nice ‘ picture of the P.M smiling, holding a kitten on the NZH front page today.Was wondering why Annette King does not accuse the snaKey P.M of lying outside Parliament…it would create a focus on his serial behaviour ,and get some attention.
The great wall signifies conscious climate change denial.
The White Walkers signify the inevitability and destructiveness of change.
And everything else signifies the games that the major houses/powers (read: US, China, India) are contesting over remaining realms, rather than face the power of what they are holding back.
Personally I’m waiting for Beowulf’s dragon to make a guest appearance somewhere … signifying… hmmm … radical Islam, or terrorist threats generally, or something.
… you’re likely to either be eating out of a dumpster in your old age or be (literally) eaten.
If you currently have counted more than 65 revolutions around the sun in your life then you may avoid this, but only through the most-macabre of means: you’ll die of something else first.
Let me explain: If you’re between 40 – 65 you have somewhere between 20 and 45 years remaining on this planet, statistically speaking. Oh sure, some of you will do better, some worse, but those are the numbers.
This means you must manage at least 20 years without things going to hell if you’re on the older end, and 45 years if you’re on the younger. What are the odds?
Cont …http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=230208
Dramatic language, but I understand and have accepted the sentiment. There is an alternative though, if we all voluntarily start today, that can be summed up: Whatever it is you are doing, do not flatter the greed.
The people who wrote that seem to think that as long as the financial spreadsheets were better looking, then the world would be sweet. Ridiculous misconception. You cannot eat Treasury bills, and you cannot eat gold.
Over the next quarter century the economic issues we face will see explosive growth in all areas of poverty, homelessness, crime and the many ills of life the contributing elements create. In the darkly brilliant Children of Men they introduce a euthanasia product, called Quietude, designed to deal with the extreme despondency the world experiences when faced with an apparently insurmountable problem.
As depressing and controversial as the idea appears today, I have no doubt we will see similar products on our shelves by then.
The fact none of the present doomsday scenarios actually have to happen, and could be avoided if humanity just grew up a little, is treated like some idealistic but unstable isotope. One whose steady decay is certainly useful in measuring the decline of the equality it once supported, but is seen by many as nothing more than an inevitable, even natural process, leading to the creation of exciting new elements. The reality these new elements are often dangerous & potentially toxic is apparently of little concern.
we already accept people deadening their minds, emotions and consciousness in order to “cope” with the reality that the power elite have constructed in society. Things like anti-depressants and alchohol are amongst the most profitable businesses.
After revelations that the CDC is receiving some funding from industry, Jeanne Lenzer investigates how it might have affected the organisation’s decisions
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) includes the following disclaimer with its recommendations: “CDC, our planners, and our content experts wish to disclose they have no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products . . . CDC does not accept commercial support.”
The right bar ‘comments’ tab does not seem to provide the most current updates for who is commenting on what. It seems to be slightly behind or sometimes even stalled?
It could be a problem with my browser but I suspect it is The Standard not updating as usual??
Anyway, I am thinking of typing something provocative to catch your attention here so that you will come looking to ban me 😉 but I will leave you to catch up with this message in your own time.
Btw, you’ve got my curiosity piqued about The Nation tomorrow.
I think that the caching has gotten a bit more ‘aggressive’ after a plugin update earlier in the week.
extended:
It is odd as it isn’t happening all of the time. Just some of the time.
However it is unlikely to be the browser. I caught it on my linux laptop yesterday in both Chrome and Firefox out through my Spark cellphone. I’d login and get the non-logged in front page.
Meanwhile Chrome and IE were working perfectly on another laptop on a different network, and same for Chrome and Safari on the same network on a Mac.
It will probably be the weekend before I can do much about it.
I’m sure somebody else will have commented on this, but I was impressed with Labour’s response to the leak of their election review.
First, when they found Gower had it, they released it immediately to the whole media, spiking Gower’s guns. Secondly, on Backbenches Jacinda cleverly dismissed the leak as (paraphrasing here) nothing new here, just stating the obvious, which defused the issue immediately.
