kinda what i’ve been wondering.que mortgage sales and farms being offloaded by desperate farmers and “investors”, especially marginal farms. remember how china pushed up the price of coal, all the while stockpiling it and the subsequent crash in price when they stopped buying? now with dairy dejavu. the banks have not been particularly responsible with lending, pouring millions into dairy conversions (including in area totally unsuited like central otago) making hay while the sun shines. well the weather has turned and is about to shit all over those hapless farmers – and our economy. whose goin to buy all these farms? i wonder.
Wouldn’t surprise me to see such happen even if it hadn’t been purposeful. The rich will always find ways to take from everyone else during times of trouble.
Just look at the those who are now part of the Chinese banking system: Don Brash, Jenny Shipley, Ruth Richardson, Chris Tremain (this one would be absurdly funny if it was’t true).
I would not be surprised if Chinese financed corporate farming rises to prominence in the next couple of years.
Yes, the main problem with the world dairy market is nobody knows what is happening in China, zero visibility. Its utterly stupid to be relying on this country for our future, that is the mistake Fonterra has made.
I don’t know but China filled its warehouses chooker full buy all accounts and are know in a position of being able to sit it out for a while while farms potentially go broke.
I am aware there’s lots of other factors pushing dairy prices down as well but was just interested to see what other comenters here thought.
One flaw in his talk is the assertion that it will force every one onto a credit card when its easier now to be cashless and not have a credit card than it was 10 years ago.
Direct transaction from account to account and I believe my eftpos card can be set up as a debit card that works like a credit card but you use you’re own money.
Ok, so overnight online banking. In my experience there are still enough places that won’t do that and require a credit card. I also use my credit card over the phone. Is there is a substitute for that (not sure if debit cards can be used like that)?
Debit cards can be used exactly the same way as credit cards and in the same places. The only difference is that debit cards don’t usually have credit on them and so you can only use money that you have in the bank.
Weka their are several different versions of cash card now even one that you transfer only the amount of the purchase so you don’t get your bank account emptied by a scam.
Debit cards – they’re eftpos cards that are linked into the Visa or Mastercard network and can be used in the same fashion as a credit card except they draw directly from your account. So far as I can tell, they are offered by the major banks, Kiwibank, TSB, the Cooperative Bank and most credit unions.
Go on to your bank website and search using the term “debit card” you should get the info if you’re interested. I’ve been far better at managing my money since I switched from using credit to debit.
Are you saying that a debit card by default can’t go into overdraft?
That’s what I’m saying. Unless you have an overdraft facility on your account.
How does the bank and/or credit card company make money from it then? Is the retailer picking that up?
Mine is with ANZ – I don’t have an annual fee on it because it’s linked with my everyday account. If it was linked with another account – like my savings – it would be $10 p.a. There is a currency conversion fee of 2.5% when buying in foreign currency, but lots of overseas retailers – like Amazon – charge in $NZD, so that can be avoided.
I would guess the retailer is picking up the charges for being on the network.
Thanks Ovid. I think when my bank originally offered me something like this it was tied into them offering me credit, so I said no. I generally don’t take my credit card to town, so having a credit facility on my eftpost card was always going to be a bad idea. That was some years ago though, I should check it out.
AFAIK store owners and businesses get killed with these debit cards because the credit card company takes their 2.5% financial industry tax on every transaction.
Banks pushed customers to replace their eftpos cards with these credit card branded debit cards because they get a cut of this action.
AFAIK store owners and businesses get killed with these debit cards because the credit card company takes their 2.5% financial industry tax on every transaction.
Which happens to be another reason why we have to shift from private bank financial system to a government bank owned financial system.
We should not have to pay private companies to use our money.
thanks CV. Is that worse than what credit card companies/banks do with credit cards? I’ve noticed a few places that now add a charge if purchasing with a credit card.
How much will the banks be allowed to charge you/ me/us for transactions on our ‘deposit’ ‘credit’ ‘eftpos’ card?
When I pay cash, i pay cash, the bank gets nothing. So in fact, ‘the cashless’ society is going to increase the cost of living by way of ‘taxing’ transactions.
its just that you don’t physically have to pull out a note of your wallet.
this is an interesting read on the cashless society that are the US American Citizens that receive SNAP and or other benefits.
Exactly – but its small business owners who bare the brunt of this financial leachery, as they end up paying % merchant fees to the credit card companies. SMEs then feel pressure to take more from employees and customers.
I pay these fees every month, but i do count these fees as a ‘cost of doing business’ and i am able to write them off at the end of the year.
Bank Cards cost money, account fees, transaction fees, replacement fees for a lost card etc etc etc. This can actually eat up quite a bit of cash at the end of the year, that only benefits the card issuing bank, but add to no service to the businesses and/or community.
A cashless society run by the banks? No thank you, they are already milking us to no end, i also don’t like the idea that my every purchase is traceable via bank statements, nor do I like the idea that my data gets a. sold of to the highest bidder or to any business that the bank works with….shared data ….or that it might get stolen.
I can see the attraction aka the Startrek button that is the intercom, the bank account and we are all paid in credits. Alas, as our current government here, and various other government overseas show daily, we first have to have the total war before the Vulcan come to Earth to give us Warp Drive and a better more enlightened future.
one major goal of a cashless society is to be able to track your commercial activities in real time, wherever you are.
This is an extension of the surveillance state.
Also in a banking shutdown like Greece just had, it leaves people with no choice but to beg the controllers of the banking and transaction networks to throw the switch back on, at any cost.
CV, the previous finance minister Cullen,was very hot on a cashless society,just shows you where his community lies, (that’s for those out there pumping his credentials) .
I am as well but I hold that all the transactions need to be done on a government server/network and not on private bank servers so that the banks don’t get to prey on the people for using their money.
even if the government is as democratically elected as the one in Russia, China, Zimbabwe, or Saudi Arabia/Iran/Iraq etc to name just a few?
No the reason people like cash is that it is almost untracable, and that most of us are able to trace their purchases with simple book keeping methods.
I would not trust the banks, nor any government with the access to ‘my’ money.
the 00 on your bank account have no value, the little bit of paper cash in the shoebox under the hotwater cupboard on the other hand has.
Actually, if the little bit of paper has value then it’s broken as cash.
Governments can ban/make obsolete any means of exchange they want. Black markets can look for other means of exchange, including cigarettes or stable currencies like USD or RMB, but in general you might equally find that cash in the shoebox useless as a means of exchange. If banning doesn’t work, refusing to honour it as legal tender and no longer integrating it into the digital economy, or even printing gazillions of it to devalue it to a point approaching zero, would seriously damage it as a means of exchange. Weimar Republic, for example.
