Maybe Labour understand that there are tough times ahead with any amount of unrest…..
I would invite readers to delve daily into the markets on http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/overview/overview.asp . There are some interestingly rapid movements during the last month, commodities are well down, only Brent Crude over $100, light crude down near $70. Shares are crashing. What this all indicates is a deflationary spiral as prices have peaked, a lack of liquidity in the markets. Money is looking for safe hedges and has nowhere to go.
What does it mean…tough times ahead with more disruption, more dissent. national as the next government (should they gain that poisoned challice) will end up needing all the police powers they can muster. The legitimacy of the current system is on the line, and rather than face the challenge positively they seem to want the right to repress whilst they loot our assets for their mates benefit.
You need to ask one more “why”. Why, after the US Federal Reserve has pumped $16T in new cash into the financial markets via the major banks, is there still a “lack of liquidity” in the markets?
And really, its a very simple issue. There is no shortage of money. There is an excess of debt and liabilities.
In other words, this isn’t a liquidity issue, its a solvency issue.
They can impoverish the middle class and under class all they like now, there are not enough assets in the OECD to compensate for the hundreds of trillions of potential loan and derivative bad (false) assets now hidden on bank balance sheets. At a time when the banks themselves have maximised their leverage in an attempt to maximise their profits, hence are woefully undercapitalised.
Some of the largest banks in the world are operating at leverage ratios of over 30:1. This is exactly like taking a million dollar mortgage out with a $30K deposit. Guess what, if the housing market tanks by just 5% you are suddenly left underwater.
That’s where all the banks are right now, except with trillion dollar bigger sums, and the markets set to tank by 40%-50%.
Yes, solvency is the big underlying issue. Creating credit out of thin air gives short term liquidity but it all gets dissolved or has nowhere safe to go. Creating any more credit just increases solvency problems.Bail outs are just a waste of time propping up the edifice.
Yep. A “bail out” is simply more debt, creating a short term supply of money to help pay off debts already owed to banks.
The Greek “bail outs” increase Greek debt further, and the money is paid straight to bankers.
The Greek ‘socialist’ government is working hand in hand with the bankers and the corporatists against their own people.
The Greeks defaulted in the first half of the 20th century, and they should do so again. And this time, they should get their tax systems and enforcement sorted out.
IT does have another side effect devaluing the American dollar forcing ours up if we don’t do something our export sector will get damaged again just when it is showing some resilience laissez fair for us social credit for them =disaster for our export sector just when we need it to keep our economy afloat , Their is a difference between borrowing and printing .Blinglish will have to borrow more if he doesn’t print and that will cost more and weaken our economy further.
“Maybe Labour understand that there are tough times ahead with any amount of unrest…..”
Wow, ‘ tough times ahead’, this is a valid reason for increasing the powers of the state?
Tough times for whom, and unrest from where? More importantly, how will increasing the Orwellian surveillance powers of a Government address the financial minefields, the increasing costs and the ballooning employment shortages we know make up the bulk of the tough times ahead.
Yeah let’s continue to ignore the problems that lead to the unjust laws and just give the State more and more of our freedoms. If we are to believe all the info distributed from our great leader the ‘serious crimes, the ones that desperately required National to remove even more of the freedoms fought for by our soldiers in bloody wars past, relate primarily to the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana.
A subject which only highlights exactly how uninterested they are in solving the problem.
Wow, ‘ tough times ahead’, this is a valid reason for increasing the powers of the state?
In the eyes of Right Wing Authoritarians it is. Labour has been centre-right for a while now and it now seems to be shifting into the authoritarian mode along with National, Act and United Future.
More importantly, how will increasing the Orwellian surveillance powers of a Government address the financial minefields…
It won’t but it will allow the government to oppress the populace to protect the thieves capitalists.
IMO, Anybody who’s voted Labour before because they were the party of the working class should now either be voting Mana, Alliance or Greens. None of the other parties are there for the majority of the populace.
amen, jenny.
i had just put a comment on another posting here but will repeat it here.
i seem to be missing something here, i thought the tories where all for less (nanny) state in our lives and yet we get this legislation.
equally i see a major left wing party struggling to get traction in polls, rushing to the aid of the tories to help them push thru this disgusting piece of lawmaking.
it has helped to decide where this one will vote come november and it aint gonna be for the nat lite crew. sorry guys.
peace.
The Tories are for anything which will secure their status and power when citizen uprisings occur. Just watch the UK.
And it is a shame that after 9/11, UK Labour led the charge into increased surveillance and CCTV powers, more than what was ever necessary to combat the IRA.
i seem to be missing something here, i thought the tories where all for less (nanny) state in our lives and yet we get this legislation.
That’s what the Tories say that they’re for but any reading of history will show the exact opposite. The Tories are the dictators that they warn people about.
Should MPs be party puppets or individual representatives?
John Key is famous for being an open and accessible PM, amicable and chatty, but National have become famous for saying as little as possible about stuff that matters.
Phil Goff looks more like he’s on slogan autopilot, but Labour MPs like Trevor Mallard, Clare Curran and Darien Fenton have generated publicity for speaking their own minds – for better or worse.
The Maori Party speaks as “our people” while Hone Harawira says what he likes.
Depends on what it is about. There are obviously party positions and ministerial responsibilities, but I have not been given any limitiation on what I can say from a personal point of view and how wider issues might effect my own region.
Isn’t this current public discussion around the future of the RWC just another example of the wider cultural cringe that we as a nation suffer from. (“Please world, love us, please! Please endorse that our decision to live here was the right one!”)
We talk about whinging Poms.
Where else in the world would you get such a debate dominating the media.
And at an event as it enters its final and high profile stage.
Strange thing is at school Kiwi kids are taught that the game is bigger than the man …
(People, the sun will continue to rise in the East whether the ABs are there or not)
Oh yes, my goodness yes, you do! Anyone old enough to remember that git Bickerstaff and his “punch a Pom a day” campaign? All in fun, he said… sadly my ex-husband took that as an instruction, and guess who the “Pom” was that he had ready to hand? 🙁
As a ‘pommy youth’ I well remember the shadow the ‘bash a pom a day’ sentiment cast over my family. I guess to many New Zealanders it was just harmless fun at the expense of the plummy voiced English (which we weren’t/aren’t) or part of Muldoon’s anti-union barrage (Dad was a shop steward).
To my family it was simply an experience of hostility and non-belonging. I remember Mum crying and just wanting to go ‘home’.
Having said that, I had very good friends (some of my best friends – still – are New Zealanders :)).
And don’t get me on to my ‘identity’ – I’ve given up on that as a bad joke.
