The makeup of the up-coming parliament (based on the preliminary vote). It’s more diverse than last term with a bigger proportion of women Maori and Asian background MPs.
The conclusions are based on the MPs’ previous occupations and not upbringing. Of course, Metiria Turie was one of the few MPs last term who had a working class upbringing, and we know how that ended. i think Cartmel Sepuloni may also have had a working class background.
The stats:
25 percent of the National Party caucus comes from a business background and 19 percent from a government sector background.
“Labour is much more government: 21 percent of their caucus, the main sector, is from a government background, 18 percent is from business. New Zealand First is 28 percent business—so they are the most business background party—18 percent from the education sector and 18 percent from a military police background. And the Greens: 43 percent of their current caucus comes from a union or activist background, 14 percent (i.e. one MP) comes from a government background and 29 percent is coming from business.”
Interesting that it is the greens that have a high number of MPs with a union or activist background amd least from the government sector. The Greens and NZ First have largest proportions from a business background (although Shaw’s business background was not terribly corporate, for-profit).
But what is the background of the remaining National MPs – that’d be 66%? Were they lay-abouts?
What’s with the “much more government” line? Nats = 19% from a government background. Labour = 21%. Big deal!
The differences between NZF and the Greens are more stark, but given that each has a really small caucus, they’re also (if not actually misleading) somewhat sensationalised. One person in a caucus of seven can hugely alter percentage points (with each individual being worth 14.3%).
Extracts from an article in the Herald 4 October, written by a former National MP, explain how the German MMP system has been modified to give the party with the most votes the initial opportunity to form a government.
“The German Constitution, Article 63, provides that the person who receives the votes of a majority of members of the Bundestag (lower chamber of the federal Parliament) shall be elected Federal Chancellor. If no person has a majority in the Bundestag the person who receives the largest number of votes shall be elected. If that person cannot win a majority at an election in the Bundestag within seven days, the Federal President can either appoint that person Chancellor or dissolve the Bundestag for a new general election.”
What follows are the thoughts of a layman, not a legal or political expert. I look forward to reading what others have to say.
So, let’s say these German rules currently apply in New Zealand where English is given the opportunity to be PM. English would be PM for seven days, on the basis that 59 seats (including Act) don’t give him the required majority. If he cannot gather the support required from other MPs’ to achieve a majority, within the seven day timeframe, he can then go to the Governor General and asks to be Prime Minister.
If the Governor General agrees he is then PM of a minority government. If there was a genuine opposition coalition of the majority Left that includes NZ First, Labour and the Greens they would presumably have a large say in how the country is run despite English being PM. In any event a good opportunity to work as a cohesive opposition.
If he is refused by the Governor General, we then have another electoral vote rather than provide Ardern, Peters and Shaw with an opportunity to form an alternative Government. The power goes back to the people not to any particular Party.
You want to provide the link? After all, it’s just as easy to copy and paste the link as it is to copy and paste a quote from it. Rather than make the rest of us waste time searching for it.
Now that I’ve found the link, the extract at the end has almost nothing to do with the rest of the opinion piece by Michael Cox. Who was a total non-entity as an MP, and clearly the thirty years since then have done nothing to improve his cognitive abilities.
With respect to the idea that only the leader of the party receiving the most votes may form the government, that’s crap. One of the main points of MMP is to include a wide variety of voices and opinions. Then the largest coalition of those voices that can work together form the government.
Making it so only the largest party can from the government hands way too much power back to established large party power structures, who will suppress variety of opinion in order to present the largest possible monolithic bloc. And make even harder for small parties to get traction.
Lets tell the Germans “that’s crap”. My intention is to get comments on the German system not the merits of Michael Cox. Shoot the messenger if you must.
You missed the bit where it says “IF no person has a majority in the Bundestag….”. A majority does not have to come from one party, it can be of any number of participants. So it is very possible for a person to become chancellor if his/her party does not have the most votes in parliament, just enough votes will do, from any party.
Completely nullifies the reason for MMP in the first place. For instance you could get a situation where the Nats had 35.5, Labour 35.3 Greens 14 NZF 12. Labour/Green could form a stable government (49.3 v 47.5) but would not be given the opportunity. The Nats couldn’t, so there would be a new election. Many other combinations would be possible if a new party got over 5%.
(On a practical note on Peter’s post, surely the week to form a government would start after the Special Votes had been counted. That would at least give 3 weeks to work out a government.)
Thanks for the comments. You would expect the week to start after special votes.
So maybe a modified system would give the largest Party the opportunity to make the first attempt at forming a majority Government? If they cannot do that the second largest Party then has the opportunity?
Why should any party be granted special privileges to form a government? What’s the problem with the current arrangement where the leader of the first coalition to say they have a majority of the house goes to the Governor General who presumably checks it out and if it seems legit, gives them the opportunity to prove it?
Andre has provided a valid reason why this kind of approach is a failure of recognising the democracy that can be provided by MMP.
If a group of like minded parties secures more than fifty percent of the vote, your proposal to adhere to the german method, would only provide space for the largest party vote, even if it was not part of that majority group.
