heat generated from burning airplane fuel (kerosene) cannot possibly melt steel, and cause the Twin Towers to collapse in their own footprint at free fall speed.
You have GOT to be kidding.
Penny Bright
Advanced Trade
Sheetmetal Engineering
Aviation fuel was the only material burning was it, your Madness?
Q. Does it make you feel more of a man when you insult others ?
You are not allowed to question 9/11 on this site.
Free thinking is banned on this subject.
Personal insults are the substitute for critical thinking and discussion.
Perhaps the fact that your modus operandum is to insult people’s intelligence by raising long-dead zombie arguments rather than admitting you’ve got nothing substantive to say, has something to do with the reaction you get.
Sums. Hard work. NIST report. Fourteen years of this inept flailing.
Yet you keep coming back with the same responses as if the entire process and circumstances have been transparent and above board
The ineptitude you are shrieking about is not the work of commentators such as Paul
Inept is nothing but a soothing synonym for corrupt
The inept flailing is all yours. It’s so much easier to allege corruption than do sums.
Corruption outs itself and has nothing to do with ‘sums’
That’s what I tried to explain to the auditors, but they wouldn’t listen… /sarc
Seriously, are you arguing that the NIST report is wrong even if all its sums are correct? That the sums are correct, but that the conclusions the sums lead to are incorrect?
But Penny’s got a sheetmetal trade cert. That makes her practically a professor of materials engineering, ya know.
McFlock, don’t forget that science is in a permanent state of wibbly wobbly, and changes all the time. That includes Maths, even though it’s an art.
I have not been referring to a NIST report and made that clear towards the top end of open mike
Lies fraud and corruption are deeply ingrained and yet people still want to assert there is ‘truth’ in what they believe
So, muphrey, when you wrote”Q. Who here knows the content of the 28 redacted pages of the report ?” in a subthread specifically about the NIST report, your reference to “the report” was a reference to a random one of the millions of other reports published in human history rather than the report that was the topic of discussion?
Thanks for your contribution. One day you might avoid being a waste of column-space.
“You are not allowed to question 9/11 on this site.
Free thinking is banned on this subject.”
Bullshit paul The Standard team does no such thing – that is up there with pete george’s rubbish – in fact you posted on it today didn’t you.
For me, it feels a bit like when I get climate deniers on here.
When I notice it, I tend to shift from the acerbic to the outright sarcastic in my comments to them. When I have time, I take a dissection tool to whatever the fools arguments are. Basically I tear at their knowledge and their egos. Mostly because having done some training around the science, fantasists on the subject just piss me off. Since I’m not a climate scientist, I don’t need to be polite and don’t really feel constrained by their usual restraint when dealing with scientific illiterates.
This is also known as free thinking and (relatively) free speech. For me it is pleasant fun and robust debate.
The same applies to 9/11, chemtrails, vaccinations conspiracies, fluoridation and a whole pile of other theories. I generally ignore most of those. But so far I haven’t seen much evidence that convinces me that there is anything substantive on them. But they still get allowed, with the usual extremely skeptical audience.
As a moderator, about the only I usually notice ‘free-tinker’ behaviour if they start astroturfing comments, doing the diversion off topic in other posts that aren’t on those topics, making assertions of fact without linking or explaining, or when they start doing the whine that people disagree with them and are unpleasant in how they point that out. With a subtext that free speech should be allowed for them, but not for others. These are all behaviours that aren’t permitted to exist on the site to any large extent. I usually point them to policy, and if it keeps repeating, I escalate from warnings to bans.
But if it is just robust debate, I just keep an eye on them to see if anything is going over the line.
+100 Penny
An independent enquiry would shed some light on the true story behind 9/11
What is the true story waiting to be illuminated?
didn’t some lawyer have an independent enquiry? Came up with zip. Good pr exercise though, and I bet it got him a goodcareer on the speaking tour.
Yes, maybe it should be called the “911 Commission”
Have just read this very interesting article by Doug Edmeades in the nzfarmer March 16. page 7 and thought some of you might like to have a look.
Titled ‘Science, one voice among many’ it is quite thought provoking in my opinion.
http://tinyurl.com/q7phpkm
It’s behind a wall. Could you summarise?
I’ll summarise:
Climate change denial.
The title alone screams it.
Why not title it “Opinions are like arseholes, we all have one”
Or “Farmers: entitled arseholes who deny facts”
Farmers are happy with science when it makes them some coin, but it’s rude to mention the cost of their filthy emissions.
He has been release without begin charge, but AFP are still continuing with its enquiries in regards to his time spent of overseas.
Gosh have you seen this, we know that the Nats have infiltrated all the public services and filled them at taxpayers expense with flunkies but still… astonishing the level of control!
Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy was advised to ignore calls and don’t answer the phone following concerns raised over foreign drivers.
Last month, the Otago Daily Times requested an interview with the commissioner after publishing a story on a Dunedin man who snatched keys from a foreign driver.
Following her refusal to front, the ODT filed an Official Information Act (OIA) request for all documents received or sent by the commissioner on the topic.
The first email, from an undisclosed employee of the Human Rights Commission immediately following the OIA request, advised the commissioner to “ignore calls and don’t answer phone”.
“Media are after you for comment on foreign drivers getting keys taken off them … we really don’t want to get into this … Police have had their say, PM is all over it etc etc so we are best to leave it at this.”
A follow-up email to the commissioner said: “I want to keep comments from me so that you are not seen to be commenting on this issue at all … Right now we’ve had no complaints and it’s an operational policing issue that needs to be sorted out at that level immediately, it is also anecdotal with a lot of media hype.”
My God maybe good news after all, is MSM stepping up with real news???
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/338243/commissioner-quiet
I agree with the final bit in that link (it’s not a race relations issue). But the emails seem weird. Pity the ODT didn’t report on that more fully. I do wonder if it speaks more to Devoy’s um lack of experience in the job and staffers trying to save themselves some bother, than Ministerial interference. Isn’t the HRC one of the depts getting cut?