Directorial standards are slipping, the plot is getting stale, the script needs radical editing and new perspectives. We have a few writers, directors and operators who can do the job. No hobbits, I promise ..
This was on the 7:30 report tonight a very good article about this gas attack.
I’m afraid folks this looks like the real deal and it doesn’t be appear be a VX agent or something similar more off a sarin or mustard agent ,but it might take 1-2 weeks to confirm. I’ll do some digging around tomorrow and see what I can come with.
The Guardian has given over its opinion column to the leader of the west’s favourite terrorist organisation. Is anyone still singing along to this broken record?
Here’s the opening verse (you’ve heard it before).
Yet only this morning we have witnessed a suspected chemical weapon attack – one of the most horrifying in six years of this bloody conflict.At least 60 civilians were gassed to death and more than 300 are still being treated; many are in a critical condition. Members of my team sought to wash the deadly chemical from the eyes of the affected children. Soon afterwards our centre in the town was destroyed, along with all of our life-saving equipment. Then a local hospital where victims were being treated was also bombed. On Sunday, the largest hospital in the region was also bombed, again after treating children affected by Assad’s chemical attacks. Are there no red lines?
Many people are there. Not all people there are Syrian. Some people have agendas that are helped along and supported by explicit and direct western government support.
Do I have to link to the Guardian piece again from a while back that was out of step with their otherwise uniform reporting? The one that perhaps mistakenly or inadvertently, or then again, perhaps by dint of some very cunning work by a journalist or journalists with a conscience, kind of ‘let the cat out of the bag’?
Here you go. Try reading it critically and a little (just a little) deeper than at a mere surface level. I’ll give you some help. (Think, given their genesis is English, “White Helmets”)
Contractors hired by the Foreign Office but overseen by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) produce videos, photos, military reports, radio broadcasts, print products and social media posts branded with the logos of fighting groups, and effectively run a press office for opposition fighters.
Fisk: “…don’t ask me if they’ve used chemical weapons. It’s conceivable. There really isn’t any proof.”
Well, exactly. If there was proof, this wouldn’t just be a matter of competing claims in the media. My own view of it is that people who’ve been murdered by their own government no longer care about the weapons that were used (or anything else, for that matter) – but it’s newsworthy either way.
…supported by explicit and direct western government support.
Do you know how many revolutionary movements of the 20th Century received explicit and direct Soviet government support? It’s certainly too many for me to be arsed counting them all, but only right-wing propagandists claimed those movements were therefore puppets of the USSR. Governments have interests, and sometimes those interests overlap with other people’s interests – it’s a given, ’twas ever thus, and doesn’t necessarily imply the people who find their interests overlapping with a foreign government’s are tools of a foreign power, terrorists, untrustworthy, or very much else.
Mate! you can’t put up links from ‘fake news’ sites! /sarc
So that you know (for future reference) PM and many others will only countenance news coming from more impeccable sources, the likes of CNN, BBC, Guardian, NYT…because thems is fonts of truth, objectivity, serious investigative reporting and critical analysis.
What the hell you thinking? Linking to dodgy foreign (non- western) rubbish… 😉
edit – serious request. Can you please use the reply tabs in future? Thanks.
There’s a difference between propaganda and “fake news” – we’ve had that discussion before. This one looks to be a Syrian regime propaganda site, not a fake news site.
You know I’m of the persuasion that only those desperate to cling to a particular world view divide propaganda into supposed ”fake news” and propaganda, and that they do that in order to justify dismissing out of hand information that might threaten their cotton candy silo.
And I know you disagree.
Al-Masdar News is based in the United Arab Emirates, not Syria.
Totally agree . We do not allow frausters to immigrate to this country. If guilty of it here they should all be sent back to wherever they came from. Same for the Indian shopkeeper found guilty of tricking and exploiting his immigrant workers last week.
Why have our immigration doors not been closed by now except to the people who have skills not found in our own population. Why ? Everyone I speak to wants this to happen. Where are the ears and actions of the politicians who are supposed to be acting on the mainstream will of the legal New Zealand population. Why ?
About halfway down there are a couple of bar graphs, in the second, “Average Length of Stay by Market”, Indian and Thai visitors have the second and third longest average stays at 48 and 29 days, something odd going on there. Most Thai, and all Indian visitors I encounter across are finding New Zealand far too expensive for their budget, so month or so stays would be unexpected. For those markets to be staying that long they would have to be working, so probably shouldn’t be on a tourist visa.
Germans are longest at 49 days which would be right for the backpacker market.
Mum & Dad coming to stay with the kids to look after grandchildren might explain the length of Indian & Thai stays as they may be largish in proportion to the just holidaying tourist market
NZ news item! Interesting contrast in RadioNZ news items today. And some other titbits thrown in for your info. Enjoy….
technology life and society
4 Apr 2017
Robotics in farming – the revolution begins
From Nine To Noon, 9:25 am on 4 April 2017
Listen duration 13′ :46″ http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201839068
Waikato University’s Mike Duke says robots harvesting fruit in New Zealand orchards could be years not decades away. He’s picking that the technology has the potential to revolutionize all aspects of the horticulture industry as well as forestry and dairy.
Professor Duke will be giving a lecture on this topic next Tuesday 11th April at the University of Waikato.
and
money economy
4 Apr 2017
NZ’s homeowners now worth $1.2 trillion
From Nine To Noon, 9:08 am on 4 April 2017
Listen duration 19′ :53″ http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201839067
Kathryn Ryan talks to Bernard Hickey from Newsroom who says figures released by Statistics New Zealand show household net worth has risen from $323 billion to $1.2 trillion in the last 8 years – with most of that increase being driven by rising property prices.
As a side effect he says its now virtually impossible for children of renters to make their way onto the property ladder unless they marry into what he’s dubbed the new landed gentry.
The connection here? Who will be buying and living in houses when the robots take the employment from society’s hands, and contain it in their elegantly sculpted fingers? Wot about the workers? Wot’s left for the humans! Oh that’s right the Conchords told us, they’re dead.
Or soon will be – just wrecks and the nobs left, showing little of our potential to be wonderful creatures living together in uneasy creativity under regularly affirmed and agreed restraints using our rationality.
Scoop needs money to run an effective campaign in election year. If you can channel some of your spending to a donation and regular monthly payments of even $20 to keep the support, you are doing your best to be a wonderfully creative human. But act now, there will be tipping points where we can stop the run of the dominoes, or alter the flow but they can’t be constantly passed by.
Finally Schumacher from essay – Technology with a Human Face in Small is Beautiful. Technology although of course the product of man, tends to develop by its own laws and principles and these are very different from those of human nature or of living nature in general. Nature always, so to speak, knows where and when to stop. Greater even than the mystery of natural growth is the mystery of the natural cessation of growth…which tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology and specialisation….
If that which has been shaped by technology and continues to be so shaped, looks sick, it might be wise to have a look at technology itself…if becoming more inhuman, we might do well to consider…better – a technology with a human face.
@greywarshark
Hundreds of thousands of $$ on robots or $15.50 an hour on backpackers/islanders where you can explain the fruit picking job to them in 30 minutes and that’s just about all the instruction they need for a month?
Hundreds of thousands of dollars on a machine that will do the work of two people for twenty years with good maintenance. Against thirty five thousand per person every year for those twenty years.
Yep, the robot is much cheaper.
And, yep, hopefully it’s only a few years before they’re available.
and then you start adding cost of unemployment – yes even a UBI will cost money, and other societal costs associated with long term unemployment and then maybe your robot is not that cheap after all.
but you make a good point,
its not that we don’t have jobs that needs doing, its just that we don’t want to pay anyone for doing them.
Really what do you expect the people of tomorrow to do on their poverty UBI with fuck all to do during the day cause everything is done by robots.
Oh yeah, they will pick up knitting and drown in jumpers.
The economy is not money no matter how much the economists and RWNJs insist that it is. It the physical resources we have available at any one time and the people to bring about innovative ways to use them for the benefit of society.
its not that we don’t have jobs that needs doing, its just that we don’t want to pay anyone for doing them.
That’s part of it – NZers are generally horribly cheap. But that’s partially because the RWNJs have been saying that taxes are theft and robbery. Now look at what happens when we follow the recommendations of those RWNJs and cut taxes – the people become worse off while a few rich people become much richer.
In other words the lessons that the RWNJs and the rich have thrown at us are a smokescreen to encourage the people to vote against their own best interests.
Really what do you expect the people of tomorrow to do on their poverty UBI with fuck all to do during the day cause everything is done by robots.
Revolution and the permanent removal of rich people.
“its not that we don’t have jobs that needs doing, its just that we don’t want to pay anyone for doing them.”
” That’s part of it – NZers are generally horribly cheap. But that’s partially because the RWNJs have been saying that taxes are theft and robbery. Now look at what happens when we follow the recommendations of those RWNJs and cut taxes – the people become worse off while a few rich people become much richer.”
Actually no, its society. We all want shit done for free or for cheap. We use volunteers to not have to pay people a wage. We hold fundraiser for Ambulances and Fire Engines. We have high unemployment while we have high demand for volunteers. Hmmm? Why? Why not pay people money to do that as a job instead and call it working for the UBI. or, you cold condemn people to death by boredom, once all the work is done by robots and most of us live in chicken cages and try to survive of a UBI.
as for Revolution…sorry mate. Not interested. Revolution generally are not good for women. Especially i have no use for revolutions that involve smashing the lot and replacing it with nothing.
Its a bit like Trumpcare, all repeal, little replacement but a whole lot of grifting for the rich which – and this is historically proven – you will never really get rid of, you chop the head of one family, other will come and take over. Rinse repeat.
oh and society can’t unlearn what it has been tought? Seriously?
yes, the suffragettes were revolutionary, but getting the right to vote was not a revolution. It was a fight to a particular right and they won, but they did not want to dis-stablilze society in order to burn it down and remake a ‘better and brighter future’ from the ashes. They wanted to vote.
But it was not a society changing revolution. It gave women the vote and until the late sixties early seventies that was pretty much what they got. The right to vote. The right to have a bank account and a cheque book came in the 70, the right to the pill came in 1974 and so on and so on, tiny little wars won in a long battle that is still being fought. So maybe this is what you mean when you say revolution? Hundred of years of tiny battle to get a little bit more rights.
No the type of revolution that changes a society radically such as the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution are bloody, messy, full of hunger and violence and it is usually the women and children who are at the receiving end.
And if there is no music and dance, then i have no use in your revolution.
The quicker New Zealand gets rid of most of these poorly paid harvesting jobs that few locals want to do, the better.
QFT
And that’s what many people don’t understand. Get rid of those jobs and we have more people to put into the education and health systems and many other jobs that presently don’t have enough people in them.
Alternative facts did not start with Donald Trump. For years, emotion has played a bigger role than reason in many public debates.
But the rejection of rationalism and faith in experts is getting worse according to Tom Nichols, a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.
He says an epidemic of narcissism, where no one is ever wrong, is fueling the problem.
He explores the implications of the ‘post truth’ era in his new book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters.
Hey thanks – just picked up item while passing at Radionz for my comment on tech and housing. I’ll get the gen on all all the expertise stuff at the same time. I do rely on TS when I go to get The Knowledge! I particularly resonates with me as I try to discuss and offer ideas to various others and find I can’t dent the Certainty Carapace.
A few minutes after this report North Korea fired a projectile off it’s east coast.
BREAKING: A senior WH official on the state of North Korea’s nuclear program: “The clock has now run out and all options are on the table”— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 4, 2017
The 20 million souls within range of NK artillery will be pleased to have a man with a steady hand in the White House.
/
Secretary of State Tillerson released this statement on Tuesday’s ballistic missile launch:
North Korea launched yet another intermediate range ballistic missile. The United States has spoken enough about North Korea. We have no further comment.