Maybe Labour is learning how to play the media at last?
On the Gower coverage on 3 News, Andrew Little fronting the press looked drawn and on the backfoot in my opinion. That in itself is the most damaging in my opinion, reinforcing the negative messaging the media is trying to portray.
@maui yep he needs to relax a bit, but what he said was ok.
Taxes, death and Little leading Labour into the next election are the only certainties in life.
I don’t watch Gower very often, but ffs could he be any more biased? Is this what we’ve come to, where his agenda is what informs the public about politics and current affairs? I have no doubt that he fully understands the difference between reporting and manipulating, so can only assume his agenda is motivated by politics.
Bryce Edwards always has had a rather strange view of Labour.
It looks like he got stuck in a New Labour mould several decades ago and never actually fell out of the romanticism. It is a pity because he clearly has no frigging idea about how much ‘organisation’ plays in getting electoral victories. It is way way more important than his frigging beloved ‘ideology’
Reading rapidly through the list of ‘left’ reviews, what I notice is that they were either done by
1. People who have never been involved inside Labour, eg Mclauchlan and journos.
2. People who left with New Labour back in what? 1991 – Trotter and ? Edwards ?himself
3. People who were previously political employees and distinctly on the right of Labour – eg Leyland, Quin.Neither exactly had graceful exits from the jobs as I remember it. I tend to view them as more into utu than activity.
For a review that was written for the members of the Labour party, leaked to outside the party, there is a curious lack of depth and highly selective picking of the links for people inside the Labour party exhibited in Bryce’s selection.
It was obviously written by someone wanting to crap in the tent rather than working on it… But I rather suspect that was the intention. Bryce’s heart (as far as I can see) tends to go out to those parties of the left that spend their time in strange self-destructive immolation at election time. I guess it is romantic if you are into that kind of thing. But organisation less of the precious wee egos tends to get voters out.
The idea of the review was to figure out how to get Labour working better for election victories. You’d think that Bryce would have had a look around and noticed the almost eerie silence from active Labour members without utu issues. But the only one in his entire piece was from Scott Yorke…. And that was a satirical post.
It’d be nice if he’d actually look at where there weren’t reactions from. Like the many Labour members authoring and commenting here. I sure as hell noticed it.
Just because some scumbag leaked it to Paddy Gower (and we’d all like to know who it was) doesn’t mean that Labour members are that interested in discussing their party with people who aren’t active in the party.
Note on that last point – that doesn’t include me anymore.
The editorial starts by damning with faint praise, then openly attacking, running over all the same old attack lines: get rid of Cunliffe and his supporters (the bogey men), get rid of the influence of unions and other sector groups; Labour need not do anything except garnish our political system with the appearance of democracy by being in eternal opposition; the article uses hyperbole that isn’t in or implied in the original document – nothing was “slammed”, no “indictments” were made; and otherwise paints the picture that Labour is financially broke and has personnel and organisational issues that won’t stop until things that have already happened are accepted as real events in the mind of the Herald editorship – which will be never. All this from the editors who protected the “democratic acts” of Rachel Glucina by exercising their democratic right to prostitute the fourth estate to the National government’s best interests.
Subtly, but totally unbalanced, would be my label for that editorial.
Will we ever see in New Zealand The Storm is Coming “Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren politicians ” for Change for We 99%.?? Aren,t you sick and tired of the Key Zero Accountability Rhetoric and BS we voters have to put up with year after year aided and abetted by the Dirty Politics tactics of some Tame Media ,bloggers,TV clowns and Political strategists. So The TPPA agreement is visible in the The USA Why aren,t we picking up on it here?
Now that the government is making kiwisaver enrolment automatic, Labour should follow the example, and Hilary Clinton’s, and make electoral roll registration automatic. That is likely to lift the vote without punitive measures.
Is it just me or has something really changed over the last few weeks?
Talking to people the mood is harsh – it’s like a veil has been lifted for many, and the light has been shown them something, they did not want to see.