Scrip (sometimes called chit) is a term for any substitute for legal tender and is often a form of credit. Scrips were created as company payment of employees under the truck system and also as a means of local commerce in times where regular currency is unavailable, such as remote coal towns, military bases, ships on long voyages, or occupied countries in war time. Besides company scrip, other forms of scrip include land scrip, vouchers, token coins such as subway tokens, IOUs, arcade tokens and tickets, and points on some credit cards.
Scrips have gained historical importance and become a subject of study in numismatics and exonumia due to their wide variety and recurring use. Scrip behaves similarly to a currency, and as such can be used to study monetary economics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip
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I honestly would not want my finances at the whim of a government or a bank. In both cases we would be fucked and not in a good way. Greece, no amount of money in the bank without access is gonna pay yer rent or food.
The only way we are going cashless is if we abolish the system of money altogether and live in a Utoptia, where everyone is housed, clothed and fed the same. A Utopia where no one is rich nor poor, where all work to provide the things to live, i.e. housing, food and clothes. But thats not gonna work.
The main reasons government cash is the almost universal means of exchange within a country are the government guarantee (which historically has proved much more reliable than private enterprise guarantees) and the fact that only the government can require people by law to accept that currency as face-value means of exchange (“legal tender”).
The funny thing about scrip is that the issuer can stop honouring them, or change the value of them, and many are linked to the government currency anyway and as such are more a loan than a scrip (e.g. the balance on my bus card). The reason companies issue scrip or tokens is simply to lock the consumer into purchasing from that supplier – e.g. my coffee card.
No it wouldn’t.There was a reason why such were made illegal and national currency brought in – it’s because the private creators of money always create too much which they can’t actually back. Private creation of money inevitably leads to financial and economic collapse.
I honestly would not want my finances at the whim of a government or a bank.
And what else do you think will happen if the use of scrip would be allowed?
A Utopia where no one is rich nor poor, where all work to provide the things to live, i.e. housing, food and clothes. But thats not gonna work.
This is despite the fact that that is how the economy works anyway. The real problem is that we have rich people.
Answer me this: What good is your money (literally virtual money), if you can’t access it, if you can’t use your bank card, or if your access is blocked by a government?
I can see quite a few people barter, trade or institute on a community level something to replace all that virtual money if access is not guaranteed or made hard.
I think they call it the black economy, or the under the table economy etc.
If you can’t access your money it is no good.
The same as when banks locked their doors if there was a run on the bank in the pre-electronic days.
But the only intrinsic characteristic of money is that it is virtual, whether it’s numbers on a screen or numbers on a bit of paper.
I recall reading an article in the 1990s that described the job of an Eastern European factory manager – the economy was in the toilet, so this person’s job involved creating massive networks of barter deals in order to either pay the workers in food or useful goods rather than the toilet paper that was the national currency at the time.
A friend of mine recently brought out some family heirlooms – marks from the early 1920s. As the denominations accrued loads of zeros, the size got smaller and the quality rougher. The value of the currency wasn’t the digits, it was what you could exchange for those digits.
I think its inevitable so I would like think people in position s that could have some input into it are doing every thing possible to protect the public.
the finance sector kings and the surveillance industry kings are the ones who are making all the decisions on any such transition to a “cashless society.”
their concern for the “little person” is not notable; their concern for profit and for knowing everything about your life, while you know nothing about what they are doing, is however.
i would not be surprised if/when the ‘cashless’ society comes, that people will use script.
It has been done before, the best currency my Nana had in the after war years in Germany were cigarettes.
German ones had a bit of value, American ones like Lucky Strike could buy you heeps of stuff, Russian ciggies rolled in the pravda ….not so much buying power.
No, like the cash less office, i don’t think we are going to have a cash less society.
National’s dags being rattled by Parker on National Radio this morning.
Hope it wipes smirk off Key’s face, watching Key blatantly distract the country by accusing King And Goff of undermining Little was sickening.
Blinglish saying adjustments about Dairy industry job losses bankruptcies firesale prices for Dairy farms to be snapped up by cashed up countries with long-term agendas.
Thanks freedom. I wonder what will happen next. National Radio seems to take the lead so Mr English’s warning that National Radio is a dinosaur must send a warning.
Seems evident that the Government is happy and confident to lie with impunity regardless of contrary evidence.
Not that many years ago, an interview that held revelations involving Government Ministers’ auditioning for the role of TwoFace would have had the Ministers involved looking for new employment by the time their cars arrived to collect them from the studios. Because that’s where they were, in the studio, metaphorically at least. But Ministers barely front up for interviews anymore, unless they have a policy they want to sell, or know of a bus due any minute and who they think should be under it.
Yes, that’s an exaggeration but let’s be real here, nothing is going to happen. The MSM are showing how compliant they have become. They are lost to us. Thankfully much of the public have taken their voices on-line and are building their own fledging networks of contemporary news and analyses. Not a perfect system but imagine the MSM without the public discourse we have built amongst ourselves over the past decade or so. Having blogs & social media to parry through the melee might be a senseless struggle to some and a waste of resources to others but it does keep the battle going. Even pacifists like me understand to win a war you must stay in the fight.
Given the duplicity’s wide reaching implications for our democracy, there are plenty of unspoken questions about what else lies beneath the surface of this [and other] Government/s. But those questions are left to fade on the Editor’s to do list. Instead the Editors get their staff to scramble over each other, scratching and tearing at all the shiny things worn by all the shiny people.
At times like this there are few more rational responses than anger. The public anger that such facts should generate is so stage managed that many people are unsure what they are meant to be focusing their anger on, but they do know they are angry about something.
The Opposition, stymied by the media’s complicity, is left to struggle against a Speaker who was apparently instrumental in the co-ordination of the circumstances being discussed. Circumstances he has openly assisted the Government in avoiding as he sits as Speaker. When the opposition rise to their feet next week, and hopefully deliver carefully co-ordinated single part questions, they know full well what they will be facing. The Speaker will simply shut down any debate on the topic faster than he closed the door on ‘matters before the court’ that actually weren’t.
The PM could be asked directly about the blatantly two-faced actions taken by his Minister/s and if, by some miracle, he doesn’t launch into ‘Labour did it! Labour did it! Labour did it!’ we’ll get a shrug, a ‘you know’ then [the now tired] sneer followed by his latest version of ‘there’s always another person with a different interpretation of events’ before he wraps up by attacking another Party’s policies or making some lame joke whilst ignoring the lacklustre demands from the Speaker for him to be seated.
Yeah I guess you could say I’m less than thrilled about our prospects as a modern democratic state.