It would be one thing for the US to simply ignore North Korea’s provocations, but Tillerson’s statement follows this warning from a senior White House official just hours earlier:
The clock has now run out and all options are on the table.
I guess wee Stevie will be along soon to tell us Co2 is great because palm trees and crocodiles.
No, the headline is not a typo. Current carbon dioxide levels are unprecedented in human history and are on track to climb to even more ominous heights in just a few decades.
If carbon emissions continue on their current trajectory, new findings show that by mid-century, the atmosphere could reach a state unseen in 50 million years. Back then, temperatures were up to 18°F (10°C) warmer, ice was almost nowhere to be seen and oceans were dramatically higher than they are now.
[…]
“The early Eocene was much warmer than today: global mean surface temperature was at least 10°C (18°F) warmer than today,” Dana Royer, a paleoclimate researcher at Wesleyan University who co-authored the new research, said. “There was little-to-no permanent ice. Palms and crocodiles inhabited the Canadian Arctic.”
Where were humans in this warmer age? Anywhere? Living in palm trees because of the crocodiles? What about now? What about the polar bears and penguins!
Let’s concentrate, and not digress – look here WW1, look here footpaths for cycles and pedestrians walking inside little plastic protective cubes with helmets on, look here pictures from 5 million light years in space, look here implants of stem cells keeping you alive to 200 years. Phooey.
The amount of a UBI is quite important, if its too low (like what TOP is proposing) then it will become a way to undermine welfare.
But this is not the only problem with a UBI. For example what a UBI doesn’t do is engage people in meaningful work, and as such it doesn’t put any pressure on the nature of work in society. You can find discussion of this among the linked blog posts from that one, but just to highlight one issue.
Somebody sitting on a UBI for a long time is not too different to somebody being on a benefit for a number of years. What it doesn’t do is give them the job skills which somebody employed over those years will develop. The person unemployed for this period will still no doubt be discriminated against when trying to enter employment from that position, and will likely start at a lower wage rate than the employed person changing work at that point. There are plenty of good economic reasons to favor employment over just income due to similar factors as this (both for individuals and macro-economic outcomes).
How can Bill English use the word compassionate, when the costs for cannabis products are prohibitive. A total disconnect from reality of the people who need this medicines, and their economic status.
Nice one Roy. I’d say it’s not about the money. It’s about getting an unreserved apology for being accused of corruption by someone whose every word is potentially broadcast to 4 million people.
So it’s not pathetic, it’s a lesson in getting it right and admitting when you got it wrong
“…not about the money…”
He’s unreservedly, publicly apologised already; but they aren’t having it. Moreover, asking for a bit of sunlight isn’t quite an ‘accusation’ is it?
He did get it right – there’s a very bad smell about people getting government funding shortly after making a fat donation to the governing party. Unfortunately, under NZ law, being right doesn’t necessarily keep you out of court if you’re right about vindictive Tories with deep pockets.
They didn’t. The money went to the govt of Niue. That’s why Little is in court. The same sloppy attention to detail you’re showing. He pointed to the wrong village same as some other newsworthy individuals.
Thing about smells is that they’re not about details. They’re the general odour, in the general area of something that might be rotten, or just blue cheese.
When the general picture needs investigating, arguing over details is just weak.
Smells can also be highly misleading as you point out. Rather than shrieking something is dead and rotting under the bed you should first investigate that it’s not your own sweaty socks.
He said something smelled, and that maybe we should look under the bed and make sure it’s all clean under there. That’s all. And it’s his job to do that.
I think the apology was likely a rational cost/benefit calculation on the eve of the trial. I frankly think the complaint about his comments is bullshit, but whatever. It’s a civil matter, not a criminal case.
He made a very genuine apology in court today and good on him. Par;iamentarians have a huge advantage over the public with almost total freedom of speech in Parliament, with next to no comeback if you are maligned. But they have to use that responsibly and if they don’t they deserve to get stung – though not the $2m being spoken about. That said I would have thought their reputation was worth at least double that of Jordan Williams. Juries can be funny folk.
Horseshit. AL has already apologised and offered a settlement. Why do RWNJ’s always want to investigate the whistleblower rather than the criminal stench that surrounds the Nats dodgy deals?
There was nothing dodgy here. Are you in the Labour Research Unit? Because your alternative facts are just fake news.
You need to read the AG report and understand the mechanics of what went on.
The Matavai Hotel is owned by the Govt of Niue. it had something like 20 rooms. The NZ Govt gave them money to double its size. This process was started before the Hagaman donation and SCenic winning the managment contract, and was part of a long term pattern of NZ support for Niue’s only hotel.
Niue only has 1500 people and have shown no real skills at running international hotels. So they decided to contract its management out. There was an open tender run by an expert global hotel consultancy. Scenic was one of two tenders.
They get paid a fee to manage a hotel. They don’t own it, they aren’t being paid to build it. do you really think they are making much money managing a 45 room hotel on an isolated island?
I had the impression that the money went to the owner of the hotel – do you have a reference for where it was said that the hotel is owned by the government of Niue? I presume it is a franchise operation however, so some of the benefit of any improvement to the property should accrue to the franchise holders – else why would the Hagermans be even slightly interested?.
I’m not clear on the time line, but there was apparently an assessment process in place which was considering a possible grant – again I don’t know whether the grant had been requested or whether tenders had been called for ways of assisting Nuie, but it seems reasonable to presume that Mrs Hagerman at least was aware of that process. Murray McCully has a reputation for knowing all details of what is going on in his department, so it is possible he knew about the assessment being made. At some stage around then the President of the National Party just happens to turn up to seek a donation to the party – absolutely no link can ever be proved between that chance visit and anything else, and of course the Hagermans cannot be criticised for doing what many other business people engaged in a commercial relationship with the government seem to have done, which is making a donation to the National Party – there is the example of Oravida for example which also coincidentally may have received government assistance around the time of making a donation – just as and that other friend of National, Kim Dotcom, made political donations around the time that a friendly John Banks had been assisting him. No connection at all between donations and services of course – pure coincidence, but it may perhaps be reasonable to call attention to a series of coincidences where business people may have been under the (obviously mistaken) impression that a donation to National somehow may assist getting assistance from some part of government. That is no criticism of people making donations of course, but it may be hard to give an example of a coincidence without mentioning both a donation and a service that just happens to occur in close proximity . . . However the praise that the Hagermans are now getting for their business acumen (they apparently sure know how to invest to make money) is possibly an unexpected bonus for them, particularly as Mr Hagerman is apparently gravely unwell – a reputation for tenacity, an eye to a chance of making money, and for looking after friends is surely no bad thing?
you had that impression becasue Andrew Little aided by people like Ropata and others, couldn’t be bothered doing proper research. you also were willing to accept their slurs were true because you probably thought they had done their homework. You were misled and you should be angry with the people who did that to you.
It’s all in the AG report http://www.oag.govt.nz/media/2016/niue-hotel. It’s an easy read. The contract was let by Matavai Niue Limited, a company registered in Niue. directors Of MNL are responsible for appointing the manager of the resort. The premier of Niue is one of the directors.
It wasn’t rocket science. A few phone calls could have saved them a lot of grief but political grabs were the priority.
There is also a very rotten smell about vexatious litigation against the leader of the Opposition Party acting in his democratic role.
Potential for a rather chilling effect on free speech and democracy. The court better think carefully, especially given the smog of “dirty politics” is still hanging around the Nats.
It looks exactly like a dirty politics style smear campaign. Little has apologised and offered a huge settlement, but the litigious twats are enjoying their pathetic revenge by trying to drag AL through the mud. Vexatious.
He had plenty of time to apologise when the AG report came out. Why do you feel that ordinary citizens don’t have the right to defend their reputations while politicians have free reign to trample on them?
Even Lani (sp?) gave evidence that all she wants is an apology and costs, but somehow her intentions fell right off and she ended up suing for $2M by accident.
Bwahaha thanks for putting words in my mouth. The job of an Opposition MP is to question the Government and other powerful establishment figures. I know this seems like treason to RW fucktards (no doubt you are dying to send AL to Guantanamo Bay) but it used to be a democratic norm.
prettt silly comment there ropata. He’s got the right to make those comments, his victims have the right to sue if they are libellous. Andrew little has found out the greatest lesson there is on freedom of speech. Say what you want, just accept the consequences.
How democratic is it if politicians can wildly spray allegations around without any consequence.
You mean like the Nat’s campaign of lies against David Cunliffe over a nonexistent 100K donation from Donghua Liu?
Not very “democratic” was it. I find it deeply concerning that the dirty politics machine seems to be gearing up for another assault on democracy in NZ. And yet unprincipled RWNJ’s refuse to admit their own complicity, and moronically slag off truth tellers like Nicky Hager. Disgusting
No problem at all. You would think that the current leader of the opposition would have the wit to use it. Jacinda wouldn’t have made this grievous mistake that is going to cost little and labour a fortune.
Deep legal reasoning and economic understanding aren’t really your thing. yes little has apologised, but only once he realised that he was deep in the kak.
But It certainly won’t keep you out of court if your wrong and refuse to admit that and apologise in a timely fashion. Little is a lawyer, how did he not know this?
It’s right there in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 427(b): Everyone has the right to own hotels and make enormous political donations and no free speech about such arrangements is allowed whatsoever.
I was impressed with Michael Wood speaking on the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill (both parts one and two).
He looks a more experienced speaker than I would have imagined for a newby.
Video part one here:
Trevor Mallard criticised Wood at the end, saying he had been talking about a part of the amendment bill that had been axed. After the next speaker also slammed the amendment, Mallard appologised for getting it wrong, and that Wood had been correctly addressing a part still in the bill.
Isn’t it strange how National party politicians can overtly slander people (e.g. Nicky Hager is a left wing conspiracy theorist” despite his acknowledged credentials here and overseas), yet Andrew Little can’t ask questions about hotel owners who receive business benefits after donating to National?
Isn’t it odd that politicians who are a threat to National end up in court? Craig, the Conservative Party leader (taken to court by National Party boys), went to court for speaking out to the media after he’d signed an agreement to keep quiet. He was done on this (it was not actually a court case about the rights and wrongs of his sexual behaviour).
All National need is a TV appearance of their political foes in court. This is what they are after. Most of the public don’t follow the details; National knows this.
And the spin doctors above who’ve infiltrated this site know this.
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The Herald reported over the weekend that an Auckland business owner is being targeted with asset forfeiture laws over a workplace death:A workplace fatality has seen police use a law usually associated with drugs and organised crime to seize millions of dollars in assets from a business owner because of ...
Just days after talking about how people feel "squeezed" and promising tax and service cuts as a "solution", National is talking about cancelling a rise in the minimum wage if elected: National is considering scrapping the Government's planned minimum wage increase if it wins this year's election, the party's finance ...
Nobody thinks about the next century anymore. That at least is Sci-Fi writer William Gibson’s observation (in this BBC 4 short interview, starting at 1:43:50 ). He calls it “Futures Fatigue”, but isn’t judgemental about it. Gibson notes that in the 20th century speculation about the 21st (and beyond) was common. Now ...
A Labour government desperate for the numbers crawls into bed with Winston Peters. Winston ignores the law and secretly takes money under the table from someone. When it is exposed just months out from an election, he is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. That's what happened back in 2008. ...
So the Serious Fraud Office has another secret $100,050 National Party donation before the Courts in a major scandal that looks set to quash any chances Simon Bridges had of winning the 2020 election.Yesterday, Newsroom reported:The Serious Fraud Office prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C., breaks off Pine Island glacier in Antarctica Story Highlights: The Pine Island ...
Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanHousing policy is building up to be the key election issue again. In this blog I reflect on the importance of the role of the New Zealand Government in improving access to affordable housing. I look at what the Government has been doing to increase quality public housing ...
Writing on The Spinoff, Danyl Mclauchlan argues that we have a vacuum in our political system, in that there is no longer an anti-establishment party anymore:I think there’s a vacuum in our political system. There are obvious problems with the status quo but no real critics offering reform. It’s a ...
Stuff today has a piece about the government discovering it has been oversubsidising polluters for a decade under the Emissions Trading scheme:The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits. [...] ...
The Marlborough District Council, tired of public scrutiny, wants to increase the amount it charges for LGOIMA requests:The cost of requesting official information from Marlborough's government agency could almost double after a jump in "fishing expeditions". Charges could be raised from $60 to $100 an hour for information supplied by ...
When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken ...
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...
With over 69,000 confirmed cases and 1,600 deaths, here’s your round-up of the latest coronavirus news. New disease and virus have now officially been named On the 11th February, the WHO Director General announced a new name for the disease: COVID-19 which is short for coronavirus disease 2019. The naming ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 9, 2020 through Sat, Feb 15, 2020 Editor's Pick ANALYSIS-Climate change opens up 'frontier' farmland, but at what cost to the planet?Climate change could expand farmland globally by ...
After cross-examination Jones knew he would lose the defamation case he took against film maker Renae Maihi. That’s why he threw in the towel. The weight of evidence was clearly against the old tycoon with the defense presenting fifty articles to confirm Jones’ racist views.Being unable to harass somebody into ...
Sprung! Former NZ First president, Lester Gray, chats with RNZ's Guyon Espiner in the carpark of a Tauranga shopping centre.(Photo supplied anonymously to NZ First and The BFD.)IT’S CLEAR THAT an important aspect of Jacinda Ardern’s political success is her willingness to seek – and take – advice. This ...
Ruth Cunningham, Charlotte Paul, Andrew MoorePublic health responses to infectious diseases such as COVID-19 require us to draw on our common humanity and be explicit about our values. Recognising this will help us make good decisions in difficult situations so that, for example, the need to impose restrictive measures ...
The Helen Clark Foundation has released its report on the housing crisis, and found that house-hoarders are to blame for it:Property investors are to blame for New Zealand's high house prices, a new research paper published by the Helen Clark Foundation says. [...] McArthur said previous attempts to address housing ...
The Abortion Legislation Committee has reported back on the Abortion Legislation Bill and recommended that it be passed with some amendments. Unfortunately, the latter include even more hoops to jump through for those seeking abortions after 20 weeks, including a time-wasting requirement to consult a second doctor. No-one casually seeks ...
Brexit is likely to be a disaster for the UK (how sad, never mind). But now that they're out of the EU, the latter has finaly taken the opportunity to blacklist one of their key tax havens:The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is to be put on an EU ...
I’m not quite sure of what to make of the new figures for COVID-19 (as we must now call the novel coronavirus – though I’m not sure the capitalisation is correct) from Hubei province:Image from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51495484The spike yesterday is a consequence of a using a different way of ...
Bob Jones has dropped his defamation case against Renae Maihi. Good. But at the same time, it perfectly exposes what the case was all about: not protecting Jones' reputation, but punishing someone who had dared to criticise him, and deterring others from doing the same. This rich pompous asshat dragged ...
As I've done for the past few years, I'm curating and presenting The Listening Lounge, the talk programme at Splore. On the morning of Saturday the 22nd at the Living Lounge stage, the korero goes like this.Yes, we're talking about drugs again, not just because I'm professionally interested in drug ...
What Were They Thinking? RNZ's CEO Paul Thompson (left) and Jim Mather, Chairman of the RNZ Board of Governors, attempt to justify the debacle arising out of their attempt to downgrade RNZ Concert to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee at Parliament on Thursday, 13 February 2020.WHAT IS ...
Dame Tariana Turia with former PM John KeyWhat is it about Tariana Turia’s grudge against the Labour Party? Not content with attacking the Government over Whānau Ora funding, which was increased by $80 million in 2019, she has now made it personal by saying that Jacinda Ardern is out of her ...
Back in 2017, right after being elected, Jacinda Ardern promised that there would be no new mines on conservation land. Since then, her government has done nothing to make that happen, and now the policy has been officially "parked" for the election:West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor says the "no new ...
So the guy who advocated for public burning and beheading feels offended because someone called him a racist!Perhaps Bob Jones hasn't heard of the very old saying; Live by the sword, die by the sword?I mean for someone who often writes opinionated nonsense about Maori; this is a ridiculous case ...
The government today announced a major support package aimed at reducing homelessness. A thousand new transitional housing places, more support for people to find homes (or not lose them in the first place), all good stuff. The one problem with it is that they're going to start charging people in ...
Courtroom Drama: There is no off-switch in a courtroom. Neither is it possible to turn the page in disgust. Ill-formed and ill-defended opinions will be exposed ruthlessly and unapologetically. As Shakespeare put it: “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” Sometimes the ...
As of today, the novel coronavirus spreading in China is called COVID-19. Why does it matter? Around the office, we’ve had several conversations over the past few weeks about how 2019-nCoV needed its own name. First, it was getting annoying calling it by the above designation, and ‘novel coronavirus’ doesn’t ...
by Philip Ferguson Last month B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reported: “In 2019, Israeli security forces killed 133 Palestinians, including 28 minors. Of the casualties, 104 were killed in the Gaza Strip, 26 in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and three within ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2) (Brett Hudson)Its basicly more "tough on crime" nonsense (its already illegal for unlicensed people to own guns) designed to wedge NZ First against its arsehole base. ...
In 2015 the world agreed to the Paris Agreement to fight climate change. Each country would offer a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) "that it intends to achieve", and "pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving [it]". And every five years, they'd improve on it, ratcheting up ambition until ...
In theory, the emissions trading scheme should reduce emissions. Making polluters pay for permits to pollute lets them save money by reducing pollution, giving them a financial incentive to do the right thing. But right from the start the ETS was broken with a system of free allocation, so polluters ...
Irish voters went to the polls on Saturday in parliamentary elections, and perhaps delivered a political revolution. Since independence, Irish politics has been dominated by two parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Basicly patronage networks with indistinguishable policies, their cleavage isn't ideology, but who killed whose father or grandfather in ...
Once again the Aotearoa Bike Challenge is on us, and once again I’m participating. In principle this is not hard because it does not represent a significant switch in behavior for me. I already bike nearly every day. The Bicycle The fascinating thing about cycling is the realisation that this ...
Lately there has been a great deal of misinformation regarding the origins and purpose of Skeptical Science. As John Cook wrote nearly a decade ago, Skeptical Science is primarily a website that debunks climate misinformation with peer-reviewed science. Despite the ever-worsening impacts from climate change, with record after record being broken in ...
Under Attack: By sacking not only RNZ Concert’s presenters, but also its producers and librarians, and reducing the station to an automated purveyor of classical music in-between parliamentary broadcasts, RNZ’s CEO, Paul Thompson, wasn’t simply announcing an operational shake-up, he was declaring war on one of the most important guardians of ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Australian smoke plume sets recordsThe recent wildfires in Australia sent one of ...
The Global Protest to #FightInequality was powerful – thankyou and what next? Dear allies, We started the decade with a huge protest to #FightInequality that was heard around the world, including the 1% at Davos. Watch and share the highlights on facebook and twitter. A huge thank you. Together we ...
The Ministry of Health have announced a package that might ensure NZ will never experience another measles epidemic. While at the time of writing the details are still limited it appears that the important limitations in our current programme have been acknowledged and the intent is to address them. Great ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Michael BakerIn this blog we briefly summarise our assessment of the highly uncertain new coronavirus threat. Given its potential to become a severe and prolonged global pandemic, a precautionary response now means activating all components of our pandemic plan, with a particular focus on ‘keep ...
When Labour was running for election, Jacinda Ardern famously said that climate change was "my generation's nuclear free moment". The implication was that her government would take the problem seriously, and act swiftly to reduce emissions. The reality:New Zealand will emit a million more tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2020 ...
James Renwick is Professor of Physical Geography at Victoria University of Wellington. He studied at Canterbury and the University of Washington and has worked on diverse aspects of climate science, including global atmospheric circulation and Antarctic sea ice. In December 2019 he was appointed to the New Zealand Climate Change ...
Today New Zealand First made a pledge to campaign at the election to fund St John Ambulance the 90 per cent it has asked for. Government funding would allow St. John’s to achieve fully funded status. Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters publicly declared his determination to deliver ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order Newly released Police data shows once again the number of fleeing drivers have continued to skyrocket with a record 512 incidents occurring in December – almost tripling the number of incidents occurring just ten years ago, says New Zealand First Law and ...
While the Provincial Growth Fund has provided $2 million to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia, Regional Economic Minister Shane Jones said he is greatly concerned that there are “issues” in implementing the projects. The Minister said the immediate solution was to pipe water from a bore ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland NZ First is calling on Rio Tinto to accept its responsibilities to the Southland community and enable the immediate removal of the toxic Aluminium Dross from the Mataura Paper Mill site. New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland, Mark Patterson ...
The Coalition Government has announced that a further $500,000 will be given to help residents in Southland and Otago to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. It follows prior government assistance of $200,000 earlier this month where the Southland Mayoral Relief Fund received $100,000 to support communities impacted by ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones was on RNZ’s Morning Report talking about the recent droughts in the Northland region and what the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is doing to alleviate its impact. The PGF recently announced a funding of $2 million for temporary water supplies to Kaikohe and Kaitaia, ...
Speaking to The Country’s Jamie Mackay, New Zealand First MP and Cabinet Minister Shane Jones talks water storage, plant-based meat imitation, and superstar Hollywood director James Cameron. While water storage may have its critics, Minister Jones defended the scheme by saying: “unless we invest and continue to invest” in this ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones is accusing northern iwi leaders of selling out Māori by voting for ideologically-driven court cases rather than practical steps to increase water supply. “I just think that iwi leaders who think that water issues are going to be solved by perpetually fighting in the ...
A dairy owner in St Kilda, Dunedin was delighted to hear that an attempted robbery of his establishment was foiled by a government-funded security system. Sean Lee was delighted at how well the anti-theft smoke system worked. When a knife-wielding man entered the store, the shop assistant immediately pressed a ...
Customs says it stopped more than three tonnes of illegal drugs coming into New Zealand last year. This includes 1,180kg of methamphetamine, 329kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors, which could have been converted into 246kg of methamphetamine, 739kg and 6469 pills of MDMA or Ecstasy and 60kg of cocaine. Offshore, ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Up to $2 million will be allocated from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia where drought is biting hard, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Drought conditions in Northland have led to ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Broadcasting New Zealand First supports the commissioning of a business case to assess the viability of a new public media entity. “A strong media environment is critical for a healthy democracy. New Zealand First is a strong supporter of a diverse, independent media,” New Zealand First broadcasting spokesperson ...
Pounamou and technology industries in the West Coast region are set to receive more than $2 million in Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) funding. This was announced by the Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau during Waitangi Day commemorations in Hokitika. He said $800,000 would be given to Development West ...
Clayton Mitchell MP, New Zealand First spokesperson for Labour and Industrial Relations Unemployment and wage growth numbers released by Stats NZ today demonstrate a labour market in good shape with unemployment falling to 4.0%, the underutilisation rate falling to an 11 year low, and wage growth at a 10-year high ...