Yeah but the likes of Deaker has a soft spot for the Irish, Welsh, or Scots. But they despise the English.
It seems that people can wave the flags of any nationality here in Godzone and say they are proud of their “homeland”, but look out if you are English or from areas of Asia.
but look out if you are English or from areas of Asia.
That is so true! My students are for the most part Asian, which is something I’ve learned not to talk about, if I don’t want to hear stereotypes and ignorant abuse. “They’re taking our jobs”, etc..
I remember a student at Unitec in tears over the abuse she got from a bus driver when she asked a question about his route. My son and his friend Jinkoo were catching a bus near their school Western Springs College and they got on together. Jinkoo (Korean, and quite dark-skinned) started to ask something and the driver responded with “I’m sick of you bloody Chinese coming here, you don’t even speak English, and your bloody stupid questions…”. WSC doesn’t have uniforms, goodness knows how old this driver thought they were, but they were just kids! Jinkoo grew up in Germany until he was 8, then in Titirangi. His English is perfect, and his response was scathing!
As a ‘pommy youth’ I well remember the shadow the ‘bash a pom a day’ sentiment cast over my family. I guess to many New Zealanders it was just harmless fun at the expense of the plummy voiced English (which we weren’t/aren’t) or part of Muldoon’s anti-union barrage (Dad was a shop steward)
I was glad at the time that my Dad hadn’t lived to see it! When we girls started school, we had our Dad’s Scouse accent, but we were gobsmacked to be mobbed by 6 year olds screaming “Get back to Pongolia, garn!” My Dutch friend Ellen actually did get punched for speaking Dutch in the street, she was 5 years old, her sister 4.. (Her father then declared that they would all speak English in the home from then on.) New Zealanders seem deeply suspicious of and hostile to “foreigners”..
It’s been the subject of much mirth that our glorious leader John “100% pure compared to other countries” Keys doesn’t seem to know what a percentage is.
But this latest bit of innumeracy has me stunned. From question time yesterday:
When Standard & Poors were giving a meeting in New Zealand about a month ago what they did say, was there was about a 30% chance, ah, that we would be downgraded, that’s what happens when you’re on negative outlook, they did go on to say though, if there was a change of government then that downgrade would be much more likely.
Everyone catch that?
Keys is now crowing that the likelyhood of something that has already happened would be even higher if National weren’t in govt.
Keys dropped the ball. But it’s a good thing Keys is in charge, ‘cos if it were someone else they might’ve dropped the ball.
FFS people used to let this idiot play with their money? Oh that’s right, we still do.
There used to be lots of money slopping around for the idiot to play with….but now?????
“100% pure compared to other countries….” the fekker should have been standing in the stream with me opening day watching effluent dumping, I would have submerged his TV friendly little nostrils deep into it for as long as it took for him to wise up..
Yep Bored, just after opening day on a river in the back of beyond seemingly clear and 100% pure as they come. After not too long me net and screens all clogged with dairy farm shit. And there aint even hardly none dairy farms in this catchment !!
Fertiliser use up 700% in last decade.
Imagine if everyone’s business could just dump their refuse in the street.
Got broken off and then thrown off on the Tuki, rainbows, one large, one little….took a fish out of the top of the Manawatu. Rainbow, 1.5Kgs. Some council idiots plough the Hawkes Bay rivers to”help” river flood flows..buggers the pools big time.
Season looking good if you are prepared to walk into difficult spots around Tararuas / Ruahines. Those streams dont turn to black bottomed slime drains (courtesy of fertilizer / dairy) like the lower country streams. The Manawatu, Mangatainoka, Makakahi, and to the Ruamahanga have been pretty much stuffed with algae by mid season for the last few years. Its a disgrace, and Keys willful ignorance of this makes me despise him more.
Businesses do dump their refuse in the street. The difference is that it can actually be picked up and is organised to be so. Farm refuse can’t be and no in government is bothered about either cleaning it up or preventing it from being dumped in the first place.
Yes, well it is the fundamental issue. How many businesses are still allowed to dump their refuse in the public estate like streets or creeks? None.
There seems to be some kind of implicit understanding that the farming sector can so dump. Similarly with the mining sector, though less so.
The farming one stems of course from NZ’s historical agricultural development when such things were relatively somewhat understandable. But that has morphed and changed to such an extent that if pre-european NZ was subjected to a resource consent application for the agricultural practices as practised today it would not progress very far methinks …
Farms should stop dumping anything outside the farm gate. Big ask for the current generation and would take time but that is what needs to happen. And people get grumpy WHEN ANOTHER FUKCING SHAKE RUMBLES THROUGH MID-SENTENCE … AAARRRRGH! … now where was my brain cells … ah yes, people get grumpy when that sector fails to acknowledge that very particular and major point.
What about TripleD (dipton double dipper) saying on morning report about the deposit guarantee scheme, “nobody knew how to do it”.
Well why the hell didnt they find out?
Oh I see, they needed the opportunity to dispense funds to their mates under a cloak of legality.
Nice work if you can get it.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 5.1
You should listen to the interview. English barely mentioned that Labour were the ones who set it up – I figured he’d be crowing from the rooftops that that was the case.
National supports the Government’s plans to offer a guarantee of $150 billion in retail banking deposits, but says there still many unknowns about how the scheme will work.
National leader John Key was briefed by Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard this afternoon about the plan after the Government announced the policy at the Labour Party campaign launch.
Makes no difference, marsman. If they hadn’t extended it, SCF would have gone into liquidation in the first period specifically to get the advantage of the scheme.
you cannot have it both ways, If they were unstable, the Government should not have extended the Guarantee, If they were fine then they simply manipulated the NZ Govt to make a buck
So either Blingless was an idiot signing them an extension or the SCF are guilty of serious misconduct
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 5.1.2.1.1.1
If the government had not extended the guarantee, SCF would have triggered the payout earlier while under the protection of the original term extended to them by Labour.
On November 19th 2008, Key and his ministers were sworn in. That very day, Treasury Head John Whitehead signed the deed admitting SCF into the retail deposit guarantee scheme “on behalf of the Minister of Finance” Bill English.
Labour didn’t sign SCF into the scheme – National did and they did so while aware that SCF was not up to the terms of the scheme.
Fascinating to hear Bill English on Morning Report clouding the issue so thoroughly that the answer was not his problem and he was not responsible. The good thing was that he actually fronted up.