Many have woken up to the fact – that selling everything to corporations is morally repulsive, as well as, just a stupid way to run a society. The amoral outfits who wrecked the world in the name of greed just 6 years ago – have not done a damn thing to change their money grubbing ways.
All we are left with Is bankrupt thinking at best. Messy, ugly, godless and lazy self righteous. My guess, those in power have no idea, except to cling to this bereft ideology and push polls to get them though.
What is worse – is they are utterly dishonest about using this approach to cling to power.
James what a pathetic response – really, the polls is your defence. Where did you learn rhetoric, on the back of a weetbix packet?
I’d say you need to take up your own suggestion. It seems you lost in lala land of your own making. Or is this the fabled planet Key? Have a wee look around sunshine. Or maybe open yourself and talk to the downtrodden. Or if you’re feeling brave, ask some of your mates how much debt they really are in.
But I should have guessed I’d get a dishonest response, relying on the same ideological underpinnings that keeps this corrupt edifice in place.
So God bless James, any chance you could live up to your name sake?
The Queen’s Speech has all the pomposity and solemnity of a panto you’re not allowed to laugh at. This bowdlerises its political content, grimly apparent were it delivered by a nerd in a lounge suit. Elizabeth lumbers in, glazed and jowly, with the familiar cast of attendant lords, including her husband, her heir and her heir’s duchess, who’s kitted out with a purple sash that could be left over from the Ukip election campaign. As ever the queen herself looks as if her breakfast porridge had too much mogadon in it. Since she always reads her script as if she were reciting the E numbers on a packet of jelly, it’s anyone’s guess what, if anything, she thinks about it. The custodian of the speech is a nerd usually seen in a lounge suit, Michael Gove, who from journeyman beginnings as a Times hack and a Commons expenses home-flipper, has now hit it big as lord chancellor. Yesterday he got to try out his new 18th-century chancellorial garb.
Aided by the Tory speech team, Gove has clearly put his trade to work ventriloquising the queen, of whom he’s a diehard fan. Some utterances seem patently mendacious: ‘My government will legislate in the interests of everyone in our country.’ One Nation under Gove, previously the Big Society, is a bigger marquee than cynical commentators have supposed. Things will be especially nice for the well-to-do mansion-dweller, the non-immigrant, the non-zero-hours employee, the non-druggie, the non-fox, and above all for the hard-working working-class worker, his toiling family, his slavishly diligent dog and its no less Stakhanovite, busily bloodsucking fleas. The more austerity depresses output – creates more work – the more virtue there is in industry. One falls to wondering if it’s the queen or her government who counts as lying. Is she to be held responsible for what drops from her lips, or is she, as her government’s puppet, legibus soluta, no more a moral agent than Kermit the frog? Her mien suggests the queen suspects it’s the latter.
In his online introduction to the speech, David Cameron avows his plan to get people’s noses out to the grindstone rather than ‘sitting at home’, where if not teleworking or enjoying the proceeds of their trust fund, they may be doing non-work things like bringing up children or caring for a frail relative. Whence the ‘workless households’ Cameron mentions, which menace the docility that is the Englishman’s birthright and solemn duty. Trade unions, organisations to stop workers working, get a further whack – ‘essential service’ employees will need a turnout of 50 per cent to authorise strike action, with 40 per cent of eligible voters in favour of it (so at least 80 per cent of votes on a 50 per cent turnout). The work business even pops up in the section that promises to ban so-called ‘legal highs’ (normals’ psychoactive drugs of choice – ethanol, caffeine, nicotine and so on – are unaffected; after all, you need something to make working life bearable). The ban aims to ‘protect hard-working citizens’ from psychoactive degeneracy; slackers are fair game from whom no better can be expected.
Quasi-privatisation continues with the spread of ‘free’ schools and the enforced flog-off of housing association properties. The government still wants to crash out of the European human rights convention. There will, on top, be English votes for English laws. All this makes it likelier that the Scots try to peel off from the Union, particularly if the English (for they will be responsible) choose to leave the EU in 2017. Either the English will fume at being locked into the EU by No-voting Welsh and Scots, or the latter will resent being sprung from it by the English. Her majesty reads out the recipe for strife and the possible dismemberment of her kingdom phlegmatically. The mogadon has done its job.