Homegrown (not in the NZ sense) is a promenade play about the radicalisation of young people living in Britain. The idea and the performance sounds great, but it will not be performed.
The National Youth Theatre (NYT) production was closed down last Thursday, with the creators saying they were given no prior warning. Director Nadia Latif and playwright Omar El-Khairy believe the production was cancelled due to external pressures, claiming both local authorities and police got involved during the development of the play.
This was about having an intelligent conversation around an issue with hysteria attached, and voices have been silenced
Nadia Latif, director
The play, which had a cast of 112 people aged between 15 and 25 – mostly from ethnic minorities – was originally due to take place in a school in Tower Hamlets, less than a mile from the Bethnal Green academy attended by Shamima Begum, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, the schoolgirls believed to have travelled to Syria in February.
Latif and El-Khairy had developed the play through workshops with the young actors, looking at the emotive issues of jihadi brides and attitudes towards Islam in the UK. Instead of being performed on stage to an audience, it was to be an immersive, promenade production, where the audiences could walk through the school corridors, witnessing conversations and different dramatic moments between the cast.
Theatre is a great way to get people discussing and talking, and they are missing an opportunity here.
Not to mention the involvement of 112 local young people, who discover (once again) that their voices are silent.
How heartening would it be if we could threaten companies such as Miller Argent with the “costs” of their externalities, instead of reading again about their threats to local peoples and governments to act as they see fit.
In June, councillors on Caerphilly county borough council’s planning committee unanimously rejected a recommendation by their planning officers to allow Miller Argent to exploit 6m tonnes of coal at Nant Llesg, near Rhymney, but deferred a final decision until Wednesday.
The company’s application has prompted rallies and a petition by 7,000 people against the mine.
Miller Argent has written to councillors warning them that it intends to recover all the costs it has incurred so far in its application, as well as the costs of any appeal it might make should councillors refuse its application. It is understood that these costs could amount to more than £100,000.
“We reiterate that in the event of a refusal and appeal, the substantial costs would be in no one’s interest,” the letter says. “Your officers have highlighted the potential for a substantial award of costs against the council. Miller Argent would seek to recover costs from the council.”
The Guardian’s expert on obfuscation by bureaucratese and acronym, Steven Poole, recently argued that TTIP could be a conspiracy to pull some very thick wool over our eyes. We live in an age when we’re so accustomed to being entertained that we haven’t the temperament to do the difficult work of penetrating the wool of boring. So we’re going to take that wool, roll it into a ball and leave it for the cat to play with. No, don’t look at the cat. Look at me. Focus.
And how come he can be part of it when we are not privy to the TPP?
“Fonterra chairman John Wilson’s verbal sharp-shooting skills were put to good effect at the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) ministerial negotiations in Maui.” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11491984 (Fran O’Sullivan.)
Anybody hearing about the Turks bombing Kurdish anti-ISIS positions and the US bombing Syria to create an ISIS free safe zone? Neh, I didn’t think so! I mean why keep us posted on an area where NZ soldiers are involved in another war crime of apocalyptic proportions?
This excerpt from the Leaked TPP IP chapter would appear to be affecting Māori sovereignty.
Article QQ.E.23[95]: {Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Cultural Expressions and Genetic
Resources}
[PE/NZ/VN/BN/MX/SG/CL/MY propose[96]: 1. The parties recognise the importance and contribution
of traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions, and biological diversity to cultural, economic
and social development.]
[[97]PE/MY/MXBN propose; NZ/AU/SG/CL oppose: 2. Each Party exercises sovereignty over their
biological [MY/BN oppose: diversity] [MY/BN propose: resources] and shall determine the access
conditions to their genetic resources and their derivatives in accordance to their domestic legislation.] http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/Section-E-PatentsUndisclosed-Data-TK-TTP-IP-Text-11May2015.pdf
Don’t forget to PROTEST AGAINST TPPA – our government is very keen to sign our sovereignty away. Just because they didn’t do it last week – they seem confident that they will next time so show the government the people mean business!
Here are the details
Hokianga
15 August protest, 11am at Kohukohu Village Green.
Whangarei
15 August protest, 11am at the Town Basin.
Auckland
15 August protest, 1pm at Aotea Square to march down Queen Street, featuring speakers and music.
Hamilton
15 August protest, Meet @ 1pm outside Cock and Bull carpark on corner of Church and Maui.
Tauranga
8 August, 10 am @ Red Square (Downtown Tauranga) for ‘Chalk n talk’.
9 August, Johns Key’s birthday bash with live music and Cake Signing the giant card.
10 August at lunch time, Banner making in Red Square.
12 August, Nag banner from cambridge rd over bridge.
13 August, signs on the road side
14th August – public meeting
15 August protest at 1pm, Red Square.
Gisborne
15 August protest, details to come.
Napier/Hastings
15 August protest, 1pm, location to be announced.
Wanganui
8 August protest, 1pm, march from Silver Ball in the market to Majestic Square.
New Plymouth
Protest planned, details to come
Palmerston North
(Before Action Week) – At 7pm on July 29th Palmerston North City Library is hosting a panel discussion on the TPPA, featuring Assoc Prof Jeff Sluka, Dr Deborak Russell and Dr Shamin Shukur (compere: Assoc Prof Bill Fish).
Art and photo exhibition planned with accompanying information, concert and talks
8 August Rally and concert, 1pm – 3:30pm in the Square in the quadrant opposite The Plaza. Keynote speech from Barry Coates, including Dr Romauld Rudzki, Dr Deborah Russell, Dr Jeff Sluka and Cr Lew Findlay, and local musicians.
14 August will be a concert in the library at 5pm, then documentary maker and investigative journalist Bryan Bruce will speak at 6pm on Poverty, Inequality & the TPPA.
Many committed P North activists will also be heading to Wellington on 15 August.
Wellington
7-13 August – The People Speak #STOPTPPA. NZ Photo exhibition (10am-5pm)
12 August – Lunchtime rally outside Parliament with politicians and speakers.
15 August – TPPA Walk Away! Protest action to stop the TPPA. Assemble at Midland Park and march to Parliament for speakers and music. More details to come.
Nelson
15 August protest at 11:00am, top of Trafalgar St – 1903 Square.
Christchurch
10 August political debate at 6pm, Canterbury Horticultural Society (57 Riccarton Avenue), featuring David Parker, Russell Norman, Fletcher Tabuteau and Marama Fox.
12 August film screening of ‘Inequality for All” by economist Robert Reich, 6pm at The Auricle (35 New Regent Street).
14 August New Economics Seminar and Expo, 7pm at Horticultural Hall.
15 August protest at 12:30pm. Location: South Hagley Park (corner Deans Ave and Riccarton Rd) marching down Riccarton Rd.