I do not care who it was that originally signed SCF on. It could have been Tinkerbell trembling in fear when she signed, asCaptain Hook held a shimmering longblade to her tiny throat. It is irrelevant. If SCF had failed during the term of that agreement then the relevant questions would be asked. The FACTS plainly show that the EXTENDED coverage was signed on by National, THREE TIMES My earlier statement stands
” either Blingless was an idiot signing them an extension
or the SCF are guilty of serious misconduct ”
I have seen figures reported at various places that show as much as a billion dollars was added to the risk value in the period between National coming to power and the actual collapse
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
Gormless, ( at 3:08) still has trouble with the FACTS that hundreds of millions of dollars of liability were added to the guarantee AFTER National extended the scheme for SCF. What about that data is so hard to understand?
Fox: Your colleague, she’d seen the protests in Greece and Europe and elsewhere. Did you guys take your cue from that? Are you hoping to cite certainly what was a lot of the tension, if not police activity. I know over the weekend there were over 100 arrests and you guys got things fired up. Are you taking your cues from the international movement and how do you want to see this? If you could have it in a perfect way, how would it be?
Jesse: Well I don’t know, its really difficult to answer questions leading to those conclusions. I’d say that we didn’t take our cue leading off of anybody really. It became a more spontaneous movement. As far as seeing this end, I wouldn’t like to see this end. I would like to see the conversation continue. This is what we should have been talking about in 2008 when the economy collapsed. We basically patched a hole on the tire and said let the car keep rolling. Unfortunately it’s fun to talk to the propaganda machine and the media especially conservative media networks such as yourself, because we find that we cant get conversations for the department of Justice’s ongoing investigation of News Corporation, for which you are an employee. But we can certainly ask questions like you know, why are the poor engaging in class warfare? After 30 years of having our living standards decrease while the wealthiest 1% have had it better than ever, I think it’s time for some maybe, I don’t know, participation in our democracy that isn’t funded by news cameras and gentlemen such as yourself.
Fox: But, uh, yeah well, let me give you this challenge Jesse.
Jesse: Sure.
Fox: We’re here giving you an opportunity on the record […] to put any
message you want out there, to give you fair coverage and I’m not
going to in any way
Jesse: That’s awesome!
Fox:…give you advice about it. So, there is an exception in the case, because you wouldn’t be able to get your message out there without us.
Jesse: No, surely, I mean, take for instance when Glenn Beck was doing his protest and he called the President, uh, a person who hates white people and white culture. That was a low moment in Americans’ history and you guys kinda had a big part in it. So, I’m glad to see you coming around and kind of paying attention to what the other 99 percent of Americans are paying attention to, as opposed to the far-right fringe, who who would just love to destroy the middle class entirely.
Fox: Alright, fair enough. You have a voice, an important reason to criticize myself, my company and anyone else. But, let me ask you that, in fairness, does this administration, President Obama, have any criticism as to the the financial situation the country’s in…?
Jesse: I think, myself, uh, as well as many other people, would like to see a little but more economic justice or social justice—Jesus stuff—as far as feeding the poor, healthcare for the sick. You know, I find it really entertaining that people like to hold the Bill of Rights up while they’re screaming at gay soldiers, but they just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that a for-profit healthcare system doesn’t work. So, let’s just look at it like this, if we want the President to do more, let’s talk to him on a level that actually reaches people, instead of asking for his birth certificate and wasting time with total nonsense like Solyndra.
I’ve been looking at the comments on the stuff political blogs for a while now. Every time John Pagani writes a blog he gets dozens of incredibly vitriolic, and often very uninformed, people commenting. A lot of them repeat the lies that Labour left us in a huge deficit hole and wasted all the money etc. They’re all generally very very anti-Labour and very pro-National.
When DPF writes a blog the comments are sort of 60/40 supportive or anti, with the anti ones saying stuff about him deliberately manipulating the media spin for his paymasters.
Yet when a new post goes up in the What (S)he Said blog, which is by Andrea Vance and John Hartevelt who are in the parliamentary press gallery, the comments are usually a lot more anti-national.
It makes me think there’s a whole bunch of righties just waiting for DPF and Pagani’s blogs so they can go in an astroturf hither and yon. But they ignore What (S)he Said and as a result we get more honest commenting going on.
I thought Pagani’s role was to act as a punchbag for Paul Holmes, Richard Griffin, Matthew Hooton and whoever else on the right wants a workout on an agreeable patsy.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 8
I wasn’t ill-informed, it is unfortunately, a subject that I know rather too well (as John already knew). John Pagani however was quite ill-informed on the subject he was writing on – which is why he got my comment pointing out one aspect of why he was ill-informed. Apparently he didn’t like by characterization of his motivation for writing such cobblers.
In any event, the comment didn’t survive there. So I repeated and expanded it here.
Japan is to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean next month with military security to protect its boats from the radical environment group Sea Shepherd which has promised to launch “Operation Divine Wind” or kamikaze against them.
On the tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan being connected to the emperor of Japan having sex with the sun goddess
“That happened many, many years ago, and that created a spiritual atmosphere over Japan which was an atmosphere ruled by the powers of darkness. The sun goddess is not a very nice lady. The sun goddess is a power of darkness, which is headed up by the kingdom of Satan. And so the sun goddess wants natural disasters to come to Japan. Sometimes the hand of God, which is more powerful, will prevent them. And when he decides to prevent them and when he doesn’t is far beyond anything that we can predict.”
Why the surprise? This creationism crap is worming its way into schools. It comes from the cell groups that set themselves up in the libraries of our teacher colleges. The graduates go out into the world and this drivel slowly permeates the classrooms – particularly, but not exclusively, in the lower decile schools where the communities are receptive and indeed request it – the communities’ boards recruit them. (Further confirming the warnings that were given when Picot set in train the self managing schools model).
It’s a toss up between English and Heatley as being the worst cabinet ministers. Both have caused immense financial hardship to those in the lowest income bracket.
I am concerned about how much Heatley has wasted on his screwed up housing policies. The man simply does NOT get it that his newly developed social housing unit will not deliver affordable rental properties to those who do not qualify for a HNZ property.
NZ has such an aging population who require medical treatment. Unless there is a robust, affordable secure housing policy, the elderly in particular are going to require more health resources. This can be said for children as well and people with permanent health conditions which impede working more than several hours a week.
Heatley has 40 million for his social housing unit EXPERIMENT, which has redirected money away from housing people in need, while far too many HNZ homes are unoccupied.
Dosent help that the HCC is full of Tea-Party wannabes, and Julie Hardaker is trying her best to be like Michelle Bachman without the god-bothering.
Heatley is probably in the pocket of the slumlords union Property Investors’ Federation.
Fortunately, the Tea Parters on my council are a) most of the time all bluff and bluster and b) too caught up into having admission fees established for the local art gallery to be any sort of threat to council services.