That’s more than can be said for Gove, who managed to fluff his one duty of the day – putting the speech in its fetching damask bag, an operation he’s walked through by the nonagenarian Duke of Edinburgh. On day one of his old job as chief whip, Gove locked himself in a toilet, from which someone had the heartlessness to rescue him.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) 2 The Life of Dai by Dai Henwood and Jaquie Brown (HarperCollins, $39.99) 3 A Life Less Punishing by Matt Heath (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) 4 Waitohu by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $35) ...
nice ‘ picture of the P.M smiling, holding a kitten on the NZH front page today.Was wondering why Annette King does not accuse the snaKey P.M of lying outside Parliament…it would create a focus on his serial behaviour ,and get some attention.
as usual distraction wheeled in by Gower’s paddy, hoping we ll missed the PM barefaced lying to the public…….whaaaaaat?
Apparently Games of Thrones is an allegory for the human response to climate change:
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/04/is_game_of_thrones_an_allegory_for_global_climate_change/
The great wall signifies conscious climate change denial.
The White Walkers signify the inevitability and destructiveness of change.
And everything else signifies the games that the major houses/powers (read: US, China, India) are contesting over remaining realms, rather than face the power of what they are holding back.
Personally I’m waiting for Beowulf’s dragon to make a guest appearance somewhere … signifying… hmmm … radical Islam, or terrorist threats generally, or something.
If You’re Older Than 40 And Reading This…*
… you’re likely to either be eating out of a dumpster in your old age or be (literally) eaten.
If you currently have counted more than 65 revolutions around the sun in your life then you may avoid this, but only through the most-macabre of means: you’ll die of something else first.
Let me explain: If you’re between 40 – 65 you have somewhere between 20 and 45 years remaining on this planet, statistically speaking. Oh sure, some of you will do better, some worse, but those are the numbers.
This means you must manage at least 20 years without things going to hell if you’re on the older end, and 45 years if you’re on the younger. What are the odds?
Cont …http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=230208
Dramatic language, but I understand and have accepted the sentiment. There is an alternative though, if we all voluntarily start today, that can be summed up: Whatever it is you are doing, do not flatter the greed.
A good example of someone mistaking finances for the economy.
+1000
The people who wrote that seem to think that as long as the financial spreadsheets were better looking, then the world would be sweet. Ridiculous misconception. You cannot eat Treasury bills, and you cannot eat gold.
Over the next quarter century the economic issues we face will see explosive growth in all areas of poverty, homelessness, crime and the many ills of life the contributing elements create. In the darkly brilliant Children of Men they introduce a euthanasia product, called Quietude, designed to deal with the extreme despondency the world experiences when faced with an apparently insurmountable problem.
As depressing and controversial as the idea appears today, I have no doubt we will see similar products on our shelves by then.
The fact none of the present doomsday scenarios actually have to happen, and could be avoided if humanity just grew up a little, is treated like some idealistic but unstable isotope. One whose steady decay is certainly useful in measuring the decline of the equality it once supported, but is seen by many as nothing more than an inevitable, even natural process, leading to the creation of exciting new elements. The reality these new elements are often dangerous & potentially toxic is apparently of little concern.
we already accept people deadening their minds, emotions and consciousness in order to “cope” with the reality that the power elite have constructed in society. Things like anti-depressants and alchohol are amongst the most profitable businesses.
Debate: is New Zealand’s democracy an outgrowth of the European Enlightenment, or does it have local sources, in the Maori nationalist & workers’ movements? http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2015/06/enlightening-new-zealand-open-letter-to.html
I am a suspicious old thing, but when I read the following headline, I couldn’t help but think of the Patriot Act debate… coincidence?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33017310
I’d buy that for a dollar.
Ahh, the sweet hypocrisy of it all….