Timaru
15 August protest planned, details to come.
Dunedin
15 August protest at 1pm, marching from the Dental School to the Octagon.
Draco T Bastard:
So, you have no answer to the point that your preferred option has been tried before and failed.
Gotcha.
————————————————————————————————————————-
your answer to my question here
Answer me this: What good is your money (literally virtual money), if you can’t access it, if you can’t use your bank card, or if your access is blocked by a government?
I can see quite a few people barter, trade or institute on a community level something to replace all that virtual money if access is not guaranteed or made hard.
I think they call it the black economy, or the under the table economy etc.
————————————————————————————————————————
ok, so I have linked to a Wiki Page that explains the use of scrip / chits throught the history of banking.
I have mentioned bartering, trading, or exchanging goods at an agreed value,
I have raised my reasons as to why i am not deluded into thinking that a benevolent government would run our cashless society that you advocate (i still would love the Start Trek years, but alas i will only live the years of the war leading up to the Vulcan arriving and providing humanity with Warp Speed).
I have mentioned cigarettes as currency as used in the after war years of Germany, my mother has good memories of picking up buds, taking them home, cleaning them, re-rolling the cleaned tobacco and then using it on the black market as currency before the great new introduction of the Deutsch Mark.
And you are saying that my preferred option has not been successfully tried before? Really? I mean Really?
So I am sorry, but there are more examples of humanity using what ever they can as currency, in abscence of anything better.
And if your cashless society comes true, i bet you a hundered chits that there will be immediately a different cash form available for those that don’t want to use the government sanctioned, controlled and government depended ‘credit/debit’ cards.
You need to prove that your idea is better, and at the moment i see you failing.
The current advantage of cash over electronics isn’t trust so much as the convenience of universality – almost everyone can take cash, not everyone can take cards as that involves a cost outlay. When that advantage no longer exists, cash will slowly be phased out.
There is a hybrid option that might persist as a transitional step if manufacturing costs approach negligible: individual tokens like debit cards that have a display of their remaining balance. They can be physically exchanged, or debited (transferring between tokens would be more difficult and would require each token to be networked, although thinking about it one could organise some sort of exchange protocol that involves the token uploading and confirmation of transaction histories at merchant terminals).
That sort of thing was in the 1980s series Max Headroom, for the scifi folks out there 🙂
And you are saying that my preferred option has not been successfully tried before?
It’s been tried and failed and linked to some information on it. There’s more around on the same site if you look.
Sure, the laws that got put in place empowered the private banks which is why we need to change the laws and make it so that only the government an create money.
Hell, we technically already have your system in that the private banks create money every time a loan is made and is failing miserably.
And if your cashless society comes true, i bet you a hundered chits that there will be immediately a different cash form available for those that don’t want to use the government sanctioned, controlled and government depended ‘credit/debit’ cards.
Probably because we’ve been taught that government is bad and that stealing from them is good. Of course, stealing from the government is stealing from yourself and so you’re actually worse off.
You need to prove that your idea is better, and at the moment i see you failing.
You’re being wilfully blind.
Advantages:
1. It’s cheaper as it uses less resources
2. It’s more secure – can’t be stolen
3. Makes it easier to determine taxes
4. Makes it easier to find crime
Disadvantages:
1. It may go offline occasionally
2. Everyone will need a cellphone
“KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Southeast Asian nations want China to stop land reclamation in the disputed South China Sea, a regional official said Tuesday, but China insisted it has a right to continue the activity.
Le Luong Minh, secretary-general of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said ASEAN foreign ministers expressed concerns in a meeting Tuesday over massive Chinese island-building activities that have escalated tensions in the area…
China says it’s all their territory, a load of other nations disagree. It was in this area that Chinese and US aircraft collided in 2001. Lol, and it was the macguffin for a James Bond movie, I think The world is not enough.
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This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
A Waitangi Tribunal inquiry report has warned government that a repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act could cause harm to children in care. ...
The Treasury has published today three new papers covering government consumption multipliers, automatic stabilisers and the impacts of global shocks on New Zealand’s economy. ...
Asia Pacific Report The Pacific state of Hawai’i’s House of Representatives has joined the state’s Senate in calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, becoming the first state to pass such a resolution, reports Hawaii News Now. In March, the Senate passed a ceasefire resolution with a 24–1 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Ferrie, A/Prof, UTS Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research and ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Technology Sydney PsiQuantum The Australian government has announced a pledge of approximately A$940 million (US$617 million) to PsiQuantum, a quantum computing start-up company based in Silicon Valley. Half ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia Cameron Prins/Shutterstock If you spend a lot of time exploring fitness content online, you might have come across the concept of heart rate zones. Heart rate zone training has become more ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Eugene Doyle He is the most popular Palestinian leader alive today — and yet few people in the West even know his name. Absolutely no one in Gaza or the West Bank does not know him. That difference speaks volumes about who dominates the media narrative that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Will McCallum, PhD Candidate – School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University Earlier this year, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of not supporting Operation Sovereign Borders – the military-led border security operation that has “closed Australia’s borders ...
By Melyne Baroi in Port Moresby A Papua New Guinea MP, Peter Isoaimo, who had been ousted by the National Court in an alleged bribery case, has been reinstated by the Supreme Court on appeal. A three-member Supreme Court bench found that the National Court had erred in finding that ...
Publisher Chris Holdaway reflects on the unique project of collecting the work of the late, terrific poet Schaeffer Lemalu. One of the nice things you can do as a truly independent publisher is to make the books that writers want to make, whatever they happen to be. That’s how I’ve ...
Those profiled in the stamp series served on overseas deployments from 1995 onwards, and all have been awarded theNew Zealand Operational Service Medal. ...
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Edward Heath coverup should signal the need for an open enquiry here as the powerful wealthy elite here have covered up as well for political gain
+100 Tricledown…and in this regard this post and some comments on the Daily Blog are of interest
….seems like some “in the know” about NZ cover ups are being heavied and attempts are being made to compromise, entrap and blackmail them ….
http://frameblame.org/personal-experiences-entrapment/
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/07/19/and-then-they-came-for-rodney-hide/
Chris Hedges shows how people like Heath get away with the things they do…
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_careerists_20120723
http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/70835050/Fonterras-GlobalDairyTrade-auction-posts-10th-consecutive-fall
The price keeps dropping is it possible rural nz is being set up for a corporate raid??
kinda what i’ve been wondering.que mortgage sales and farms being offloaded by desperate farmers and “investors”, especially marginal farms. remember how china pushed up the price of coal, all the while stockpiling it and the subsequent crash in price when they stopped buying? now with dairy dejavu. the banks have not been particularly responsible with lending, pouring millions into dairy conversions (including in area totally unsuited like central otago) making hay while the sun shines. well the weather has turned and is about to shit all over those hapless farmers – and our economy. whose goin to buy all these farms? i wonder.