Profit is a dead weight loss so I’m not overly concerned about that especially considering that it is the profit drive (pure greed) that is destroying the environment.
No, we needed the lab time to tell us that those effects were good for us rather than the End of Civilisation which seems to be the reason why such drugs are banned.
“The majority of voters for all main political parties want the government to phase out battery cages. When asked whether animal welfare laws should prohibit cages, 70 per cent of the respondents said they should. When told the government is considering phasing out battery cages and asked if they agreed with this, 81 per cent said they did,” says SAFE campaign director Eliot Pryor.
So, is the government listening to the public on this or are they still defending the use of battery hens?
However, the Horizon poll finds 64% say they are not well enough informed or not informed at all on Preferential voting (64%); Single Transferable Vote (62.2%) and
Supplementary Member (71.3%). Only on the former electoral system, First Past the Post, do a majority (58.1%) feel informed or well informed, while 28% feel ill-informed on it.
Asked if they would like the electoral Commission to send them information about the alternative voting systems to MMP, 74.2% say yes, 25.8% no.
Well, at least people are asking for the information. Now hopefully that will be made available to them. Although I’m pretty sure that NAct will prefer to keep people uninformed.
Among voters who are registered, intend to vote, have decided which party to support or who don’t know but express a current preference, Mana has 2.2% (up from 1.9% in July). The Maori Party has 1.1%. Some 21% of those supporting Mana voted for the Maori Party at the 2008 general election.
National has 39.5% (up 2.2% since July), Act 4.8% and United Future 0.8%.
Labour has 27% (no change), the Green party 10.7% (+ 0.5%), New Zealand First 7.3% (+1.3%).
Actually, the most important point of that poll is that Labour would only be able to form a coalition with the support of Mana. Phil Goff should, about now, be feeling really stupid for saying that he won’t work with Hone.
This one’s the most disturbing though. Apparently, most people believe that employers should have a say in your recreation.
Whao! What just happened in the public gallery in Parliament? It happened as Goff was beginning his speech in the general debate, and apparently our friendly PM blamed the incident on Labour.
I think the speaker got it wrong. But the PM obviously said something during/just after the kerfuffle in the gallery that got right up the nose of the opposition.
The incident interrupted a speech by Labour leader Phil Goff and several MPs leapt to their feet out of concern.
At the time Prime Minister John Key was shouting across the House “shame on Labour”. Question time had just finished and MPs were engaged in a general debate.
[…]
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee said security guards were on the scene “very, very quickly”.
[…]
“[We were] shocked because you don’t know why he was wanting to leap. When he went out he made a few statements that were fairly clear what he was about. I’d rather not go into that.”
The man was heard calling out about Work and Income, Prime Minister John Key and Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.
I happened to read an article today entitled Key Nats’ ace; Goff sidelined, published on the Otago Daily Times website today. The fictional piece is so obviously a beat up that I’m surprised it reached publication…
Dalefield School principal Kevin Jephson said the standards would reward only those pupils “who arrive at school from extremely advantaged backgrounds such as inherited intelligence, emotional security, financial prospects and pro-active parenting”.
“The many children who come to school less advantaged not only demonstrate their lack of readiness to learn at higher academic levels but also inflict on the school their many and varied social problems.”
National Standards had allowed politicians and bureaucrats to “get in by the back door” and influence policy and practice in schools, which under parent control were “more relaxed and human”, he said.
Now boards of trustees face the axe for not implementing National Standards and teachers are hamstrung and demotivated by “countless restrictive practices”. “With the tyranny of officialdom flooding our schools they will soon descend into mediocrity and then over time become ripe for closure and mergers.”
(funny that is already happening in Dunedin and Kawerau, and the rumour mill suggests those are ‘pilots’ for future amalgamations)
and…
“We at Dalefield cannot afford to wait any longer for the minister to wake up and rescind an unworkable, treacherous and anti-child educational law. “It is time for the lawmakers to stand up and apologise to our citizens for wasting precious taxpayer funds and degrading high performing schools on a political whim.”
I’d love to see Tolley do that! And finally
“We have a duty to the children of this country to maintain the very high educational standards we have now and not just let our children’s futures and our high international rankings be destroyed by a political neoliberal ideology which has captured the present government,”
Well said Kevin Jephson and well spotted Ian.
Last week buried in a column somewhere I saw a quote from Anne Tolley to the effect that National Standards were just a beginning and that she had many more things to improve NZ education. Ominous.
And watch that Mandate that National will seize in order to justify massive changes.
So what about the wairarapa times age running a meet john key forum and putting a two inch bannner for key on the bottom of every page for a week?
When the goebbles golum come back to life?
Noting that effective enforcement of intellectual property rights is critical to sustaining economic growth across all industries and globally;
Is completely contrary to reality. Preventing people from applying their imagination and coming up with ideas, which is what IP enforcement does, actively prevents development of the economy.
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, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
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. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
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 ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
The protest outside the White House correspondents’ dinner hotel. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR More than two dozen Palestinian journalists had called for a boycott of the dinner, writing an open letter urging their American colleagues not to attend. “You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and ...
“Our exporters should, therefore, be deeply concerned that the Fast-track Approvals Bill was not assessed for consistency with any of our free trade commitments prior to being introduced to the House,” says Gary Taylor, Chief Executive of the Environmental ...
NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff is calling on all political parties to support the new Member’s Bill from Labour’s workplace relations and safety spokesperson Camilla Belich MP that would ensure negligent companies are held accountable when their employees ...
A historian with an uncanny track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go very wrong for him. ...
A historian with a track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go wrong for him. ...
Ngaio Marsh House is one of Christchurch’s best kept secrets – and contains more than a few mysteries of its own.Trust Ngaio Marsh to leave more than a few mysteries scattered through her house long after her departure. For a start, there’s the curious concrete portal in the garden, ...
Appointment viewing has been lost to the mists of time, but memories of Montana Sunday Theatre can still be conjured by hitting play on a particular piece of classical music. “You’re not going to be able to sell it.” Over 30 years on, Karen Bieleski still recalls how the task ...
Performance Review King Luxon sat behind His massive polished oak desk. It is Performance Review time. There is a knock on the door. “Enter!” says the King. In steps Minister of Disabilities and Carer Pedicures, Penny Simmonds. “I can explain everything …” she begins. “Fine,” says King Luxon, pressing the ...
The pair opened their first fully collaborative exhibition, Nina for Flowers, last Saturday. Gabi Lardies visited their studio to find out who Nina is and what working together was like.‘It didn’t start out like, ‘This is a show about Nina,’” says Josephine Jelicich, gripping a thermos of peppermint tea. ...