Hon. Ron Mark, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Defence New Zealand First Spokesperson for Defence Ron Mark, welcomes the official opening of Te Rau Aroha, a new museum at Waitangi Treaty Grounds as part of our Coalition Agreement. “It is a great honour to be part of an effective Government ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime MinisterGood morning,Let us start with important acknowledgements.First, this special day, in remembrance of the 28th Maori Battalion, is also to honour all those men and women who have risked their lives in the service of our country.Second, special guest Robert ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand will look to build on its relationship with the United Kingdom and recommit to the European Union, after the country officially left the continental union recently. The Minister said New Zealand already cooperates closely with Britain on defence and security issues and has ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is delivering on its commitment to unlock the potential of Māori-owned land with investments up and down the country making a genuine difference to communities, Regional Economic Development Shane Jones says.At Waitangi last year, the Government ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister The Government is placing temporary entry restrictions into New Zealand on all foreign nationals travelling from, or transiting through mainland China to assist with the containment of the novel coronavirus and to protect New Zealand and the Pacific Islands from the disease. This ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has extended the date for people to have their say on proposed changes to improve management of whitebait across New Zealand. Submissions were due to close on 2 March 2020 but will now remain open until 9am on Monday 16 March 2020. “I have ...
The endangered toroa/Antipodean albatross has new international protection for its 100,000km annual migration, thanks to collaborative efforts led by New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Today, 130 countries agreed to strictly protect Antipodean albatross at the Conference of Parties on the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild ...
No sales to under-18-year-olds No advertising and sponsorship of vaping products and e-cigarettes No vaping or smokeless tobacco in smokefree areas Regulates vaping product safety comprehensively, - including devices, flavours and ingredients Ensure vaping products are available for those who want to quit smoking Vaping regulation that balances ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little will travel to Berlin tomorrow to represent New Zealand at a high-level summit on nuclear disarmament. This year, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) celebrates 50 years since it entered into force. “New Zealand’s proud record and leadership on nuclear disarmament is unwavering, so it’s important we are present ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will visit two of New Zealand’s most important Pacific partners, Fiji and Australia, next week. The visit to Fiji will be the first by a New Zealand Prime Minister in four years and comes during the 50th anniversary of Fijian independence and diplomatic relations between our ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little and New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball, have today announced the appointment of the Chief Commissioner of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the location, and the membership of the Establishment Advisory Group. Colin Carruthers QC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of the CCRC for an ...
Māori Development Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Agriculture Minister Hon Damien O’Connor co-announced the first horticultural finalists for the Ahuwhenua Trophy celebrating excellence in the Māori agricultural sector. The three finalists are Ngai Tukairangi Trust from Mt Maunganui, Otama Marere Trust from Tauranga, and Hineora Orchard Te Kaha 15B Ahuwhenua ...
A new kete of resources to strengthen support for students with dyslexia will provide extra tools for the new Learning Support Coordinators (LSCs) as they start in schools, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Minister launched the kete in Wellington this morning, at the first of three induction ...
The Government continues to make progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the First Reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill and its referral to the Social Services and Community Select Committee. “Now is the opportunity for landlords, tenants and others who want ...
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Hon James Marape will visit New Zealand from 21-25 February, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “New Zealand and Papua New Guinea have a warm and friendly relationship. I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Marape here and strengthening the relationship between our two countries,” ...
Thousands of children have begun receiving a free lunch on every day of the school week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. The Government’s free and healthy school lunch programme is under way for 7,000 students at 31 schools in Hawke’s Bay / Tairāwhiti and Bay of Plenty / Waiariki, extending ...
The Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni today announced a new approach that continues to broaden the Government’s social sector focus from a narrow, investment approach to one centred on people and wellbeing. Minister Sepuloni said redefining the previous approach to social investment by combining science, data and lived experience ...
The Government is strengthening the Protected Disclosures Act to provide better protection for whistle blowers, Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins said today. “The Protected Disclosures Act is meant to encourage people to speak up about serious wrongdoing in the workplace and protect them from losing their jobs or being ...
Nǐn hǎo (Hello in Mandarin). Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year in Mandarin) Néi Hóu (Hello in Cantonese). Sun Nin Fai Lok (Happy New Year in Cantonese) Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you for your invitation to attend this celebration today. I would like to acknowledge ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ngā ...
Tougher penalties for gun crime are a step closer with the passage of firearms reform legislation through another stage in Parliament. The Arms Legislation Bill has tonight passed its Second Reading. “The changes have one objective - to prevent firearms falling into the wrong hands,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
Introduction Mr Speaker We all know why we are here today. It has been a long journey. The journey did not actually begin on 15 March 2019. It began on 30 June 1997. Almost 23 years ago, Justice Sir Thomas Thorp told us what was wrong with our firearms legislation. ...
The Government’s work to put trades and vocational education back on the agenda took another major step forward today with the passing of the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said. “This is a watershed day for trades and vocational education. These law changes formalise ...
Speeding up the return of Christchurch regeneration activities to local leadership is behind the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill introduced to Parliament today by Minister Megan Woods. “As we approach nine years since the February 2011 earthquake in Canterbury, and with the transition to local leadership well underway, the time ...
Hundreds of New Zealanders and international visitors will be able to get back out into nature with the Milford Track partially reopening next week, after extensive assessments and repairs, the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced today. The popular Great Walk has been closed since 3 February after an extreme ...
Up to 110 new EV chargers nationwide in cities and regions 50 electric vehicles for ride-sharing The Government is helping deliver more infrastructure and options for low emissions transport through new projects, Energy and Resources Minister Dr Megan Woods says. Tauranga, Nelson, Levin, New Plymouth and Oamaru are just some ...
New Zealanders are increasingly better off under this Government as wages rise and families have more disposable income, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. Stats NZ reported today that average household disposable incomes after housing costs rose 4.9% in 2019. This was the highest rise in four years and came as ...
All New Zealanders need to have their voices heard at work to ensure we have an inclusive and productive economy. Today we introduce a Bill to do this for workers in the New Zealand screen industry, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “The Screen Industry Workers Bill will ...
The Government has announced further help for the Southland and Otago regions to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. “I’ve approved Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG), making $500,000 available to help with the clean-up in Fiordland, Southland, and the Clutha district in Otago,” Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni said. ...
Following the announcement that more than 340 schools will be funded to run events promoting vocational education, the Government has announced it will fund a further 257 events to be run by employers and industry. “These industry-run events will allow more than 30,000 students to connect with more than 2,000 ...
Today the Government is making progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the introduction of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in Parliament. “This Bill includes a series of reforms to improve the wellbeing of the 609,700 households that live in rented homes, and ...
A Government programme to wipe out pea weevil has achieved a world first, with Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor today announcing the successful eradication of the noxious pest from Wairarapa. This means the nearly four-year ban on pea plants and pea straw was lifted today. Commercial and home gardeners can again grow ...
Southland residents hit by flooding caused by heavy rainfall can now access help finding temporary accommodation with the Government activating the Temporary Accommodation Service, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare announced today. “The Temporary Accommodation Service (TAS) has been activated by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to help ...
“Is that it?” That’s Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s response to Simon Bridges’ much-hyped economic speech today. “Simon Bridges just gave the most over-hyped and under-delivered speech that I can remember during my time in politics,” Grant Robertson said. “It’s not surprising. Simon Bridges literally said on the radio this morning ...
A trial deployment of the Police Eagle helicopter in Christchurch will test whether the aircraft would make a significant difference to crime prevention and community safety. “The Bell 429 helicopter will be based in Christchurch for five weeks, from 17 February to 20 March,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. “The ...
The Government has kept up the pace of its work to promote New Zealand’s trade interests and diversify our export markets, with visits to Fiji and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker. Building momentum to bring the PACER Plus trade and development agreement ...
The Coalition Government’s investment in a strong border and disrupting transnational organised crime produced record results for stopping drugs in 2019, says Minister of Customs Jenny Salesa. The illegal drugs were seized at the New Zealand border by Customs, and overseas by Customs’ international border partners before the drugs could ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off construction of a separated cycleway alongside Tamaki Drive. A two-way separated cycleway will be built along the northern side of Tamaki Drive, between the Quay Street Cycleway extension and Ngapipi Road. There will be a separate walking path alongside. Phil Twyford said giving ...
Owner-occupiers of unit and apartments living in earthquake-prone buildings will have certainty about the financial support they’ll be eligible for with the release of criteria for an upcoming assistance scheme, Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa says. The Residential Earthquake-Prone Building Financial Assistance Scheme will help unit owners facing ...
Temporary restrictions on travel from China will remain in place as a precautionary measure to protect against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The restrictions which prevent foreign nationals travelling from, or transiting through, mainland China from entering New Zealand have been extended for a further 8 days. This position ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today that Tairāwhiti rangatahi will benefit from an investment made by the Government’s He Poutama Rangatahi (HPR) scheme. The funding will go to the Tautua Village, Kauneke programme and the Matapuna Supported Employment Programme which will fund 120 rangatahi over two years. “Both programmes work ...
All parents and caregivers need to ensure that their children go to school unless they are sick, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin said today. “The school attendance results for 2019 show, across the board, a drop in the number of students going to school regularly,” the Minister says. “Apart from ...
A Deed of Settlement agreeing redress for historical Treaty claims has been signed by the Crown and Moriori at Kōpinga Marae on Rēkohu (Chatham Islands) today, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little has announced. Moriori have a tradition of peace that extends back over 600 years. This settlement ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today with Māori King Tuheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII officially opened the country’s newest road, the $384 million Huntly section of the Waikato Expressway. The 15km four-lane highway with side and central safety barriers takes State Highway 1 east of Huntly town, across lowlands and streams ...
Details of the Government's newly-announced vaping crackdown may keep New Zealanders smoking and paying exorbitant excise taxes, says the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union. Taxpayers' Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, "We welcome the decision not ...
News that the Government is set to regulate vaping is welcomed. However, heavily restricting where most vape flavours can be sold is a step too far and could lead to rising smoking rates, says the Vaping Trade Association of New Zealand (VTANZ). ...
Tala Pasifika is applauding Associate Minister of Health Jenny Salesa’s Vaping Amendment Bill announcement and hopes that all parties will support the bill as a positive move for Pacific peoples trying to quit smoking. The Smoke-free Environments ...
Rawiri Waititi will stand for the Maori Party in Waiariki at September’s General Election. The 39-year-year old’s candidacy was today confirmed in Rotorua. Waiariki Maori Party Electorate Chair Verna Ohia-Gates said Waititi was an outstanding choice ...
ASH NZ congratulates Minister Salesa on the introduction of legislation to regulate vaping. ASH NZ Chair, Prof Robert Beaglehole said, “It is wonderful that a Bill will be introduced next week and we congratulate Minister Salesa on balancing the ...
Associate Minister of Health Jenny Salesa has announced, after an anxious wait, the proposed Vaping Amendment Bill. CEO of Hāpai Te Haora, Selah Hart wants to congratulate the Minister and is encouraging all parties to help bring the bill home. The Smoke-free ...
ALRANZ president Terry Bellamak and HELP Chief Executive Conor Twyford respond to the news that medical practitioners may keep the right to refuse to provide contraception to sexual assault survivors. Approximately 1 in 4 New Zealand women experience a serious sexual assault. That’s a lot of suffering. How do we care for ...
The Cancer Society calls for cross-party support to ensure vaping regulations are introduced. The Cancer Society is pleased to see the vaping Bill introduced by Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa and urges for a speedy process, supported by all political ...
Host Duncan Greive is joined by The Spinoff editor Toby Manhire to discuss the dramatic events surrounding RNZ this month on The Spinoff’s media podcast, The Fold.It’s an institution whose major point-of-difference is its stability – while the rest of media is slashing and pivoting, RNZ has shows which run ...
The government will introduce laws to further regulate vaping and e-cigarettes, including tightening age restrictions, barring advertising, and regulating where they can be sold and used. ...