The farmers screwing the environment (and their workers) are probably being screwed by the banks (and insurance companies) themselves.
When it really comes down to it, it is the finance sector calls that calls the shots, we all just dance to their tune,
Wouldn’t surprise me to see such happen even if it hadn’t been purposeful. The rich will always find ways to take from everyone else during times of trouble.
And the finance sector are their key facilitators
Just look at the those who are now part of the Chinese banking system: Don Brash, Jenny Shipley, Ruth Richardson, Chris Tremain (this one would be absurdly funny if it was’t true).
I would not be surprised if Chinese financed corporate farming rises to prominence in the next couple of years.
its all just coincidence. nats just all happen to be more gifted than other nzers.
Yes, the main problem with the world dairy market is nobody knows what is happening in China, zero visibility. Its utterly stupid to be relying on this country for our future, that is the mistake Fonterra has made.
It makes you wonder what van der heyden knew when he made this comment.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/8726453/Chinese-comments-taken-out-of-context
BW It’s The market init?
I don’t know but China filled its warehouses chooker full buy all accounts and are know in a position of being able to sit it out for a while while farms potentially go broke.
I am aware there’s lots of other factors pushing dairy prices down as well but was just interested to see what other comenters here thought.
The War On Cash Is Evil – Mike Maloney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GteG8jnIPc&utm
Banks stand to make a lot more money from a cashless society than they currently make.
One flaw in his talk is the assertion that it will force every one onto a credit card when its easier now to be cashless and not have a credit card than it was 10 years ago.
How do you buy online without a credit card?
Direct transaction from account to account and I believe my eftpos card can be set up as a debit card that works like a credit card but you use you’re own money.
I understand there is some consumer protection if you use either the credit or debit card as well.
It is a separate card but runs off the same account/s as your regular eftpos card
“Direct transaction from account to account”
How?
“and I believe my eftpos card can be set up as a debit card that works like a credit card but you use you’re own money.”
But also has a credit card type limit on it whereby you can go into debt? (You can also run a credit card off your own money)
Log in to your bank
set up payment to another persons account
Click ‘pay’
You only have the money in your account to pay with unless you have an overdraft available in which case there would also be credit available.
Ok, so overnight online banking. In my experience there are still enough places that won’t do that and require a credit card. I also use my credit card over the phone. Is there is a substitute for that (not sure if debit cards can be used like that)?
Debit cards can be used exactly the same way as credit cards and in the same places. The only difference is that debit cards don’t usually have credit on them and so you can only use money that you have in the bank.
Debit cards used to have problems. These days if they have a visa or mastercard, they appear to be accepted everywhere on the net.
Weka their are several different versions of cash card now even one that you transfer only the amount of the purchase so you don’t get your bank account emptied by a scam.
Does paypal accept them?
Debit cards – they’re eftpos cards that are linked into the Visa or Mastercard network and can be used in the same fashion as a credit card except they draw directly from your account. So far as I can tell, they are offered by the major banks, Kiwibank, TSB, the Cooperative Bank and most credit unions.
Go on to your bank website and search using the term “debit card” you should get the info if you’re interested. I’ve been far better at managing my money since I switched from using credit to debit.
Are you saying that a debit card by default can’t go into overdraft?
How does the bank and/or credit card company make money from it then? Is the retailer picking that up?
That’s what I’m saying. Unless you have an overdraft facility on your account.
Mine is with ANZ – I don’t have an annual fee on it because it’s linked with my everyday account. If it was linked with another account – like my savings – it would be $10 p.a. There is a currency conversion fee of 2.5% when buying in foreign currency, but lots of overseas retailers – like Amazon – charge in $NZD, so that can be avoided.
I would guess the retailer is picking up the charges for being on the network.
Thanks Ovid. I think when my bank originally offered me something like this it was tied into them offering me credit, so I said no. I generally don’t take my credit card to town, so having a credit facility on my eftpost card was always going to be a bad idea. That was some years ago though, I should check it out.
Basically from nebulous account charges and margins on overseas sales
AFAIK store owners and businesses get killed with these debit cards because the credit card company takes their 2.5% financial industry tax on every transaction.
Banks pushed customers to replace their eftpos cards with these credit card branded debit cards because they get a cut of this action.
Awful financial industry ticket clipping.
Which happens to be another reason why we have to shift from private bank financial system to a government bank owned financial system.
We should not have to pay private companies to use our money.
thanks CV. Is that worse than what credit card companies/banks do with credit cards? I’ve noticed a few places that now add a charge if purchasing with a credit card.
It’s exactly the same but the credit card also creates money when it’s used whereas the debit card usually doesn’t.
How much will the banks be allowed to charge you/ me/us for transactions on our ‘deposit’ ‘credit’ ‘eftpos’ card?
When I pay cash, i pay cash, the bank gets nothing. So in fact, ‘the cashless’ society is going to increase the cost of living by way of ‘taxing’ transactions.
its just that you don’t physically have to pull out a note of your wallet.
this is an interesting read on the cashless society that are the US American Citizens that receive SNAP and or other benefits.
http://prospect.org/article/how-big-banks-are-cashing-food-stamps
the banks are making a killing.
Exactly – but its small business owners who bare the brunt of this financial leachery, as they end up paying % merchant fees to the credit card companies. SMEs then feel pressure to take more from employees and customers.
To feed the financial industry vampire.
I pay these fees every month, but i do count these fees as a ‘cost of doing business’ and i am able to write them off at the end of the year.
Bank Cards cost money, account fees, transaction fees, replacement fees for a lost card etc etc etc. This can actually eat up quite a bit of cash at the end of the year, that only benefits the card issuing bank, but add to no service to the businesses and/or community.
A cashless society run by the banks? No thank you, they are already milking us to no end, i also don’t like the idea that my every purchase is traceable via bank statements, nor do I like the idea that my data gets a. sold of to the highest bidder or to any business that the bank works with….shared data ….or that it might get stolen.
I can see the attraction aka the Startrek button that is the intercom, the bank account and we are all paid in credits. Alas, as our current government here, and various other government overseas show daily, we first have to have the total war before the Vulcan come to Earth to give us Warp Drive and a better more enlightened future.
So no, Cash is still King/Queen.
one major goal of a cashless society is to be able to track your commercial activities in real time, wherever you are.
This is an extension of the surveillance state.
Also in a banking shutdown like Greece just had, it leaves people with no choice but to beg the controllers of the banking and transaction networks to throw the switch back on, at any cost.