Thank you, Dr Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner, for your brilliant invention. I’m another mid-20s Kiwi who had an OE last year. I hopped on my bicycle where France meets the Atlantic and cycled east. I pedalled through the Loire Valley, down rivers lined with willows and ancient wisteria-draped chateaus. I relished ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. 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 ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Where does the left/right divide fall?
The Labour Party will vote with the right wing parties to introduce the Orwellian Video Surveillance bill.
For:
Labour
National
ACT
Against:
Maori Party
Green Party
Mana Party
No wonder flaxroots voters are confused and/or indifferent when it comes to voting time.
Maybe Labour understand that there are tough times ahead with any amount of unrest…..
I would invite readers to delve daily into the markets on http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/overview/overview.asp . There are some interestingly rapid movements during the last month, commodities are well down, only Brent Crude over $100, light crude down near $70. Shares are crashing. What this all indicates is a deflationary spiral as prices have peaked, a lack of liquidity in the markets. Money is looking for safe hedges and has nowhere to go.
What does it mean…tough times ahead with more disruption, more dissent. national as the next government (should they gain that poisoned challice) will end up needing all the police powers they can muster. The legitimacy of the current system is on the line, and rather than face the challenge positively they seem to want the right to repress whilst they loot our assets for their mates benefit.
You need to ask one more “why”. Why, after the US Federal Reserve has pumped $16T in new cash into the financial markets via the major banks, is there still a “lack of liquidity” in the markets?
And really, its a very simple issue. There is no shortage of money. There is an excess of debt and liabilities.
In other words, this isn’t a liquidity issue, its a solvency issue.
They can impoverish the middle class and under class all they like now, there are not enough assets in the OECD to compensate for the hundreds of trillions of potential loan and derivative bad (false) assets now hidden on bank balance sheets. At a time when the banks themselves have maximised their leverage in an attempt to maximise their profits, hence are woefully undercapitalised.
Some of the largest banks in the world are operating at leverage ratios of over 30:1. This is exactly like taking a million dollar mortgage out with a $30K deposit. Guess what, if the housing market tanks by just 5% you are suddenly left underwater.
That’s where all the banks are right now, except with trillion dollar bigger sums, and the markets set to tank by 40%-50%.
Yes, solvency is the big underlying issue. Creating credit out of thin air gives short term liquidity but it all gets dissolved or has nowhere safe to go. Creating any more credit just increases solvency problems.Bail outs are just a waste of time propping up the edifice.
Yep. A “bail out” is simply more debt, creating a short term supply of money to help pay off debts already owed to banks.
The Greek “bail outs” increase Greek debt further, and the money is paid straight to bankers.
The Greek ‘socialist’ government is working hand in hand with the bankers and the corporatists against their own people.
The Greeks defaulted in the first half of the 20th century, and they should do so again. And this time, they should get their tax systems and enforcement sorted out.
Keiser today had some speculation that the Germans would revert to the Deutchsmark, and leave the Euro altogether…. http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/episode-192-max-keiser/
And in the UK, the anti- Euro pot is boiling.
http://rt.com/news/uk-referendum-eu-membership-863/
IT does have another side effect devaluing the American dollar forcing ours up if we don’t do something our export sector will get damaged again just when it is showing some resilience laissez fair for us social credit for them =disaster for our export sector just when we need it to keep our economy afloat , Their is a difference between borrowing and printing .Blinglish will have to borrow more if he doesn’t print and that will cost more and weaken our economy further.
“Maybe Labour understand that there are tough times ahead with any amount of unrest…..”
Wow, ‘ tough times ahead’, this is a valid reason for increasing the powers of the state?
Tough times for whom, and unrest from where? More importantly, how will increasing the Orwellian surveillance powers of a Government address the financial minefields, the increasing costs and the ballooning employment shortages we know make up the bulk of the tough times ahead.
Yeah let’s continue to ignore the problems that lead to the unjust laws and just give the State more and more of our freedoms. If we are to believe all the info distributed from our great leader the ‘serious crimes, the ones that desperately required National to remove even more of the freedoms fought for by our soldiers in bloody wars past, relate primarily to the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana.
A subject which only highlights exactly how uninterested they are in solving the problem.
In the eyes of Right Wing Authoritarians it is. Labour has been centre-right for a while now and it now seems to be shifting into the authoritarian mode along with National, Act and United Future.
It won’t but it will allow the government to oppress the populace to protect the
thievescapitalists.IMO, Anybody who’s voted Labour before because they were the party of the working class should now either be voting Mana, Alliance or Greens. None of the other parties are there for the majority of the populace.
amen, jenny.
i had just put a comment on another posting here but will repeat it here.
i seem to be missing something here, i thought the tories where all for less (nanny) state in our lives and yet we get this legislation.
equally i see a major left wing party struggling to get traction in polls, rushing to the aid of the tories to help them push thru this disgusting piece of lawmaking.
it has helped to decide where this one will vote come november and it aint gonna be for the nat lite crew. sorry guys.
peace.
The Tories are for anything which will secure their status and power when citizen uprisings occur. Just watch the UK.
And it is a shame that after 9/11, UK Labour led the charge into increased surveillance and CCTV powers, more than what was ever necessary to combat the IRA.
That’s what the Tories say that they’re for but any reading of history will show the exact opposite. The Tories are the dictators that they warn people about.
Should MPs be party puppets or individual representatives?
John Key is famous for being an open and accessible PM, amicable and chatty, but National have become famous for saying as little as possible about stuff that matters.
Phil Goff looks more like he’s on slogan autopilot, but Labour MPs like Trevor Mallard, Clare Curran and Darien Fenton have generated publicity for speaking their own minds – for better or worse.
The Maori Party speaks as “our people” while Hone Harawira says what he likes.
Peter Dunne has made it clear UnitedFuture is “not a one man band”.
Should there be strict party message control?
Should parliament be a house of parties or a house of representaives – or a balance of both?
Just about fell over laughing at the irony
Danyl does National to an N.
http://dimpost.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/i-hope-this-doesnt-get-me-in-trouble-with-the-electoral-commission/
Oh that is good.
Serious question: Dunne seems to be saying feel free to speak your mind on local issues. What about wider issues?
Depends on what it is about. There are obviously party positions and ministerial responsibilities, but I have not been given any limitiation on what I can say from a personal point of view and how wider issues might effect my own region.
A one man band says he is not a one man band? Hopefully a zero man band by Nov 27.
People still vote United?