If you’re not the foraging type, fear not: supermarket berries will work just fine (but imagine how wholesome you’ll feel if you pick your own!)This is one of my favourite times of the year, when we pile the kids in the car and head east, over the hills to where ...
It’s called ‘CANZUK’, and it’s a bad idea. New Zealand should not be suckered in by dreams of Empire 2.0, writes Lewis Holden.The clock struck 11 on January 31, 2020 and it was all over. Britain was out of the European Union after 47 years. Under the much-maligned Brexit deal ...
As a rising Hindu nationalism exerts itself in India, online Indian communities in New Zealand are also seeing a growth in Islamophobic sentiment.It was the scariest night of his life.Mohammad still remembers hiding in a shallow ditch with his family. He remembers covering his one-year-old brother’s mouth each time the ...
Being a new parent is scary and overwhelming and you can forget that it’s also full of happiness. Simon Day shares the moments of joy that have pulled him through the first eight weeks of being a new dad to twins. It’s 3:36am and I’ve just fed, changed, burped, and put ...
The Labour Party says it has received money from two of the people facing charges in relation to National Party donations but says they were above board. ...
New Zealand First’s action to halt the introduction of a ‘feebate’ scheme designed to support the nation’s transition to low-emission vehicles is a leap back into the industrial age, says Drive Electric Chairman Mark Gilbert. “While ...
Staff expenses at the Reserve Bank – which have increased by an average 4.4% a year since 2009/11 – surged by 14.8% in the 12 months to 2018/19. Total staff numbers increased by an average 3.4 a year during those nine years but shot up by 19 in 2018/19 from ...
The Socialist Equality Group is holding a protest rally on Sunday February 23 in Wellington to demand freedom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Sunday 23 February, 3:00pm Cuba Street (Left Bank intersection) ...
By Felipe F. Salvosa II in Manila ABS-CBN president and CEO Carlo Lopez Katigbak has broken his silence amid the controversy over renewal of the Philippine TV giant’s broadcast franchise, which expires in one month. Katigbak, in a video posted on the ABS-CBN News site and aired over flagship ...
RNZ management wants to grow a youth audience without having to build a costly new platform. Anna Dean offers a bunch – none of which involves scrapping RNZ Concert.Over the next few weeks RNZ National Concert staff are set to take part in strategy workshops focused on “growth in audience reach, ...
Today LockerRoom brings you the first episode of Pure As, a mini documentary series on the Silver Ferns' personal journeys to World Cup glory. So much of the magic and composure Silver Ferns captain Ameliaranne Ekenasio brings to the netball court today was learned from years of sitting on the ...
"He was an energy vacuum, a shit magnet, a waste of skin": a black comedy by Nelson writer Grant Smithies. The stars he saw were blue, green, golden. Little lights swam around slowly, then went out one by one. His face felt hot. His left eye wasn’t working. And ...
Yes, it’s still summer and, en route to that final festival or beach bolt-hole, the season of the road trip. Here Spinoff Art co-editor Mark Amery runs down some of the best North Island contemporary art stopovers, and the mavericks behind them. We cross the Cook Strait next year, promise.Back ...
The Star Wars prequels are universally regarded as the nadir of the franchise, but at least they gave us spinoff series The Clone Wars, writes Sam BrooksNobody likes the Star Wars prequels. Though that statement is slightly hyperbolic, it’s not far from the truth. Even if you can make a ...
Jai Breitnauer on what happens when male role models start disappearing from a child’s life.Recently, we saw a ghost from the past. Once a regular visitor to our home, there just after the birth of our first child and a constant presence for more than a decade, this individual disappeared ...
Dragon Quest: Your Story feels like an hour-and-a-half-long highlight reel of an adventure spanning dozens of hours, but it’s damn fun, writes Felix Walton.One of Netflix’s current hustles seems to be grabbing movies with little to no hope of a wide release and publishing them as “Netflix Originals.” The latest ...
The Ministry of Education is proposing a number of changes to NCEA Level One, including the merging of several subjects to be phased in over the next five years. Felix Walton looks into how, and why, these changes are happening.Why are they changing things now?They aren’t changing things now, per ...
Pacific Media Centre Chinese authorities are systematically harassing Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups even after they have left the country, according to new testimonies gathered by Amnesty International. Uyghur New Zealanders were among those interviewed, despite the threat of further intimidation. The case studies, published online today, reveal ...
A victim of the Generate KiwiSaver hack is considering legal action to seek compensation for stress and the risk of identity theft. One of the 26,000 KiwiSavers who had personal information, including their physical address, IRD number, bank statements and identification, stolen by an unknown third party has sought advice ...
Healthcare appliance manufacturer Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has upped its profit forecasts for the third time this year, with increased sales off the back of the coronavirus. The company now expects a full year net profit of between $260 and $270 million, up 1.9 percent on its previous forecast. Chief ...
Power company Genesis Energy has taken a significant financial hit and lowered its guidance, because of lower hydro generation and gas shortages. Net profit for the six months ended December fell 81.4 percent to $9.2 million, from slightly lower revenue of $1.3 billion. Lower inflows for its hydro power stations ...
Kiwibank's first half profit is down on flat revenue growth and increased operations and compliance costs. The New Zealand-owned bank's net profit fell 18 percent to $51 million in the six months to December, compared with the year earlier's $62m. "As expected the bank faced rising operating costs due to ...
The New Zealand Bar Association has urged Parliament to balance carefully the need to reform legislation in respect of sexual violence with the need to ensure that only the guilty are convicted. The Association told the Justice Select Committee ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Michelle Grattan talks with Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher about the week in politics, including the extension of the coronavirus travel ban, the royal commission into the bushfires, and labor’s stance on a compulsory superannuation guarantee ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Steen, Professor of Midwifery, University of South Australia In a new parenting podcast, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, said she used hypnobirthing techniques to help her get through severe morning sickness – a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum. She also used the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Alexander, Research fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne This article is the first in a three-part series on radical ideas to solve the environmental crisis. As the Productivity Commission confirmed this week, Australia’s economy has enjoyed uninterrupted growth for ...
The Nats are accusing Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor of being slow to act on a tuberculosis outbreak in Hawke’s Bay. Is it a fair cop? OSPRI confirmed an outbreak in Hawke’s Bay in April last year, but a disease management response wasn’t put in place until October, National agriculture spokesman ...
Porirua City Council is scratching its head on how it's going to meet the costs of a $2 billion bill to bring its water network up to scratch over the next two to three decades. ...
The sentencing of Grace Millane’s killer to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years marks the end of a judicial process that can only have been extremely harrowing for her family. They had already experienced the loss of their daughter, ...
Twenty years ago, Auckland’s streets were ruled by diesel-hating narcs. Josie Adams looks back at the short-lived 0800 SMOKEY campaign.For five chaotic weeks in 2000, the Auckland Regional Council experimented with extreme, multi-level peer pressure. The goal: to get cleaner-burning fuel into Auckland cars. The method: turning citizens against each ...
The National Party donations scandal that had nothing to do with the National Party was the big news of the week. James Elliott has some thoughts on that. Simon Bridges has climbed into double digits as preferred Prime Minister in the latest political polling which is significant for two reasons. ...
He thought he’d moved on, but the news the Holden brand was being killed off hit Trevor McKewen harder than he expected. Here he reminisces about a youthful infatuation that never quite burned out.A part of me died this week and I didn’t see it coming.Holden has shut up shop ...
Today the unnamed man found guilty of murdering Grace Millane was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 17. “One person has been locked away but are New Zealand women any safer?” asks White Ribbon Manager Rob McCann. “We certainly ...
Pacific Media Watch An Australian federal court decision upholding the legality of the police raid on the Sydney headquarters of the national public broadcaster ABC last June has dealt a major blow to the protection of journalists’ sources and poses a grave danger for the future of public interest ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Picador, $20)What is going on, Auckland? Is it just ...
A poem by US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.The FightThe rising sun paints the feet of night-crawling enemies. And they scatter into the burning hills. I have fought each of them. I know them by name. From before I could speak. I’ve used every weapon. To make them retreat. Yet they ...
A string of toy companies are facing legal action for selling unsafe toys that pose choking hazards for young children. Yesterday, Cinevan International was fined $81,000 and another four companies are before the courts. Businesses have been using a sticker on the packaging saying 'not suitable for children under three' ...
The Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee, Gareth Hughes, is calling for public submissions on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which was referred to the committee on 20 February 2020. The Residential Tenancies Act ...
ANALYSIS:By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape has embarked on a state visit to New Zealand. It is the first visit to New Zealand by a sitting PNG prime minister since Marape’s predecessor Peter O’Neill’s trip in 2013. Marape, who rolled O’Neill ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentDonations scandals Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Who are the people at the centre of the SFO political donation row? Collette ...
Policyholders fear the sale of AMP LIfe to a Bermuda-based 'zombie fund guru' could leave them stranded because a legal gap means the FMA is powerless to protect them ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Giancaspro, Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide When booking a luxury cruise, you generally expect relaxation and enjoyment, not forced quarantine and distress. Unfortunately, for the thousands of vacationers trapped on cruise ships in Asia the past month, what started as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Courtney Hempton, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University The Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board has this week published a report detailing the first six months of the legislation in action in Victoria. The report reveals 52 people legally ended their lives from the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blanca del Rosal Rabes, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology Brain temperature is implicated in many common conditions including stroke, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, and headaches. Changes in brain temperature can indicate there is a disease developing, but researchers ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Anthony Albanese will commit a Labor government to adopting a target of zero net emissions by 2050, in a speech titled “Leadership in a New Climate” to be delivered on Friday. The opposition leader’s embrace ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy N. W. Jackson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australian Venom Research Unit, University of Melbourne This is an article from I’ve Always Wondered, a series where readers send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. Send your question to alwayswondered@theconversation.edu.auWho would ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamen Franklen Gussen, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology In 1971, a Time magazine article, titled “Should New York City Be the 51st State?”, observed: States have not only short-changed and hamstrung their cities but are themselves the least creative ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ida Kubiszewski, Associate professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Labor’s treasury spokesman, Jim Chalmers, wants to follow New Zealand’s example and introduce a “wellbeing budget” alongside the traditional budget that stresses economic growth, when Labor is next in office. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Andreallo, Honorary research fellow, University of Sydney A sea of oversized hair bows bobs through primary school gates each morning. It might be dismissed as a harmless children’s fad but big bows are back, driven by current fashions, tween influencers and ...
The Government of New Zealand has recognized that the country is facing a housing crisis, said Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, at the end of her visit to the country . “While the Government has taken important steps ...
Survey results released today by the Helen Clark Foundation and the New Zealand Drug Foundation show that support for cannabis legalisation grows when people know more about the proposed legislation. When respondents were asked how they would vote ...
In today’s edition: Views on cannabis legalisation could hardly be tighter, the Papua New Guinea PM arrives in NZ, and bad light threatens cricket on the radio.A new poll published this morning finds that 46% of those surveyed would vote yes, and 44% no, with 10% undecided. That’s a markedly different ...
Actress Jennifer Ward-Lealand Te Atamira, a long-time champion of the arts, and te reo Māoriis the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year for 2020. Mark Jennings reports on the night that honours the best of us. What does it mean to be a New Zealander? The question was posed by ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias.FICTION 1 In the Clearing by JP Pomare (Hachette, $34.99) All next week at ReadingRoom is devoted to this brilliant thriller inspired by Australian cult The Family, led by ...
‘A life-changing experience’, ‘The greatest of the great! It must be experienced!’, ‘That show with the dancing lady on the billboard.’ Shen Yun ads are impossible to avoid, but what on earth is it?So what is Shen Yun?According to the Shen Yun website: “It is a brilliant artistic revival ...