CV, the previous finance minister Cullen,was very hot on a cashless society,just shows you where his community lies, (that’s for those out there pumping his credentials) .
I am as well but I hold that all the transactions need to be done on a government server/network and not on private bank servers so that the banks don’t get to prey on the people for using their money.
even if the government is as democratically elected as the one in Russia, China, Zimbabwe, or Saudi Arabia/Iran/Iraq etc to name just a few?
No the reason people like cash is that it is almost untracable, and that most of us are able to trace their purchases with simple book keeping methods.
I would not trust the banks, nor any government with the access to ‘my’ money.
the 00 on your bank account have no value, the little bit of paper cash in the shoebox under the hotwater cupboard on the other hand has.
Actually, if the little bit of paper has value then it’s broken as cash.
Governments can ban/make obsolete any means of exchange they want. Black markets can look for other means of exchange, including cigarettes or stable currencies like USD or RMB, but in general you might equally find that cash in the shoebox useless as a means of exchange. If banning doesn’t work, refusing to honour it as legal tender and no longer integrating it into the digital economy, or even printing gazillions of it to devalue it to a point approaching zero, would seriously damage it as a means of exchange. Weimar Republic, for example.
and this would be the answer
Scrip (sometimes called chit) is a term for any substitute for legal tender and is often a form of credit. Scrips were created as company payment of employees under the truck system and also as a means of local commerce in times where regular currency is unavailable, such as remote coal towns, military bases, ships on long voyages, or occupied countries in war time. Besides company scrip, other forms of scrip include land scrip, vouchers, token coins such as subway tokens, IOUs, arcade tokens and tickets, and points on some credit cards.
Scrips have gained historical importance and become a subject of study in numismatics and exonumia due to their wide variety and recurring use. Scrip behaves similarly to a currency, and as such can be used to study monetary economics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip
————————————————————————————————
I honestly would not want my finances at the whim of a government or a bank. In both cases we would be fucked and not in a good way. Greece, no amount of money in the bank without access is gonna pay yer rent or food.
The only way we are going cashless is if we abolish the system of money altogether and live in a Utoptia, where everyone is housed, clothed and fed the same. A Utopia where no one is rich nor poor, where all work to provide the things to live, i.e. housing, food and clothes. But thats not gonna work.
The main reasons government cash is the almost universal means of exchange within a country are the government guarantee (which historically has proved much more reliable than private enterprise guarantees) and the fact that only the government can require people by law to accept that currency as face-value means of exchange (“legal tender”).
The funny thing about scrip is that the issuer can stop honouring them, or change the value of them, and many are linked to the government currency anyway and as such are more a loan than a scrip (e.g. the balance on my bus card). The reason companies issue scrip or tokens is simply to lock the consumer into purchasing from that supplier – e.g. my coffee card.
No it wouldn’t.There was a reason why such were made illegal and national currency brought in – it’s because the private creators of money always create too much which they can’t actually back. Private creation of money inevitably leads to financial and economic collapse.
And what else do you think will happen if the use of scrip would be allowed?
This is despite the fact that that is how the economy works anyway. The real problem is that we have rich people.
Answer me this: What good is your money (literally virtual money), if you can’t access it, if you can’t use your bank card, or if your access is blocked by a government?
I can see quite a few people barter, trade or institute on a community level something to replace all that virtual money if access is not guaranteed or made hard.
I think they call it the black economy, or the under the table economy etc.
So, you have no answer to the point that your preferred option has been tried before and failed.
Gotcha.
If you can’t access your money it is no good.
The same as when banks locked their doors if there was a run on the bank in the pre-electronic days.
But the only intrinsic characteristic of money is that it is virtual, whether it’s numbers on a screen or numbers on a bit of paper.
I recall reading an article in the 1990s that described the job of an Eastern European factory manager – the economy was in the toilet, so this person’s job involved creating massive networks of barter deals in order to either pay the workers in food or useful goods rather than the toilet paper that was the national currency at the time.
A friend of mine recently brought out some family heirlooms – marks from the early 1920s. As the denominations accrued loads of zeros, the size got smaller and the quality rougher. The value of the currency wasn’t the digits, it was what you could exchange for those digits.
Community currencies, parallel currencies, time banks, IOUs etc.
Health insurance companies might pull up your transactions and deny you cover because ‘KFC” and “McDonalds” comes up too many times…
although gift cards like the kiwipost prezzy cards don’t need id for under $100, ISTR.
hi b waghorn, with respect, there are far more flaws for us with the proposal of a cashless society.
i dont want to hand any control to another, least of all the banksters.
I think its inevitable so I would like think people in position s that could have some input into it are doing every thing possible to protect the public.
do you mean the people like the police, gcsb, or some of those ‘leaders’ in wellington?
sorry, my friend i do not share your faith in their altruism.
the finance sector kings and the surveillance industry kings are the ones who are making all the decisions on any such transition to a “cashless society.”
their concern for the “little person” is not notable; their concern for profit and for knowing everything about your life, while you know nothing about what they are doing, is however.
i would not be surprised if/when the ‘cashless’ society comes, that people will use script.
It has been done before, the best currency my Nana had in the after war years in Germany were cigarettes.
German ones had a bit of value, American ones like Lucky Strike could buy you heeps of stuff, Russian ciggies rolled in the pravda ….not so much buying power.
No, like the cash less office, i don’t think we are going to have a cash less society.
National’s dags being rattled by Parker on National Radio this morning.
Hope it wipes smirk off Key’s face, watching Key blatantly distract the country by accusing King And Goff of undermining Little was sickening.
Blinglish saying adjustments about Dairy industry job losses bankruptcies firesale prices for Dairy farms to be snapped up by cashed up countries with long-term agendas.
And you can bet this government will let nz get sold overseas instead of letting the banks take the hit and land prices fall dramatically.
Yep… they’re cheerleading a new wave of colonisation… by corporations.
Message above was in reply to b waghorn at 5.1
Funny that there is nothing re the Saudi sheep Saga (Shagger?) online in the Herald?
Just this single piece from the National section.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11491836
First up on RNZ coverage was Goff discussing the accusations from the Government
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201765180/goff-says-pm-being-deliberately-dishonest-over-saudi-debacle
The RNZ coverage presented some interesting information. This includes how [then] Agriculture Minister David Carter was publicly saying live sheep exports would not be re-instated, but according to the documents released, was involved in talks about re-instating live exports. (1:45)
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201765190/govt-planned-resume-live-sheep-exports-market-with-middle-east
I do wonder how The Speaker will handle questions on this issue in Parliament next week?