Dunne has been in so many parties it a job to remember which is which.Is he still in United ? Let’s hope this is the last we will see of him.
No Pete George forges 20,00o signatures.2 man band the only supporter outside ohariu
Isn’t this current public discussion around the future of the RWC just another example of the wider cultural cringe that we as a nation suffer from. (“Please world, love us, please! Please endorse that our decision to live here was the right one!”)
We talk about whinging Poms.
Where else in the world would you get such a debate dominating the media.
And at an event as it enters its final and high profile stage.
Strange thing is at school Kiwi kids are taught that the game is bigger than the man …
(People, the sun will continue to rise in the East whether the ABs are there or not)
Oh yes, my goodness yes, you do! Anyone old enough to remember that git Bickerstaff and his “punch a Pom a day” campaign? All in fun, he said… sadly my ex-husband took that as an instruction, and guess who the “Pom” was that he had ready to hand? 🙁
I remember the seventies well.
As a ‘pommy youth’ I well remember the shadow the ‘bash a pom a day’ sentiment cast over my family. I guess to many New Zealanders it was just harmless fun at the expense of the plummy voiced English (which we weren’t/aren’t) or part of Muldoon’s anti-union barrage (Dad was a shop steward).
To my family it was simply an experience of hostility and non-belonging. I remember Mum crying and just wanting to go ‘home’.
Having said that, I had very good friends (some of my best friends – still – are New Zealanders :)).
And don’t get me on to my ‘identity’ – I’ve given up on that as a bad joke.
Yeah but the likes of Deaker has a soft spot for the Irish, Welsh, or Scots. But they despise the English.
It seems that people can wave the flags of any nationality here in Godzone and say they are proud of their “homeland”, but look out if you are English or from areas of Asia.
That is so true! My students are for the most part Asian, which is something I’ve learned not to talk about, if I don’t want to hear stereotypes and ignorant abuse. “They’re taking our jobs”, etc..
I remember a student at Unitec in tears over the abuse she got from a bus driver when she asked a question about his route. My son and his friend Jinkoo were catching a bus near their school Western Springs College and they got on together. Jinkoo (Korean, and quite dark-skinned) started to ask something and the driver responded with “I’m sick of you bloody Chinese coming here, you don’t even speak English, and your bloody stupid questions…”. WSC doesn’t have uniforms, goodness knows how old this driver thought they were, but they were just kids! Jinkoo grew up in Germany until he was 8, then in Titirangi. His English is perfect, and his response was scathing!
I was glad at the time that my Dad hadn’t lived to see it! When we girls started school, we had our Dad’s Scouse accent, but we were gobsmacked to be mobbed by 6 year olds screaming “Get back to Pongolia, garn!” My Dutch friend Ellen actually did get punched for speaking Dutch in the street, she was 5 years old, her sister 4.. (Her father then declared that they would all speak English in the home from then on.) New Zealanders seem deeply suspicious of and hostile to “foreigners”..
Oh frack.
It’s been the subject of much mirth that our glorious leader John “100% pure compared to other countries” Keys doesn’t seem to know what a percentage is.
But this latest bit of innumeracy has me stunned. From question time yesterday:
Everyone catch that?
Keys is now crowing that the likelyhood of something that has already happened would be even higher if National weren’t in govt.
Keys dropped the ball. But it’s a good thing Keys is in charge, ‘cos if it were someone else they might’ve dropped the ball.
FFS people used to let this idiot play with their money? Oh that’s right, we still do.
There used to be lots of money slopping around for the idiot to play with….but now?????
“100% pure compared to other countries….” the fekker should have been standing in the stream with me opening day watching effluent dumping, I would have submerged his TV friendly little nostrils deep into it for as long as it took for him to wise up..
Yep Bored, just after opening day on a river in the back of beyond seemingly clear and 100% pure as they come. After not too long me net and screens all clogged with dairy farm shit. And there aint even hardly none dairy farms in this catchment !!
Fertiliser use up 700% in last decade.
Imagine if everyone’s business could just dump their refuse in the street.
Speaking of, how’s the season down there apart from the cowshit and chemicals?
Oh you know felix, there not much about …… just cupfuls or enough for a feed …..
Seasons opening was beaut…who needs rugby?
Got broken off and then thrown off on the Tuki, rainbows, one large, one little….took a fish out of the top of the Manawatu. Rainbow, 1.5Kgs. Some council idiots plough the Hawkes Bay rivers to”help” river flood flows..buggers the pools big time.
Season looking good if you are prepared to walk into difficult spots around Tararuas / Ruahines. Those streams dont turn to black bottomed slime drains (courtesy of fertilizer / dairy) like the lower country streams. The Manawatu, Mangatainoka, Makakahi, and to the Ruamahanga have been pretty much stuffed with algae by mid season for the last few years. Its a disgrace, and Keys willful ignorance of this makes me despise him more.
I think vto is talking about whitebait. Only a week to go before heading off to the Coast to give it a crack myself……
Businesses do dump their refuse in the street. The difference is that it can actually be picked up and is organised to be so. Farm refuse can’t be and no in government is bothered about either cleaning it up or preventing it from being dumped in the first place.
Yes, well it is the fundamental issue. How many businesses are still allowed to dump their refuse in the public estate like streets or creeks? None.
There seems to be some kind of implicit understanding that the farming sector can so dump. Similarly with the mining sector, though less so.
The farming one stems of course from NZ’s historical agricultural development when such things were relatively somewhat understandable. But that has morphed and changed to such an extent that if pre-european NZ was subjected to a resource consent application for the agricultural practices as practised today it would not progress very far methinks …
Farms should stop dumping anything outside the farm gate. Big ask for the current generation and would take time but that is what needs to happen. And people get grumpy WHEN ANOTHER FUKCING SHAKE RUMBLES THROUGH MID-SENTENCE … AAARRRRGH! … now where was my brain cells … ah yes, people get grumpy when that sector fails to acknowledge that very particular and major point.
time for a drink now
What about TripleD (dipton double dipper) saying on morning report about the deposit guarantee scheme, “nobody knew how to do it”.
Well why the hell didnt they find out?
Oh I see, they needed the opportunity to dispense funds to their mates under a cloak of legality.
Nice work if you can get it.
Umm, randal. Labour set it up. You know that, right?
You should listen to the interview. English barely mentioned that Labour were the ones who set it up – I figured he’d be crowing from the rooftops that that was the case.
Actually National/Key said they backed the bank deposit guarantee scheme when Labour first announced it:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10537163
But Labour did NOT sign SCF on for a second time, that was Bill English, within days of being in office.