Open Mike 05/04/2017 
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 16, 2020 through Sat, Feb 22, 2020 Editor's Pick JP Morgan economists warn climate crisis is threat to human race Leaked report for world’s major fossil fuel financier says ...11 hours ago
Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article ‘The Dangerous Denial of Sex by two scientists Colin Wright and Emma Hilton. Write is an evolutionary biologist at Penn State and Hilton is a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester. It is well worth reading the article in full. Here ...23 hours ago
I am about to mail my overseas ballot to Florida so that it can be counted in the Democratic primary on March 17. In Florida you have closed as opposed to open primaries, which means that one must declare a party preference in order to vote in a party primary. ...1 day ago
Winston Peters - Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the NZ First PartyWe all know that politics can be pretty messy at times. Just look at the Dirty Politics saga in New Zealand, the misgovernment of the Australian bushfires or the recent Trump impeachment debacle in the US. In a ...1 day ago
Last Monday SpaceX launched another clutch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, bringing up to 300 the number of these units intended to bring 5G internet to the whole globe. In this post I present a movie showing how all 300 such satellites will be zipping around our planet over ...2 days ago
The recent floods in Southland have highlighted the issue of Rio Tinto's illegal toxic waste dump in Mataura. But according to Newsroom, there's an even worse mess in Ruakaka near Whangarei:A Northland property stockpiled one million litres of flammable and toxic chemicals. Almost two years since the situation came to ...2 days ago
The Democracy Virus: China’s authoritarian political system enables a level of social surveillance and control that liberal democratic societies cannot match. The Chinese Government makes full use of the latest digital technology to both punish – and reward – its citizens. The plans it formulates cannot be challenged, or hindered. Where ...2 days ago
In mid-December the Israeli secret police, the Shin Beit, revealed it had arrested dozens of Palestinian left-wing activists, including members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the previous few months. Among those arrested was one of the central leaders of the PFLP, Khalida Jarrar. As ...4 days ago
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...7 days ago
...2 weeks ago
We're taking action on child poverty, getting Kiwis into the trades, and more ...21 hours ago
Today New Zealand First made a pledge to campaign at the election to fund St John Ambulance the 90 per cent it has asked for. Government funding would allow St. John’s to achieve fully funded status. Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters publicly declared his determination to deliver ...2 days ago
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has extended the date for people to have their say on proposed changes to improve management of whitebait across New Zealand. Submissions were due to close on 2 March 2020 but will now remain open until 9am on Monday 16 March 2020. “I have ...6 hours ago
Details of the Government's newly-announced vaping crackdown may keep New Zealanders smoking and paying exorbitant excise taxes, says the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union. Taxpayers' Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, "We welcome the decision not ...5 hours ago
ALRANZ president Terry Bellamak and HELP Chief Executive Conor Twyford respond to the news that medical practitioners may keep the right to refuse to provide contraception to sexual assault survivors. Approximately 1 in 4 New Zealand women experience a serious sexual assault. That’s a lot of suffering. How do we care for ...6 hours ago
The government will introduce laws to further regulate vaping and e-cigarettes, including tightening age restrictions, barring advertising, and regulating where they can be sold and used. ...10 hours ago
Staff expenses at the Reserve Bank – which have increased by an average 4.4% a year since 2009/11 – surged by 14.8% in the 12 months to 2018/19. Total staff numbers increased by an average 3.4 a year during those nine years but shot up by 19 in 2018/19 from ...1 day ago
By Felipe F. Salvosa II in Manila ABS-CBN president and CEO Carlo Lopez Katigbak has broken his silence amid the controversy over renewal of the Philippine TV giant’s broadcast franchise, which expires in one month. Katigbak, in a video posted on the ABS-CBN News site and aired over flagship ...1 day ago
Today LockerRoom brings you the first episode of Pure As, a mini documentary series on the Silver Ferns' personal journeys to World Cup glory. So much of the magic and composure Silver Ferns captain Ameliaranne Ekenasio brings to the netball court today was learned from years of sitting on the ...1 day ago
"He was an energy vacuum, a shit magnet, a waste of skin": a black comedy by Nelson writer Grant Smithies. The stars he saw were blue, green, golden. Little lights swam around slowly, then went out one by one. His face felt hot. His left eye wasn’t working. And ...1 day ago
Peter Griffin looks past the rollercoaster ride that is cryptocurrency to find out its true potential. ...2 days ago
A victim of the Generate KiwiSaver hack is considering legal action to seek compensation for stress and the risk of identity theft. One of the 26,000 KiwiSavers who had personal information, including their physical address, IRD number, bank statements and identification, stolen by an unknown third party has sought advice ...2 days ago
Apple is the latest tech firm to warn that Kiwis may lose access to streaming content if a new parental guidance law goes ahead. ...2 days ago
Healthcare appliance manufacturer Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has upped its profit forecasts for the third time this year, with increased sales off the back of the coronavirus. The company now expects a full year net profit of between $260 and $270 million, up 1.9 percent on its previous forecast. Chief ...2 days ago
Power company Genesis Energy has taken a significant financial hit and lowered its guidance, because of lower hydro generation and gas shortages. Net profit for the six months ended December fell 81.4 percent to $9.2 million, from slightly lower revenue of $1.3 billion. Lower inflows for its hydro power stations ...2 days ago
Kiwibank's first half profit is down on flat revenue growth and increased operations and compliance costs. The New Zealand-owned bank's net profit fell 18 percent to $51 million in the six months to December, compared with the year earlier's $62m. "As expected the bank faced rising operating costs due to ...2 days ago
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has landed the first blow in the demolition of a leaky St John call centre in Auckland. ...2 days ago
The National Party donations scandal that had nothing to do with the National Party was the big news of the week. James Elliott has some thoughts on that. Simon Bridges has climbed into double digits as preferred Prime Minister in the latest political polling which is significant for two reasons. ...2 days ago
A string of toy companies are facing legal action for selling unsafe toys that pose choking hazards for young children. Yesterday, Cinevan International was fined $81,000 and another four companies are before the courts. Businesses have been using a sticker on the packaging saying 'not suitable for children under three' ...2 days ago
The number of 14 and 15 year olds who have tried cannabis has fallen by more than a quarter. ...2 days ago
Paid parking on weekends looks set to stay, as Wellington Mayor Andy Foster struggles to find support for his agenda around the council table. ...2 days ago
Southland cleanup highlights climate change threat - Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage; and new taskforce to look at Wellington water issues. ...2 days ago
Policyholders fear the sale of AMP LIfe to a Bermuda-based 'zombie fund guru' could leave them stranded because a legal gap means the FMA is powerless to protect them ...2 days ago
Over the next three weeks Rod Oram will be cycling the length of New Zealand ...2 days ago
Actress Jennifer Ward-Lealand Te Atamira, a long-time champion of the arts, and te reo Māori is the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year for 2020. Mark Jennings reports on the night that honours the best of us. What does it mean to be a New Zealander? The question was posed by ...2 days ago
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias. FICTION 1 In the Clearing by JP Pomare (Hachette, $34.99) All next week at ReadingRoom is devoted to this brilliant thriller inspired by Australian cult The Family, led by ...2 days ago
This needs saying again and again…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/04/ripping-up-protections-brexit-trump-freedom
See NZ Heralds weekly Basketball Podcast is Double Dribble. This will piss our Double Dipper Dipton pm right off. Name recognition etc,.tut-tut.
.. they are at it again, but has Deep State trumped Trump or is it the other way around ?
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/jumping-conclusions-something-not-adding-idlib-chemical-weapons-attack/
Directorial standards are slipping, the plot is getting stale, the script needs radical editing and new perspectives. We have a few writers, directors and operators who can do the job. No hobbits, I promise ..
Evening All,
This was on the 7:30 report tonight a very good article about this gas attack.
I’m afraid folks this looks like the real deal and it doesn’t be appear be a VX agent or something similar more off a sarin or mustard agent ,but it might take 1-2 weeks to confirm. I’ll do some digging around tomorrow and see what I can come with.
Have a watch of this and form you own opinion.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2017/s4648907.htm
Oh dear.
The Guardian has given over its opinion column to the leader of the west’s favourite terrorist organisation. Is anyone still singing along to this broken record?
Here’s the opening verse (you’ve heard it before).
The offer of an opinion column presumably was prompted by this piece of news:
At least 60 people have been killed in northern Syria after being exposed to a toxic gas that survivors said was dropped from warplanes…
…
The town is also on a crossroads between Hama and Idlib and is considered vital to any regime offensive towards the northern city of Idlib.
Those damn terrorists!
Yeah, yeah. I’m fully aware of that report…furnished by?
The people who live there.
Many people are there. Not all people there are Syrian. Some people have agendas that are helped along and supported by explicit and direct western government support.
Do I have to link to the Guardian piece again from a while back that was out of step with their otherwise uniform reporting? The one that perhaps mistakenly or inadvertently, or then again, perhaps by dint of some very cunning work by a journalist or journalists with a conscience, kind of ‘let the cat out of the bag’?
Here you go. Try reading it critically and a little (just a little) deeper than at a mere surface level. I’ll give you some help. (Think, given their genesis is English, “White Helmets”)
The old chemical weapon canard,
Fisk from 2013 still survives the test of time.
https://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/7/robert_fisk_on_syrias_civil_war
Fisk: “…don’t ask me if they’ve used chemical weapons. It’s conceivable. There really isn’t any proof.”
Well, exactly. If there was proof, this wouldn’t just be a matter of competing claims in the media. My own view of it is that people who’ve been murdered by their own government no longer care about the weapons that were used (or anything else, for that matter) – but it’s newsworthy either way.
…supported by explicit and direct western government support.
Do you know how many revolutionary movements of the 20th Century received explicit and direct Soviet government support? It’s certainly too many for me to be arsed counting them all, but only right-wing propagandists claimed those movements were therefore puppets of the USSR. Governments have interests, and sometimes those interests overlap with other people’s interests – it’s a given, ’twas ever thus, and doesn’t necessarily imply the people who find their interests overlapping with a foreign government’s are tools of a foreign power, terrorists, untrustworthy, or very much else.
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/jumping-conclusions-something-not-adding-idlib-chemical-weapons-attack/
Mate! you can’t put up links from ‘fake news’ sites! /sarc
So that you know (for future reference) PM and many others will only countenance news coming from more impeccable sources, the likes of CNN, BBC, Guardian, NYT…because thems is fonts of truth, objectivity, serious investigative reporting and critical analysis.
What the hell you thinking? Linking to dodgy foreign (non- western) rubbish… 😉
edit – serious request. Can you please use the reply tabs in future? Thanks.
There’s a difference between propaganda and “fake news” – we’ve had that discussion before. This one looks to be a Syrian regime propaganda site, not a fake news site.
You know I’m of the persuasion that only those desperate to cling to a particular world view divide propaganda into supposed ”fake news” and propaganda, and that they do that in order to justify dismissing out of hand information that might threaten their cotton candy silo.
And I know you disagree.
Al-Masdar News is based in the United Arab Emirates, not Syria.
Fraud sentence a joke, some 11 months of home detention plus 180 hours community work for systematic Filipino work visa fraud. This dual passport carrier along with her family should be sent back to her country of origin.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1704/S00035/sentence-in-filipino-visa-fraud-case.htm
And Immigration NZ hopes the sentence will act as a deterrent for anybody else looking to cheat our borders. Ha.
Totally agree . We do not allow frausters to immigrate to this country. If guilty of it here they should all be sent back to wherever they came from. Same for the Indian shopkeeper found guilty of tricking and exploiting his immigrant workers last week.
Why have our immigration doors not been closed by now except to the people who have skills not found in our own population. Why ? Everyone I speak to wants this to happen. Where are the ears and actions of the politicians who are supposed to be acting on the mainstream will of the legal New Zealand population. Why ?