It appears that by simply signing your name on an object someone else created, it does become an artwork 😉
http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/201523/011279278c67659ee517e871c5004b3054934cbc_220x147.jpg
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/stratford-press/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503390&objectid=11459125
http://www.percythomsongallery.org.nz/c_exhibition.asp
🙄
IF John Key had sped to get to an All Black game he would be lauded as a great kiwi bloke…
At least we can be certain that when he signed that matchbox, he did so in the role of Prime Minister. Unless PM stands for “Partly Missing”.
” PM stands for “Partly Missing”
PM=Ponytail Man
http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2362
After revelations that the CDC is receiving some funding from industry, Jeanne Lenzer investigates how it might have affected the organisation’s decisions
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) includes the following disclaimer with its recommendations: “CDC, our planners, and our content experts wish to disclose they have no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products . . . CDC does not accept commercial support.”
One piece at a time
Lprent:
The right bar ‘comments’ tab does not seem to provide the most current updates for who is commenting on what. It seems to be slightly behind or sometimes even stalled?
It could be a problem with my browser but I suspect it is The Standard not updating as usual??
Anyway, I am thinking of typing something provocative to catch your attention here so that you will come looking to ban me 😉 but I will leave you to catch up with this message in your own time.
Btw, you’ve got my curiosity piqued about The Nation tomorrow.
I think that the caching has gotten a bit more ‘aggressive’ after a plugin update earlier in the week.
extended:
It is odd as it isn’t happening all of the time. Just some of the time.
However it is unlikely to be the browser. I caught it on my linux laptop yesterday in both Chrome and Firefox out through my Spark cellphone. I’d login and get the non-logged in front page.
Meanwhile Chrome and IE were working perfectly on another laptop on a different network, and same for Chrome and Safari on the same network on a Mac.
It will probably be the weekend before I can do much about it.
Cheers. Just wanted you to be aware of the issue.
A better balanced article about the Labour Party Review report:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/69097307/editorial-labour-still-has-work-to-do
I’m sure somebody else will have commented on this, but I was impressed with Labour’s response to the leak of their election review.
First, when they found Gower had it, they released it immediately to the whole media, spiking Gower’s guns. Secondly, on Backbenches Jacinda cleverly dismissed the leak as (paraphrasing here) nothing new here, just stating the obvious, which defused the issue immediately.
Maybe Labour is learning how to play the media at last?
On the Gower coverage on 3 News, Andrew Little fronting the press looked drawn and on the backfoot in my opinion. That in itself is the most damaging in my opinion, reinforcing the negative messaging the media is trying to portray.
@maui ah ok I didn’t see that. Maybe he needs some serious media training. Crucial to do this asap.
This is the clip of it: http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/where-labour-went-wrong–election-review-leaked-2015060315#axzz3c8moMdnd
It might just be my impression though, others might have thought he looked ok. But he hasn’t looked as confident since the Super backdown.
@maui yep he needs to relax a bit, but what he said was ok.
Taxes, death and Little leading Labour into the next election are the only certainties in life.
Andrew looked fine. However, David Cunliffe looked rather pale, though that might just be the lighting.
I don’t watch Gower very often, but ffs could he be any more biased? Is this what we’ve come to, where his agenda is what informs the public about politics and current affairs? I have no doubt that he fully understands the difference between reporting and manipulating, so can only assume his agenda is motivated by politics.
Yep – Must have defused the issue.
On the Herald … http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11460446
“Labour facing ‘oblivion’ “. Yep – Diffused.
Meh, Edwards has his own little agenda, I guess. You’ll note his round up is only of links that support his ‘oblivion’ sneering.
Bryce Edwards always has had a rather strange view of Labour.
It looks like he got stuck in a New Labour mould several decades ago and never actually fell out of the romanticism. It is a pity because he clearly has no frigging idea about how much ‘organisation’ plays in getting electoral victories. It is way way more important than his frigging beloved ‘ideology’
Reading rapidly through the list of ‘left’ reviews, what I notice is that they were either done by
1. People who have never been involved inside Labour, eg Mclauchlan and journos.
2. People who left with New Labour back in what? 1991 – Trotter and ? Edwards ?himself
3. People who were previously political employees and distinctly on the right of Labour – eg Leyland, Quin.Neither exactly had graceful exits from the jobs as I remember it. I tend to view them as more into utu than activity.