Makes no difference, marsman. If they hadn’t extended it, SCF would have gone into liquidation in the first period specifically to get the advantage of the scheme.
you cannot have it both ways, If they were unstable, the Government should not have extended the Guarantee, If they were fine then they simply manipulated the NZ Govt to make a buck
So either Blingless was an idiot signing them an extension or the SCF are guilty of serious misconduct
If the government had not extended the guarantee, SCF would have triggered the payout earlier while under the protection of the original term extended to them by Labour.
so you are saying English knowingly extended the guarantee to a failing company.
Thanks for clearing that up.
http://thestandard.org.nz/key-we-were-told-scf-would-fail/
Labour didn’t sign SCF into the scheme – National did and they did so while aware that SCF was not up to the terms of the scheme.
To be fair this was the first scheme. But there are some real questions to be asked about allowing SCF retain Govt Guarantee later.
Fascinating to hear Bill English on Morning Report clouding the issue so thoroughly that the answer was not his problem and he was not responsible. The good thing was that he actually fronted up.
I do not care who it was that originally signed SCF on. It could have been Tinkerbell trembling in fear when she signed, asCaptain Hook held a shimmering longblade to her tiny throat. It is irrelevant. If SCF had failed during the term of that agreement then the relevant questions would be asked. The FACTS plainly show that the EXTENDED coverage was signed on by National, THREE TIMES My earlier statement stands
” either Blingless was an idiot signing them an extension
or the SCF are guilty of serious misconduct ”
I have seen figures reported at various places that show as much as a billion dollars was added to the risk value in the period between National coming to power and the actual collapse
If they hadn’t given the extension, SCF would have gone into liquidation while it was still covered. Same result.
Gormless, ( at 3:08) still has trouble with the FACTS that hundreds of millions of dollars of liability were added to the guarantee AFTER National extended the scheme for SCF. What about that data is so hard to understand?
Occupy Wall Street: NYPD’s arrests boosting mob’s numbers?
Also, Dailylife timeline of Occupy Wall Street coverage.
An interview you wont see.
Transcript:
Fox: Jesse, so Ray, your partner here, your ..
Ray: comrade.
Fox: Your colleague, she’d seen the protests in Greece and Europe and elsewhere. Did you guys take your cue from that? Are you hoping to cite certainly what was a lot of the tension, if not police activity. I know over the weekend there were over 100 arrests and you guys got things fired up. Are you taking your cues from the international movement and how do you want to see this? If you could have it in a perfect way, how would it be?
Jesse: Well I don’t know, its really difficult to answer questions leading to those conclusions. I’d say that we didn’t take our cue leading off of anybody really. It became a more spontaneous movement. As far as seeing this end, I wouldn’t like to see this end. I would like to see the conversation continue. This is what we should have been talking about in 2008 when the economy collapsed. We basically patched a hole on the tire and said let the car keep rolling. Unfortunately it’s fun to talk to the propaganda machine and the media especially conservative media networks such as yourself, because we find that we cant get conversations for the department of Justice’s ongoing investigation of News Corporation, for which you are an employee. But we can certainly ask questions like you know, why are the poor engaging in class warfare? After 30 years of having our living standards decrease while the wealthiest 1% have had it better than ever, I think it’s time for some maybe, I don’t know, participation in our democracy that isn’t funded by news cameras and gentlemen such as yourself.
Fox: But, uh, yeah well, let me give you this challenge Jesse.
Jesse: Sure.
Fox: We’re here giving you an opportunity on the record […] to put any
message you want out there, to give you fair coverage and I’m not
going to in any way
Jesse: That’s awesome!
Fox:…give you advice about it. So, there is an exception in the case, because you wouldn’t be able to get your message out there without us.
Jesse: No, surely, I mean, take for instance when Glenn Beck was doing his protest and he called the President, uh, a person who hates white people and white culture. That was a low moment in Americans’ history and you guys kinda had a big part in it. So, I’m glad to see you coming around and kind of paying attention to what the other 99 percent of Americans are paying attention to, as opposed to the far-right fringe, who who would just love to destroy the middle class entirely.
Fox: Alright, fair enough. You have a voice, an important reason to criticize myself, my company and anyone else. But, let me ask you that, in fairness, does this administration, President Obama, have any criticism as to the the financial situation the country’s in…?
Jesse: I think, myself, uh, as well as many other people, would like to see a little but more economic justice or social justice—Jesus stuff—as far as feeding the poor, healthcare for the sick. You know, I find it really entertaining that people like to hold the Bill of Rights up while they’re screaming at gay soldiers, but they just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that a for-profit healthcare system doesn’t work. So, let’s just look at it like this, if we want the President to do more, let’s talk to him on a level that actually reaches people, instead of asking for his birth certificate and wasting time with total nonsense like Solyndra.
I’ve been looking at the comments on the stuff political blogs for a while now. Every time John Pagani writes a blog he gets dozens of incredibly vitriolic, and often very uninformed, people commenting. A lot of them repeat the lies that Labour left us in a huge deficit hole and wasted all the money etc. They’re all generally very very anti-Labour and very pro-National.
When DPF writes a blog the comments are sort of 60/40 supportive or anti, with the anti ones saying stuff about him deliberately manipulating the media spin for his paymasters.
Yet when a new post goes up in the What (S)he Said blog, which is by Andrea Vance and John Hartevelt who are in the parliamentary press gallery, the comments are usually a lot more anti-national.
It makes me think there’s a whole bunch of righties just waiting for DPF and Pagani’s blogs so they can go in an astroturf hither and yon. But they ignore What (S)he Said and as a result we get more honest commenting going on.
I thought Pagani’s role was to act as a punchbag for Paul Holmes, Richard Griffin, Matthew Hooton and whoever else on the right wants a workout on an agreeable patsy.
Every time John Pagani writes a blog he gets dozens of incredibly vitriolic, and often very uninformed, people commenting.
Like Lprent.
No Stalebiscuit, like you.
I wasn’t ill-informed, it is unfortunately, a subject that I know rather too well (as John already knew). John Pagani however was quite ill-informed on the subject he was writing on – which is why he got my comment pointing out one aspect of why he was ill-informed. Apparently he didn’t like by characterization of his motivation for writing such cobblers.
In any event, the comment didn’t survive there. So I repeated and expanded it here.
Japan is to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean next month with military security to protect its boats from the radical environment group Sea Shepherd which has promised to launch “Operation Divine Wind” or kamikaze against them.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/5734445/Japan-to-whale-again-with-extra-security
But I thought John Key had fixed it, with an amazing compromise solution that no one else was capable of thinking of, ’cause he’s so smart?