We got this from the Retailer’s Assn yesterday, about the drop off in Chinese tourists. (separate issue, and quite interesting)
http://theregister.co.nz/news/2017/04/data-dump-chinese-new-zealand-tourism
About halfway down there are a couple of bar graphs, in the second, “Average Length of Stay by Market”, Indian and Thai visitors have the second and third longest average stays at 48 and 29 days, something odd going on there. Most Thai, and all Indian visitors I encounter across are finding New Zealand far too expensive for their budget, so month or so stays would be unexpected. For those markets to be staying that long they would have to be working, so probably shouldn’t be on a tourist visa.
Germans are longest at 49 days which would be right for the backpacker market.
Mum & Dad coming to stay with the kids to look after grandchildren might explain the length of Indian & Thai stays as they may be largish in proportion to the just holidaying tourist market
NZ news item! Interesting contrast in RadioNZ news items today. And some other titbits thrown in for your info. Enjoy….
technology life and society
4 Apr 2017
Robotics in farming – the revolution begins
From Nine To Noon, 9:25 am on 4 April 2017
Listen duration 13′ :46″ http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201839068
Waikato University’s Mike Duke says robots harvesting fruit in New Zealand orchards could be years not decades away. He’s picking that the technology has the potential to revolutionize all aspects of the horticulture industry as well as forestry and dairy.
Professor Duke will be giving a lecture on this topic next Tuesday 11th April at the University of Waikato.
and
money economy
4 Apr 2017
NZ’s homeowners now worth $1.2 trillion
From Nine To Noon, 9:08 am on 4 April 2017
Listen duration 19′ :53″ http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201839067
Kathryn Ryan talks to Bernard Hickey from Newsroom who says figures released by Statistics New Zealand show household net worth has risen from $323 billion to $1.2 trillion in the last 8 years – with most of that increase being driven by rising property prices.
As a side effect he says its now virtually impossible for children of renters to make their way onto the property ladder unless they marry into what he’s dubbed the new landed gentry.
The connection here? Who will be buying and living in houses when the robots take the employment from society’s hands, and contain it in their elegantly sculpted fingers? Wot about the workers? Wot’s left for the humans! Oh that’s right the Conchords told us, they’re dead.
Or soon will be – just wrecks and the nobs left, showing little of our potential to be wonderful creatures living together in uneasy creativity under regularly affirmed and agreed restraints using our rationality.
Scoop needs money to run an effective campaign in election year. If you can channel some of your spending to a donation and regular monthly payments of even $20 to keep the support, you are doing your best to be a wonderfully creative human. But act now, there will be tipping points where we can stop the run of the dominoes, or alter the flow but they can’t be constantly passed by.
Finally Schumacher from essay – Technology with a Human Face in Small is Beautiful.
Technology although of course the product of man, tends to develop by its own laws and principles and these are very different from those of human nature or of living nature in general. Nature always, so to speak, knows where and when to stop. Greater even than the mystery of natural growth is the mystery of the natural cessation of growth…which tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology and specialisation….
If that which has been shaped by technology and continues to be so shaped, looks sick, it might be wise to have a look at technology itself…if becoming more inhuman, we might do well to consider…better – a technology with a human face.
@greywarshark
Hundreds of thousands of $$ on robots or $15.50 an hour on backpackers/islanders where you can explain the fruit picking job to them in 30 minutes and that’s just about all the instruction they need for a month?
Robots ARE decades away.
Hooray for decades, then I won’t see them rampant before I die. But AFTER!
Hundreds of thousands of dollars on a machine that will do the work of two people for twenty years with good maintenance. Against thirty five thousand per person every year for those twenty years.
Yep, the robot is much cheaper.
And, yep, hopefully it’s only a few years before they’re available.
and then you start adding cost of unemployment – yes even a UBI will cost money, and other societal costs associated with long term unemployment and then maybe your robot is not that cheap after all.
but you make a good point,
its not that we don’t have jobs that needs doing, its just that we don’t want to pay anyone for doing them.
Really what do you expect the people of tomorrow to do on their poverty UBI with fuck all to do during the day cause everything is done by robots.
Oh yeah, they will pick up knitting and drown in jumpers.
There shouldn’t be any unemployment.
The economy is not money no matter how much the economists and RWNJs insist that it is. It the physical resources we have available at any one time and the people to bring about innovative ways to use them for the benefit of society.
That’s part of it – NZers are generally horribly cheap. But that’s partially because the RWNJs have been saying that taxes are theft and robbery. Now look at what happens when we follow the recommendations of those RWNJs and cut taxes – the people become worse off while a few rich people become much richer.
In other words the lessons that the RWNJs and the rich have thrown at us are a smokescreen to encourage the people to vote against their own best interests.
Revolution and the permanent removal of rich people.
“its not that we don’t have jobs that needs doing, its just that we don’t want to pay anyone for doing them.”
” That’s part of it – NZers are generally horribly cheap. But that’s partially because the RWNJs have been saying that taxes are theft and robbery. Now look at what happens when we follow the recommendations of those RWNJs and cut taxes – the people become worse off while a few rich people become much richer.”
Actually no, its society. We all want shit done for free or for cheap. We use volunteers to not have to pay people a wage. We hold fundraiser for Ambulances and Fire Engines. We have high unemployment while we have high demand for volunteers. Hmmm? Why? Why not pay people money to do that as a job instead and call it working for the UBI. or, you cold condemn people to death by boredom, once all the work is done by robots and most of us live in chicken cages and try to survive of a UBI.
as for Revolution…sorry mate. Not interested. Revolution generally are not good for women. Especially i have no use for revolutions that involve smashing the lot and replacing it with nothing.
Its a bit like Trumpcare, all repeal, little replacement but a whole lot of grifting for the rich which – and this is historically proven – you will never really get rid of, you chop the head of one family, other will come and take over. Rinse repeat.
Yes, it’s society but only because of what society has been taught. Change the lesson.
Depends upon the revolution. Or don’t you think that the actions of the Suffragettes was revolutionary?
https://www.marxist.com/women-in-the-paris-commune.htm
oh and society can’t unlearn what it has been tought? Seriously?
yes, the suffragettes were revolutionary, but getting the right to vote was not a revolution. It was a fight to a particular right and they won, but they did not want to dis-stablilze society in order to burn it down and remake a ‘better and brighter future’ from the ashes. They wanted to vote.
But it was not a society changing revolution. It gave women the vote and until the late sixties early seventies that was pretty much what they got. The right to vote. The right to have a bank account and a cheque book came in the 70, the right to the pill came in 1974 and so on and so on, tiny little wars won in a long battle that is still being fought. So maybe this is what you mean when you say revolution? Hundred of years of tiny battle to get a little bit more rights.
No the type of revolution that changes a society radically such as the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution are bloody, messy, full of hunger and violence and it is usually the women and children who are at the receiving end.
And if there is no music and dance, then i have no use in your revolution.
Like the paraphrasing of Red Emma there Sabine. 🙂
you guys migh be interested in this
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/19/basic-income-finland-low-wages-fewer-jobs
Mechanical harvesters have been used in the wine industry for many years.
Despite that, it’s still a massive and growing industry, great productivity, excellent careers.
The quicker New Zealand gets rid of most of these poorly paid harvesting jobs that few locals want to do, the better.
Hi ad, in respect to your last sentence, better for what/whom?
Society but we have to stop the rich grabbing all the gains as they’ve been doing for the last 30+ years.
QFT
And that’s what many people don’t understand. Get rid of those jobs and we have more people to put into the education and health systems and many other jobs that presently don’t have enough people in them.
Next up, Tiffany Trump’s former babysitter goes to Syria.
Thinkpiece from Radionz yesterday. This has worried many commenters here.
media education
4 Apr 2017
The Death of Expertise
From Jesse Mulligan, 1–4pm, 3:10 pm on 4 April 2017
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201839116
Listen duration 23′ :05″
Alternative facts did not start with Donald Trump. For years, emotion has played a bigger role than reason in many public debates.
But the rejection of rationalism and faith in experts is getting worse according to Tom Nichols, a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.
He says an epidemic of narcissism, where no one is ever wrong, is fueling the problem.
He explores the implications of the ‘post truth’ era in his new book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters.
I posted this on TS a couple of years ago.
http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/
Nichols on Twitter – https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom
Hey thanks – just picked up item while passing at Radionz for my comment on tech and housing. I’ll get the gen on all all the expertise stuff at the same time. I do rely on TS when I go to get The Knowledge! I particularly resonates with me as I try to discuss and offer ideas to various others and find I can’t dent the Certainty Carapace.
A few minutes after this report North Korea fired a projectile off it’s east coast.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-idUSKBN1762XX
The 20 million souls within range of NK artillery will be pleased to have a man with a steady hand in the White House.
/
Secretary of State Tillerson released this statement on Tuesday’s ballistic missile launch:
It would be one thing for the US to simply ignore North Korea’s provocations, but Tillerson’s statement follows this warning from a senior White House official just hours earlier:
https://www.axios.com/tillersons-cryptic-statement-on-north-korea-missile-launch-2345034795.html
We used to be such a caring nation. Is this a taste of our brighter future?
“One passerby even stopped to take photos before carrying on.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/91217934/woman-aquaplanes-crashes-in-waikato-floodwaters-during-cummute
I guess wee Stevie will be along soon to tell us Co2 is great because palm trees and crocodiles.
No, the headline is not a typo. Current carbon dioxide levels are unprecedented in human history and are on track to climb to even more ominous heights in just a few decades.
If carbon emissions continue on their current trajectory, new findings show that by mid-century, the atmosphere could reach a state unseen in 50 million years. Back then, temperatures were up to 18°F (10°C) warmer, ice was almost nowhere to be seen and oceans were dramatically higher than they are now.
[…]
“The early Eocene was much warmer than today: global mean surface temperature was at least 10°C (18°F) warmer than today,” Dana Royer, a paleoclimate researcher at Wesleyan University who co-authored the new research, said. “There was little-to-no permanent ice. Palms and crocodiles inhabited the Canadian Arctic.”
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-unseen-50-million-years-21312
Where were humans in this warmer age? Anywhere? Living in palm trees because of the crocodiles? What about now? What about the polar bears and penguins!
Let’s concentrate, and not digress – look here WW1, look here footpaths for cycles and pedestrians walking inside little plastic protective cubes with helmets on, look here pictures from 5 million light years in space, look here implants of stem cells keeping you alive to 200 years. Phooey.
More stick, less carrot. Rachel Stewart notes the abject failure of all our environmental regulatory agencies (especially regional councils) to enforce the rules: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11831658
Relatedly, a court has ruled against one regional council for not doing its job: http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2017/04/a-victory-for-clean-rivers.html
Strange bedfellows. The alt-right’s enthusiasm for single payer healthcare, explained. UBI gets a look in too.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/4/15164598/alt-right-single-payer-health-care-trump
Criticism of UBI here. Its not a progressive policy.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=35705
Cheers nic, plenty of food for thought in that essay.
I suppose it would depend on the amount of the UBI.
Enough to take in the concerns weka has expressed.
It was from an American perspective, where one must spit after implying anything socialist.
The amount of a UBI is quite important, if its too low (like what TOP is proposing) then it will become a way to undermine welfare.
But this is not the only problem with a UBI. For example what a UBI doesn’t do is engage people in meaningful work, and as such it doesn’t put any pressure on the nature of work in society. You can find discussion of this among the linked blog posts from that one, but just to highlight one issue.
Somebody sitting on a UBI for a long time is not too different to somebody being on a benefit for a number of years. What it doesn’t do is give them the job skills which somebody employed over those years will develop. The person unemployed for this period will still no doubt be discriminated against when trying to enter employment from that position, and will likely start at a lower wage rate than the employed person changing work at that point. There are plenty of good economic reasons to favor employment over just income due to similar factors as this (both for individuals and macro-economic outcomes).