& the chat with David Parker
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201765191/labour-says-saudi-sheep-deal-documents-are-embarrassing
Thanks freedom. I wonder what will happen next. National Radio seems to take the lead so Mr English’s warning that National Radio is a dinosaur must send a warning.
Seems evident that the Government is happy and confident to lie with impunity regardless of contrary evidence.
English’s interview this morning does not imbue confidence. Big pauses, super soft phrasing and when asked the big Yes/No question he started explaining explaining explaining
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201765206/minister-of-finance,-bill-english
and we all know what it means when politicians start waffling instead of saying Yes or No
so the speaker is duplicitous at best and a liar at worst and he is the sole arbiter of MPs behaviour?
you couldnt make this up.
It’s been my experience that the truth is always stranger than fiction!
Not that many years ago, an interview that held revelations involving Government Ministers’ auditioning for the role of TwoFace would have had the Ministers involved looking for new employment by the time their cars arrived to collect them from the studios. Because that’s where they were, in the studio, metaphorically at least. But Ministers barely front up for interviews anymore, unless they have a policy they want to sell, or know of a bus due any minute and who they think should be under it.
Yes, that’s an exaggeration but let’s be real here, nothing is going to happen. The MSM are showing how compliant they have become. They are lost to us. Thankfully much of the public have taken their voices on-line and are building their own fledging networks of contemporary news and analyses. Not a perfect system but imagine the MSM without the public discourse we have built amongst ourselves over the past decade or so. Having blogs & social media to parry through the melee might be a senseless struggle to some and a waste of resources to others but it does keep the battle going. Even pacifists like me understand to win a war you must stay in the fight.
Given the duplicity’s wide reaching implications for our democracy, there are plenty of unspoken questions about what else lies beneath the surface of this [and other] Government/s. But those questions are left to fade on the Editor’s to do list. Instead the Editors get their staff to scramble over each other, scratching and tearing at all the shiny things worn by all the shiny people.
At times like this there are few more rational responses than anger. The public anger that such facts should generate is so stage managed that many people are unsure what they are meant to be focusing their anger on, but they do know they are angry about something.
The Opposition, stymied by the media’s complicity, is left to struggle against a Speaker who was apparently instrumental in the co-ordination of the circumstances being discussed. Circumstances he has openly assisted the Government in avoiding as he sits as Speaker. When the opposition rise to their feet next week, and hopefully deliver carefully co-ordinated single part questions, they know full well what they will be facing. The Speaker will simply shut down any debate on the topic faster than he closed the door on ‘matters before the court’ that actually weren’t.
The PM could be asked directly about the blatantly two-faced actions taken by his Minister/s and if, by some miracle, he doesn’t launch into ‘Labour did it! Labour did it! Labour did it!’ we’ll get a shrug, a ‘you know’ then [the now tired] sneer followed by his latest version of ‘there’s always another person with a different interpretation of events’ before he wraps up by attacking another Party’s policies or making some lame joke whilst ignoring the lacklustre demands from the Speaker for him to be seated.
Yeah I guess you could say I’m less than thrilled about our prospects as a modern democratic state.
The National Youth Theatre in the UK closes down a production a fortnight before opening night.
Homegrown (not in the NZ sense) is a promenade play about the radicalisation of young people living in Britain. The idea and the performance sounds great, but it will not be performed.
Theatre is a great way to get people discussing and talking, and they are missing an opportunity here.
Not to mention the involvement of 112 local young people, who discover (once again) that their voices are silent.
Looks like the west is eagerly following the example of East German authorities.
1984
How heartening would it be if we could threaten companies such as Miller Argent with the “costs” of their externalities, instead of reading again about their threats to local peoples and governments to act as they see fit.
Coal company threatens to sue welsh borough if mine permit is denied
The Guardian’s expert on obfuscation by bureaucratese and acronym, Steven Poole, recently argued that TTIP could be a conspiracy to pull some very thick wool over our eyes. We live in an age when we’re so accustomed to being entertained that we haven’t the temperament to do the difficult work of penetrating the wool of boring. So we’re going to take that wool, roll it into a ball and leave it for the cat to play with. No, don’t look at the cat. Look at me. Focus.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/03/ttip-what-why-angry-transatlantic-trade-investment-partnership-guide
You’re so right. Isn’t this cute.
Vicious beast mauls helpless orange gourd
http://i.imgur.com/yUh8kbj.gifv
Murdoch on the TPPA
And how come he can be part of it when we are not privy to the TPP?
“Fonterra chairman John Wilson’s verbal sharp-shooting skills were put to good effect at the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) ministerial negotiations in Maui.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11491984 (Fran O’Sullivan.)
Brilliant.
Anybody hearing about the Turks bombing Kurdish anti-ISIS positions and the US bombing Syria to create an ISIS free safe zone? Neh, I didn’t think so! I mean why keep us posted on an area where NZ soldiers are involved in another war crime of apocalyptic proportions?
Gotta keep the customer happy.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/29/turkeys-american-lobbyists-work-defeat-military-aid-isis/
This excerpt from the Leaked TPP IP chapter would appear to be affecting Māori sovereignty.
Article QQ.E.23[95]: {Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Cultural Expressions and Genetic
Resources}
[PE/NZ/VN/BN/MX/SG/CL/MY propose[96]: 1. The parties recognise the importance and contribution
of traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions, and biological diversity to cultural, economic
and social development.]
[[97]PE/MY/MXBN propose; NZ/AU/SG/CL oppose: 2. Each Party exercises sovereignty over their
biological [MY/BN oppose: diversity] [MY/BN propose: resources] and shall determine the access
conditions to their genetic resources and their derivatives in accordance to their domestic legislation.]
http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/Section-E-PatentsUndisclosed-Data-TK-TTP-IP-Text-11May2015.pdf
Don’t forget to PROTEST AGAINST TPPA – our government is very keen to sign our sovereignty away. Just because they didn’t do it last week – they seem confident that they will next time so show the government the people mean business!
Here are the details
Hokianga
15 August protest, 11am at Kohukohu Village Green.
Whangarei
15 August protest, 11am at the Town Basin.
Auckland
15 August protest, 1pm at Aotea Square to march down Queen Street, featuring speakers and music.
Hamilton
15 August protest, Meet @ 1pm outside Cock and Bull carpark on corner of Church and Maui.
Tauranga
8 August, 10 am @ Red Square (Downtown Tauranga) for ‘Chalk n talk’.
9 August, Johns Key’s birthday bash with live music and Cake Signing the giant card.
10 August at lunch time, Banner making in Red Square.
12 August, Nag banner from cambridge rd over bridge.
13 August, signs on the road side
14th August – public meeting
15 August protest at 1pm, Red Square.
Gisborne
15 August protest, details to come.
Napier/Hastings
15 August protest, 1pm, location to be announced.
Wanganui
8 August protest, 1pm, march from Silver Ball in the market to Majestic Square.
New Plymouth
Protest planned, details to come
Palmerston North
(Before Action Week) – At 7pm on July 29th Palmerston North City Library is hosting a panel discussion on the TPPA, featuring Assoc Prof Jeff Sluka, Dr Deborak Russell and Dr Shamin Shukur (compere: Assoc Prof Bill Fish).