For a review that was written for the members of the Labour party, leaked to outside the party, there is a curious lack of depth and highly selective picking of the links for people inside the Labour party exhibited in Bryce’s selection.
It was obviously written by someone wanting to crap in the tent rather than working on it… But I rather suspect that was the intention. Bryce’s heart (as far as I can see) tends to go out to those parties of the left that spend their time in strange self-destructive immolation at election time. I guess it is romantic if you are into that kind of thing. But organisation less of the precious wee egos tends to get voters out.
The idea of the review was to figure out how to get Labour working better for election victories. You’d think that Bryce would have had a look around and noticed the almost eerie silence from active Labour members without utu issues. But the only one in his entire piece was from Scott Yorke…. And that was a satirical post.
It’d be nice if he’d actually look at where there weren’t reactions from. Like the many Labour members authoring and commenting here. I sure as hell noticed it.
Just because some scumbag leaked it to Paddy Gower (and we’d all like to know who it was) doesn’t mean that Labour members are that interested in discussing their party with people who aren’t active in the party.
Note on that last point – that doesn’t include me anymore.
The editorial starts by damning with faint praise, then openly attacking, running over all the same old attack lines: get rid of Cunliffe and his supporters (the bogey men), get rid of the influence of unions and other sector groups; Labour need not do anything except garnish our political system with the appearance of democracy by being in eternal opposition; the article uses hyperbole that isn’t in or implied in the original document – nothing was “slammed”, no “indictments” were made; and otherwise paints the picture that Labour is financially broke and has personnel and organisational issues that won’t stop until things that have already happened are accepted as real events in the mind of the Herald editorship – which will be never. All this from the editors who protected the “democratic acts” of Rachel Glucina by exercising their democratic right to prostitute the fourth estate to the National government’s best interests.
Subtly, but totally unbalanced, would be my label for that editorial.
Will we ever see in New Zealand The Storm is Coming “Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren politicians ” for Change for We 99%.?? Aren,t you sick and tired of the Key Zero Accountability Rhetoric and BS we voters have to put up with year after year aided and abetted by the Dirty Politics tactics of some Tame Media ,bloggers,TV clowns and Political strategists. So The TPPA agreement is visible in the The USA Why aren,t we picking up on it here?
What can you say. Ted Cruz is a nasty piece of work.
Now that the government is making kiwisaver enrolment automatic, Labour should follow the example, and Hilary Clinton’s, and make electoral roll registration automatic. That is likely to lift the vote without punitive measures.
Real transport for liveable cities (video)
http://i.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/69152950/Former-All-Black-Jerry-Collins-killed-in-car-accident-in-France-local-media-reports-say
A sad finish to the week . One of the great characters in rugby .
Is it just me or has something really changed over the last few weeks?
Talking to people the mood is harsh – it’s like a veil has been lifted for many, and the light has been shown them something, they did not want to see.
Many have woken up to the fact – that selling everything to corporations is morally repulsive, as well as, just a stupid way to run a society. The amoral outfits who wrecked the world in the name of greed just 6 years ago – have not done a damn thing to change their money grubbing ways.
All we are left with Is bankrupt thinking at best. Messy, ugly, godless and lazy self righteous. My guess, those in power have no idea, except to cling to this bereft ideology and push polls to get them though.
What is worse – is they are utterly dishonest about using this approach to cling to power.
this has been said (in words to this effect) over and over again on this blog. Still the elections and polling dont reflect what “you” people see.
I would suggest getting out more and conversing with a wider range of folk.
Have a great weekend.
Pitchforks.
James what a pathetic response – really, the polls is your defence. Where did you learn rhetoric, on the back of a weetbix packet?
I’d say you need to take up your own suggestion. It seems you lost in lala land of your own making. Or is this the fabled planet Key? Have a wee look around sunshine. Or maybe open yourself and talk to the downtrodden. Or if you’re feeling brave, ask some of your mates how much debt they really are in.