Eagerly awaiting the results of the select committee hearings today on Medical Cannabis, in the mean time…
https://yournz.org/2017/04/05/medical-cannabis-regime-anything-but-compassionate/#comment-177377
How can Bill English use the word compassionate, when the costs for cannabis products are prohibitive. A total disconnect from reality of the people who need this medicines, and their economic status.
Watching the Hawks
This show has been running for a while on RT America, and I’ve just got into watching it on a more regular basis – the latest show is rather good.
Is it possible to have a ‘Swamp’ on the 68th floor of a 59 floor ‘Tower’ ?
Trump’s advisory team hard at work. Another little gem for Alex Jones aficionados.
http://www.salon.com/2017/04/04/infowars-host-alex-jones-threatens-adam-schiff-ill-beat-your-goddamn-ass/
I just heard the Prime Minister say traffic is so slow in Auckland because of the number of roading projects under way.
He’s allowed to be a fuckwit. Presuming us to be the same and accept such crap just doubles up his quota of that quality.
like all good lies there is an element of truth to it
do you live in Auckland repateet?
I’m glad TS isn’t lowering itself to covering the pathetic story about Andrew in court… is anyone else feeling totally UNsorry for the millionaires who are extracting another $2m because they got ‘hurt feelings’?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/91225586/labour-leader-andrew-little-niue-hotel-comments-aimed-at-government-not-hagamans
Please!
Nice one Roy. I’d say it’s not about the money. It’s about getting an unreserved apology for being accused of corruption by someone whose every word is potentially broadcast to 4 million people.
So it’s not pathetic, it’s a lesson in getting it right and admitting when you got it wrong
“…not about the money…”
He’s unreservedly, publicly apologised already; but they aren’t having it. Moreover, asking for a bit of sunlight isn’t quite an ‘accusation’ is it?
A year too late. A week before court. That smacks of repentance indeed.
So it’s worth $2m – TWO MILLION DOLLARS??!!
Go on, tell me again that that isn’t pathetic.
Oh and since you’re so in to the legal over the moral, lateness and timing isn’t relevant, right? Right.
IMO, he shouldn’t have done that. He was doing his job and it needs to be done espcially when you consider that National are corrupt.
I’d say it’s not about the money.
Er, hello… rich Nat donors not about the money?
…it’s a lesson in getting it right…
He did get it right – there’s a very bad smell about people getting government funding shortly after making a fat donation to the governing party. Unfortunately, under NZ law, being right doesn’t necessarily keep you out of court if you’re right about vindictive Tories with deep pockets.
They didn’t. The money went to the govt of Niue. That’s why Little is in court. The same sloppy attention to detail you’re showing. He pointed to the wrong village same as some other newsworthy individuals.
Thing about smells is that they’re not about details. They’re the general odour, in the general area of something that might be rotten, or just blue cheese.
When the general picture needs investigating, arguing over details is just weak.
Smells can also be highly misleading as you point out. Rather than shrieking something is dead and rotting under the bed you should first investigate that it’s not your own sweaty socks.
Guess which option Andrew chose
He said something smelled, and that maybe we should look under the bed and make sure it’s all clean under there. That’s all. And it’s his job to do that.
Yes but he also has the responsibility to do so within the law. Do you disagree with the auditor general and his apology?
meh
I think the apology was likely a rational cost/benefit calculation on the eve of the trial. I frankly think the complaint about his comments is bullshit, but whatever. It’s a civil matter, not a criminal case.
He made a very genuine apology in court today and good on him. Par;iamentarians have a huge advantage over the public with almost total freedom of speech in Parliament, with next to no comeback if you are maligned. But they have to use that responsibly and if they don’t they deserve to get stung – though not the $2m being spoken about. That said I would have thought their reputation was worth at least double that of Jordan Williams. Juries can be funny folk.
And when the investigation is over not fronting and admitting fault and sorting the mess you created out is even weaker. It’s so petulant.
Horseshit. AL has already apologised and offered a settlement. Why do RWNJ’s always want to investigate the whistleblower rather than the criminal stench that surrounds the Nats dodgy deals?
because those that denied it supplied it?
+1 yep strange odors
There was nothing dodgy here. Are you in the Labour Research Unit? Because your alternative facts are just fake news.
You need to read the AG report and understand the mechanics of what went on.
The Matavai Hotel is owned by the Govt of Niue. it had something like 20 rooms. The NZ Govt gave them money to double its size. This process was started before the Hagaman donation and SCenic winning the managment contract, and was part of a long term pattern of NZ support for Niue’s only hotel.
Niue only has 1500 people and have shown no real skills at running international hotels. So they decided to contract its management out. There was an open tender run by an expert global hotel consultancy. Scenic was one of two tenders.
They get paid a fee to manage a hotel. They don’t own it, they aren’t being paid to build it. do you really think they are making much money managing a 45 room hotel on an isolated island?
I had the impression that the money went to the owner of the hotel – do you have a reference for where it was said that the hotel is owned by the government of Niue? I presume it is a franchise operation however, so some of the benefit of any improvement to the property should accrue to the franchise holders – else why would the Hagermans be even slightly interested?.
I’m not clear on the time line, but there was apparently an assessment process in place which was considering a possible grant – again I don’t know whether the grant had been requested or whether tenders had been called for ways of assisting Nuie, but it seems reasonable to presume that Mrs Hagerman at least was aware of that process. Murray McCully has a reputation for knowing all details of what is going on in his department, so it is possible he knew about the assessment being made. At some stage around then the President of the National Party just happens to turn up to seek a donation to the party – absolutely no link can ever be proved between that chance visit and anything else, and of course the Hagermans cannot be criticised for doing what many other business people engaged in a commercial relationship with the government seem to have done, which is making a donation to the National Party – there is the example of Oravida for example which also coincidentally may have received government assistance around the time of making a donation – just as and that other friend of National, Kim Dotcom, made political donations around the time that a friendly John Banks had been assisting him. No connection at all between donations and services of course – pure coincidence, but it may perhaps be reasonable to call attention to a series of coincidences where business people may have been under the (obviously mistaken) impression that a donation to National somehow may assist getting assistance from some part of government. That is no criticism of people making donations of course, but it may be hard to give an example of a coincidence without mentioning both a donation and a service that just happens to occur in close proximity . . . However the praise that the Hagermans are now getting for their business acumen (they apparently sure know how to invest to make money) is possibly an unexpected bonus for them, particularly as Mr Hagerman is apparently gravely unwell – a reputation for tenacity, an eye to a chance of making money, and for looking after friends is surely no bad thing?
you had that impression becasue Andrew Little aided by people like Ropata and others, couldn’t be bothered doing proper research. you also were willing to accept their slurs were true because you probably thought they had done their homework. You were misled and you should be angry with the people who did that to you.
It’s all in the AG report http://www.oag.govt.nz/media/2016/niue-hotel. It’s an easy read. The contract was let by Matavai Niue Limited, a company registered in Niue. directors Of MNL are responsible for appointing the manager of the resort. The premier of Niue is one of the directors.
It wasn’t rocket science. A few phone calls could have saved them a lot of grief but political grabs were the priority.
There is also a very rotten smell about vexatious litigation against the leader of the Opposition Party acting in his democratic role.
Potential for a rather chilling effect on free speech and democracy. The court better think carefully, especially given the smog of “dirty politics” is still hanging around the Nats.
Really? You think an apology and an offer of $100k in damages is the result of vexatiousness? I suggest you get a new dictionary
I suspect $100k is what he suspects this will cost him, whether he wins or not.
It looks exactly like a dirty politics style smear campaign. Little has apologised and offered a huge settlement, but the litigious twats are enjoying their pathetic revenge by trying to drag AL through the mud. Vexatious.
He had plenty of time to apologise when the AG report came out. Why do you feel that ordinary citizens don’t have the right to defend their reputations while politicians have free reign to trample on them?
Even Lani (sp?) gave evidence that all she wants is an apology and costs, but somehow her intentions fell right off and she ended up suing for $2M by accident.
Bwahaha thanks for putting words in my mouth. The job of an Opposition MP is to question the Government and other powerful establishment figures. I know this seems like treason to RW fucktards (no doubt you are dying to send AL to Guantanamo Bay) but it used to be a democratic norm.
prettt silly comment there ropata. He’s got the right to make those comments, his victims have the right to sue if they are libellous. Andrew little has found out the greatest lesson there is on freedom of speech. Say what you want, just accept the consequences.
How democratic is it if politicians can wildly spray allegations around without any consequence.
You mean like the Nat’s campaign of lies against David Cunliffe over a nonexistent 100K donation from Donghua Liu?
Not very “democratic” was it. I find it deeply concerning that the dirty politics machine seems to be gearing up for another assault on democracy in NZ. And yet unprincipled RWNJ’s refuse to admit their own complicity, and moronically slag off truth tellers like Nicky Hager. Disgusting
PS: Do you have a problem with Parliamentary privilege?
No problem at all. You would think that the current leader of the opposition would have the wit to use it. Jacinda wouldn’t have made this grievous mistake that is going to cost little and labour a fortune.
He shouldn’t have repeated it outside of Parliament.
Little should blame Robertson internally for researching and raising it.
It’s going to be a pretty expensive lesson for Little.
the award should be the grand sum of $1
When little has already offered $100k?
Deep legal reasoning and economic understanding aren’t really your thing. yes little has apologised, but only once he realised that he was deep in the kak.
ethics and democracy arent really your thing are they
It may not, you’re right.
But It certainly won’t keep you out of court if your wrong and refuse to admit that and apologise in a timely fashion. Little is a lawyer, how did he not know this?
“Timely”.
Um, yes. Interesting word, that. Well chosen on your part, although I’m not sure you really thought it through.
That’s strange Roy because only a month ago you upticked an idea of taking people to court on charges of hate speech.
So you want to criminalise people just because they hurt someone else’s feelings?
What’s strange exactly? Having a point of view on two separate issues or…?
ps – I hope it’s not that “pandering” article you’re referring to… Because conflating those two issues would be vexatious trolling.
No it was on attack ads and hate speech, which is not dissimilar from the current context imo.
It’s right there in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I seen it.
+1+1 OAB
That’s a very entertaining comment AOB.
it’s on the interwebs so it must be true.
That appears to be the motto of the Labour Research Unit.
Watched a bit of parliament today.
I was impressed with Michael Wood speaking on the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill (both parts one and two).
He looks a more experienced speaker than I would have imagined for a newby.
Video part one here:
Trevor Mallard criticised Wood at the end, saying he had been talking about a part of the amendment bill that had been axed. After the next speaker also slammed the amendment, Mallard appologised for getting it wrong, and that Wood had been correctly addressing a part still in the bill.
Isn’t it strange how National party politicians can overtly slander people (e.g. Nicky Hager is a left wing conspiracy theorist” despite his acknowledged credentials here and overseas), yet Andrew Little can’t ask questions about hotel owners who receive business benefits after donating to National?
Isn’t it odd that politicians who are a threat to National end up in court? Craig, the Conservative Party leader (taken to court by National Party boys), went to court for speaking out to the media after he’d signed an agreement to keep quiet. He was done on this (it was not actually a court case about the rights and wrongs of his sexual behaviour).
All National need is a TV appearance of their political foes in court. This is what they are after. Most of the public don’t follow the details; National knows this.
And the spin doctors above who’ve infiltrated this site know this.
Nicky Hager
Bradley Ambrose
Ponytail Victim
Colin Craig
David Cunliffe
and now Andrew Little … it smells a lot like another dirty politics subterfuge