Sigh! Lanthanide, you have to stop trying to undermine the utter reality of John Key’s promises and claims about what he’s doing with … reality.
Play fair.
The World
is going madhas gone mad, edition #I’mlosingcount.C. Peter Wagner, a prominent figure in the Apostolic world with connections to a potential U.S presidential candidate , interviewed by NPR:
On the tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan being connected to the emperor of Japan having sex with the sun goddess
“That happened many, many years ago, and that created a spiritual atmosphere over Japan which was an atmosphere ruled by the powers of darkness. The sun goddess is not a very nice lady. The sun goddess is a power of darkness, which is headed up by the kingdom of Satan. And so the sun goddess wants natural disasters to come to Japan. Sometimes the hand of God, which is more powerful, will prevent them. And when he decides to prevent them and when he doesn’t is far beyond anything that we can predict.”
they elected Bush and he said , speaking as President, in front of real people and all that,
“God wanted me to be President”
the world has been nuts a very long time
Oh my giddy aunt! How completely nuts… He needs to learn, shit happens..
Why the surprise? This creationism crap is worming its way into schools. It comes from the cell groups that set themselves up in the libraries of our teacher colleges. The graduates go out into the world and this drivel slowly permeates the classrooms – particularly, but not exclusively, in the lower decile schools where the communities are receptive and indeed request it – the communities’ boards recruit them. (Further confirming the warnings that were given when Picot set in train the self managing schools model).
Auditor General Slams Treasury
A few days ago the Auditor General released her report on the way the Treasury implemented and managed the Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme…
It’s a toss up between English and Heatley as being the worst cabinet ministers. Both have caused immense financial hardship to those in the lowest income bracket.
I am concerned about how much Heatley has wasted on his screwed up housing policies. The man simply does NOT get it that his newly developed social housing unit will not deliver affordable rental properties to those who do not qualify for a HNZ property.
Housing not likely to buy flats
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/economy/news/article.cfm?c_id=34&objectid=10756481
NZ has such an aging population who require medical treatment. Unless there is a robust, affordable secure housing policy, the elderly in particular are going to require more health resources. This can be said for children as well and people with permanent health conditions which impede working more than several hours a week.
Heatley has 40 million for his social housing unit EXPERIMENT, which has redirected money away from housing people in need, while far too many HNZ homes are unoccupied.
I vote Tolley!
How about a toss up between Brownlee and Tolley because they are 3 and 4 on my list?
Dosent help that the HCC is full of Tea-Party wannabes, and Julie Hardaker is trying her best to be like Michelle Bachman without the god-bothering.
Heatley is probably in the pocket of the
slumlords unionProperty Investors’ Federation.Fortunately, the Tea Parters on my council are a) most of the time all bluff and bluster and b) too caught up into having admission fees established for the local art gallery to be any sort of threat to council services.
An athlete with a heart and a brain…
See, drugs are good.
Single treatment – that’s got to be better than ongoing treatments of prozac.
Not as profitable.
Profit is a dead weight loss so I’m not overly concerned about that especially considering that it is the profit drive (pure greed) that is destroying the environment.
Err, shrooms increase your “openness to new ideas or experiences [and] awareness of feelings in the self and others”.
Did we seriously need to spend lab time to tell us that?
No, we needed the lab time to tell us that those effects were good for us rather than the End of Civilisation which seems to be the reason why such drugs are banned.
Overwhelming opposition to battery hen cages
So, is the government listening to the public on this or are they still defending the use of battery hens?
Voters feel poorly informed on MMP alternatives
Well, at least people are asking for the information. Now hopefully that will be made available to them. Although I’m pretty sure that NAct will prefer to keep people uninformed.
Horizon Poll
Actually, the most important point of that poll is that Labour would only be able to form a coalition with the support of Mana. Phil Goff should, about now, be feeling really stupid for saying that he won’t work with Hone.
This one’s the most disturbing though. Apparently, most people believe that employers should have a say in your recreation.
Stockholm syndrome in action.
Whao! What just happened in the public gallery in Parliament? It happened as Goff was beginning his speech in the general debate, and apparently our friendly PM blamed the incident on Labour.
Dunno but the Chairman referred to the “Member has been removed.” What?
I think the speaker got it wrong. But the PM obviously said something during/just after the kerfuffle in the gallery that got right up the nose of the opposition.
Stuff has breaking news that a man tried to jump into the debating chamber.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5738033/Man-tries-to-jump-at-parliament
Yeah, for change of trousers!
He looked pale, slouched in his seat, and didn’t move. For a moment I thought he was dead……and then he moved *sigh*
Not classy, WJ. Sure, it’s a “joke”, but still … not a good one.
A very disturbing incident in Parliament, could have been even worse. Thankfully it wasn’t.
What? Too soon?
Update:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5738033/Man-tries-to-jump-at-parliament
A full report on the Herald with Key apparently justifying “Down to you,” at Goff and “a throat slashing gesture,” by Key, motivated by Labour’s complaint of excessive use of the Dip Squad. Eh???
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10756747
John Key’s office cleaner wants more than $43 to spend on groceries each week for her 4 children and 4 grandchildren:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5737904/John-Keys-cleaner-campaigns-for-better-wages
meanwhile across the road, Treasury spends up large
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5737438/Treasury-spent-13-8m-on-consultants-Greens
Dene MacKenzie Biased
I happened to read an article today entitled Key Nats’ ace; Goff sidelined, published on the Otago Daily Times website today. The fictional piece is so obviously a beat up that I’m surprised it reached publication…
If you said anything else as a reporter for the ODT you would be fired immediately his boss is the national and ACT leader in Otago.
Although DM is an enthusiastic propogandist, rather than reluctant collaborator.
From todays Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10756735
(funny that is already happening in Dunedin and Kawerau, and the rumour mill suggests those are ‘pilots’ for future amalgamations)
I’d love to see Tolley do that! And finally
Well said Kevin Jephson and well spotted Ian.
Last week buried in a column somewhere I saw a quote from Anne Tolley to the effect that National Standards were just a beginning and that she had many more things to improve NZ education. Ominous.
And watch that Mandate that National will seize in order to justify massive changes.
So what about the wairarapa times age running a meet john key forum and putting a two inch bannner for key on the bottom of every page for a week?
When the goebbles golum come back to life?
The full text of ACTA has been released. The first sentence in it:
Is completely contrary to reality. Preventing people from applying their imagination and coming up with ideas, which is what IP enforcement does, actively prevents development of the economy.
Go watch Everything is a Remix to get some idea.
As it’s a document designed to protect capitalism by preventing competition I’m sure it goes downhill from there.