Art and photo exhibition planned with accompanying information, concert and talks
8 August Rally and concert, 1pm – 3:30pm in the Square in the quadrant opposite The Plaza. Keynote speech from Barry Coates, including Dr Romauld Rudzki, Dr Deborah Russell, Dr Jeff Sluka and Cr Lew Findlay, and local musicians.
14 August will be a concert in the library at 5pm, then documentary maker and investigative journalist Bryan Bruce will speak at 6pm on Poverty, Inequality & the TPPA.
Many committed P North activists will also be heading to Wellington on 15 August.
Wellington
7-13 August – The People Speak #STOPTPPA. NZ Photo exhibition (10am-5pm)
12 August – Lunchtime rally outside Parliament with politicians and speakers.
15 August – TPPA Walk Away! Protest action to stop the TPPA. Assemble at Midland Park and march to Parliament for speakers and music. More details to come.
Nelson
15 August protest at 11:00am, top of Trafalgar St – 1903 Square.
Christchurch
10 August political debate at 6pm, Canterbury Horticultural Society (57 Riccarton Avenue), featuring David Parker, Russell Norman, Fletcher Tabuteau and Marama Fox.
12 August film screening of ‘Inequality for All” by economist Robert Reich, 6pm at The Auricle (35 New Regent Street).
14 August New Economics Seminar and Expo, 7pm at Horticultural Hall.
15 August protest at 12:30pm. Location: South Hagley Park (corner Deans Ave and Riccarton Rd) marching down Riccarton Rd.
Timaru
15 August protest planned, details to come.
Dunedin
15 August protest at 1pm, marching from the Dental School to the Octagon.
Invercargill
15 August protest, 12pm at Wachner Place.
Save NZ +100 …Thanks for the info !
Draco T Bastard:
So, you have no answer to the point that your preferred option has been tried before and failed.
Gotcha.
————————————————————————————————————————-
your answer to my question here
Answer me this: What good is your money (literally virtual money), if you can’t access it, if you can’t use your bank card, or if your access is blocked by a government?
I can see quite a few people barter, trade or institute on a community level something to replace all that virtual money if access is not guaranteed or made hard.
I think they call it the black economy, or the under the table economy etc.
————————————————————————————————————————
ok, so I have linked to a Wiki Page that explains the use of scrip / chits throught the history of banking.
I have mentioned bartering, trading, or exchanging goods at an agreed value,
I have raised my reasons as to why i am not deluded into thinking that a benevolent government would run our cashless society that you advocate (i still would love the Start Trek years, but alas i will only live the years of the war leading up to the Vulcan arriving and providing humanity with Warp Speed).
I have mentioned cigarettes as currency as used in the after war years of Germany, my mother has good memories of picking up buds, taking them home, cleaning them, re-rolling the cleaned tobacco and then using it on the black market as currency before the great new introduction of the Deutsch Mark.
And you are saying that my preferred option has not been successfully tried before? Really? I mean Really?
So I am sorry, but there are more examples of humanity using what ever they can as currency, in abscence of anything better.
And if your cashless society comes true, i bet you a hundered chits that there will be immediately a different cash form available for those that don’t want to use the government sanctioned, controlled and government depended ‘credit/debit’ cards.
You need to prove that your idea is better, and at the moment i see you failing.
Actually, nobody needs to prove a damned thing.
The current advantage of cash over electronics isn’t trust so much as the convenience of universality – almost everyone can take cash, not everyone can take cards as that involves a cost outlay. When that advantage no longer exists, cash will slowly be phased out.
There is a hybrid option that might persist as a transitional step if manufacturing costs approach negligible: individual tokens like debit cards that have a display of their remaining balance. They can be physically exchanged, or debited (transferring between tokens would be more difficult and would require each token to be networked, although thinking about it one could organise some sort of exchange protocol that involves the token uploading and confirmation of transaction histories at merchant terminals).
That sort of thing was in the 1980s series Max Headroom, for the scifi folks out there 🙂
It’s been tried and failed and linked to some information on it. There’s more around on the same site if you look.
Sure, the laws that got put in place empowered the private banks which is why we need to change the laws and make it so that only the government an create money.
Hell, we technically already have your system in that the private banks create money every time a loan is made and is failing miserably.
Probably because we’ve been taught that government is bad and that stealing from them is good. Of course, stealing from the government is stealing from yourself and so you’re actually worse off.
You’re being wilfully blind.
Advantages:
1. It’s cheaper as it uses less resources
2. It’s more secure – can’t be stolen
3. Makes it easier to determine taxes
4. Makes it easier to find crime
Disadvantages:
1. It may go offline occasionally
2. Everyone will need a cellphone
Jeeesus DTB “it can’t be stolen”
FFS someone can press a button and haircut it or take it all in a microsecond.
And that would be known and thus can be reversed.
‘ASEAN wants China to stop work in disputed sea: official’
By EILEEN NG
http://news.yahoo.com/malaysia-seeks-amicable-solution-china-sea-dispute-065959378.html
“KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Southeast Asian nations want China to stop land reclamation in the disputed South China Sea, a regional official said Tuesday, but China insisted it has a right to continue the activity.
Le Luong Minh, secretary-general of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said ASEAN foreign ministers expressed concerns in a meeting Tuesday over massive Chinese island-building activities that have escalated tensions in the area…
Related Stories
http://news.yahoo.com/philippines-wants-south-china-sea-talks-despite-chinas-072657154.html
http://news.yahoo.com/asia-security-talks-open-south-china-sea-tensions-033935769.html
http://news.yahoo.com/us-philippines-raise-territorial-row-malaysia-meet-015600913.html
http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-chinas-wang-discuss-south-china-sea-tensions-040713628.html
http://news.yahoo.com/asean-china-discuss-hotline-sea-dispute-philippines-053923198.html
lol no shit.
China says it’s all their territory, a load of other nations disagree. It was in this area that Chinese and US aircraft collided in 2001. Lol, and it was the macguffin for a James Bond movie, I think The world is not enough.
‘The world is not enough’ …huh… must get back into James Bond movies…think I missed that one
The one with Jonathan Pryce as the baddie.