But I should have guessed I’d get a dishonest response, relying on the same ideological underpinnings that keeps this corrupt edifice in place.
So God bless James, any chance you could live up to your name sake?
RIP Jerry Collins. He showed the way to deal to the opposition. Thoughts and sympathy for his whānau.
The patently mendacious, shameful Queen’s Speech
should have been delivered by a professional comedian
by GLEN NEWEY, 28 May 2015
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/05/28/glen-newey/patently-mendacious/
The Queen’s Speech has all the pomposity and solemnity of a panto you’re not allowed to laugh at. This bowdlerises its political content, grimly apparent were it delivered by a nerd in a lounge suit. Elizabeth lumbers in, glazed and jowly, with the familiar cast of attendant lords, including her husband, her heir and her heir’s duchess, who’s kitted out with a purple sash that could be left over from the Ukip election campaign. As ever the queen herself looks as if her breakfast porridge had too much mogadon in it. Since she always reads her script as if she were reciting the E numbers on a packet of jelly, it’s anyone’s guess what, if anything, she thinks about it. The custodian of the speech is a nerd usually seen in a lounge suit, Michael Gove, who from journeyman beginnings as a Times hack and a Commons expenses home-flipper, has now hit it big as lord chancellor. Yesterday he got to try out his new 18th-century chancellorial garb.
Aided by the Tory speech team, Gove has clearly put his trade to work ventriloquising the queen, of whom he’s a diehard fan. Some utterances seem patently mendacious: ‘My government will legislate in the interests of everyone in our country.’ One Nation under Gove, previously the Big Society, is a bigger marquee than cynical commentators have supposed. Things will be especially nice for the well-to-do mansion-dweller, the non-immigrant, the non-zero-hours employee, the non-druggie, the non-fox, and above all for the hard-working working-class worker, his toiling family, his slavishly diligent dog and its no less Stakhanovite, busily bloodsucking fleas. The more austerity depresses output – creates more work – the more virtue there is in industry. One falls to wondering if it’s the queen or her government who counts as lying. Is she to be held responsible for what drops from her lips, or is she, as her government’s puppet, legibus soluta, no more a moral agent than Kermit the frog? Her mien suggests the queen suspects it’s the latter.
In his online introduction to the speech, David Cameron avows his plan to get people’s noses out to the grindstone rather than ‘sitting at home’, where if not teleworking or enjoying the proceeds of their trust fund, they may be doing non-work things like bringing up children or caring for a frail relative. Whence the ‘workless households’ Cameron mentions, which menace the docility that is the Englishman’s birthright and solemn duty. Trade unions, organisations to stop workers working, get a further whack – ‘essential service’ employees will need a turnout of 50 per cent to authorise strike action, with 40 per cent of eligible voters in favour of it (so at least 80 per cent of votes on a 50 per cent turnout). The work business even pops up in the section that promises to ban so-called ‘legal highs’ (normals’ psychoactive drugs of choice – ethanol, caffeine, nicotine and so on – are unaffected; after all, you need something to make working life bearable). The ban aims to ‘protect hard-working citizens’ from psychoactive degeneracy; slackers are fair game from whom no better can be expected.
Quasi-privatisation continues with the spread of ‘free’ schools and the enforced flog-off of housing association properties. The government still wants to crash out of the European human rights convention. There will, on top, be English votes for English laws. All this makes it likelier that the Scots try to peel off from the Union, particularly if the English (for they will be responsible) choose to leave the EU in 2017. Either the English will fume at being locked into the EU by No-voting Welsh and Scots, or the latter will resent being sprung from it by the English. Her majesty reads out the recipe for strife and the possible dismemberment of her kingdom phlegmatically. The mogadon has done its job.
That’s more than can be said for Gove, who managed to fluff his one duty of the day – putting the speech in its fetching damask bag, an operation he’s walked through by the nonagenarian Duke of Edinburgh. On day one of his old job as chief whip, Gove locked himself in a toilet, from which someone had the heartlessness to rescue him.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/queens-speech-2015