Ultimately, meaning that despite MMP attempting to reflect the diversity of the electorate, the parties with the simplistic, most phatic policies and campaigning would be the ones who are most likely to garner the biggest block of votes, and be given the first priority to form a government.
Plus, under our system, the governor general is appointed by the PM (leader of the largest party in what would in this situation be the previous government). Surely that predisposes him/her to stick with the status quo if there is no decisive outcome from an election?
Thanks for the perspective. Have patience while I continue to think this through.
What we really need then is for the NZ public to always expect that the final vote simply indicates peoples party preferences, not a result. So if one party has 49% of the vote and, say, 5 others, have an even split each of the other 51% of the vote they can all decide equally amongst themselves the way forward to forming a government. There is no “winner” until a coalition is formed.
I heard yesterday that in 16 years time, or so, Europeans will be a minority in Auckland. It really is time we starting listening to different voices rzther than trying to shut them down to preserve a world view that hasnt really existed in a long time?
Putting aside the ramifications around MMP, denying the Leader of The Opposition the right to test the confidence of parliament in the event that the PM or leader of the largest party has failed to win a confidence vote would pretty much overturn the parliamentary conventions that we’ve inherited with our version the Westminster system.
Furthermore the article seems to be suggesting that, in the event, that the leader of the largest party in the Bundestag is unable to muster a majority in that house, the President can simply appoint that person Chancellor? So, in our case we would be allowing the sovereign to appoint the PM even if that person has failed to survive a confidence vote in the house?
While I’ve got lots of criticisms of our governing arrangements, the details around how parties can come together to form a governing coalition seem reasonable to me. So I’m waiting for a good argument against what we have now before I get interested in suggested alternatives. So far all I see is flailing distress from Nats that currently don’t have the right to rule they feel entitled to.
In the event that some convincing argument against what we now have actually comes up, then yeah, the points you’ve raised are a good argument against following the german model. Particularly since the two worst features of our overall MMP system, a high threshold and coat-tailing, were also apparently copied from a german model.
I think that lowering the threshold to 3% and getting rid of the coat-tailing loophole are the 2 easiest things we could do to improve our version of MMP. And I also thinks there’s a good chance it might happen now that National’s decade long shenanigans in Epsom and Ōhāriu are finished.
It would be good to have the experts reassure everyone of the merits of our system when compared to FPP and the German version. How do you counter the view that NZF have the balance of power?
The “experts” reviewed MMP after the last referendum in 2012 and arrived at the conclusion that the coat-tailing loophole should be scrapped and the threshold lowered to 4%. All of which the, then National government chose to ignore. http://www.elections.org.nz/events/past-events-0/2012-mmp-review/results-mmp-review.
And I don’t actually want to “counter” the view that NZFirst have the balance of power. The last 2 years has suggested the electoral outcome we find ourselves with. Get over it. Stop thinking in FPP and get on board with MMP. If National has spent the last decade doing that they might not have found themselves in the crappy position they’re in now.
The view that Peters holds the balance of power is totally accurate. Because of the choice of Green party members to effectively close the door on the idea of going into coalition with National thereby rejecting the possibility of holding the balance of power. If the Greens had chosen to be open to National, they too would hold the balance of power making any coalition negotiations much more interesting.
I think one (of many) fair ways of looking at that is that many NZF supporters would swing between Labour and National in the absence of a somewhat centrist party like NZF (or United Future in its heyday). So rather than consciously making the choice between Nat and Lab themselves, they are comfortable delegating that choice to Peters, in the expectation that NZF would also moderate any extreme ideas that make it in from the wings of whomever they go into coalition with. Keeping the bastards honest, if that phrase appeals.
So while I utterly detest Peters, I can respect the choice of his supporters. And if I’m completely honest, despite my loathing of Peters, I still prefer the idea of Nats having to keep Peters onside to the near-as-dammit absolute majority they’ve had the last nine years.
“OR the public and media could grow up politically and wait for negotiations to see which relationships will work for good government in the future?”
Ain’t that the bloody truth! The media (or rather what parades as a MSM/4th Estate) should. Some aspects of this ‘nation’ called NuZull/Aotearoa continue to baffle me.
This little nayshun that “punches above its weight”; is/used to be criticised for that “Tall Poppy syndrome”, all that sort of stuff is actually ultra-competitive (at least amongst the male population – and more lately the Sharlene’s and Shona’s (at the risk of being labelled a sexist cnut) trying to prove they have adequate testosterone levels in order to compete. They seem to care so much about what the rest of the Whurl thinks of us – let alone fellow Kiwis.
Battles between egos in media stars, Hosking/7 Blunt versus The Fucking Project hosted by a Jesssie who has 3 or so hours to undergo a lycra-clad conversion between RNZ and Eden Terrace – the former address where ‘I’m old school and in-depth’ to the latter where ‘I’m superficial and aha ha ha’ with a parade of Mediaworks staff with mortgages to pay to prop him up – and despite an occasional outburst in order to maintain the last vestiges of credibility.
Even the way Kiwis drive a bloody car has become a competition – and despite their penis length, they’re not actually that good at it. (You’ve got to push the pedal to the floor and race to the next red light ahead of someone who’s read the road ahead and realised that exercise was going to be a pointless exercise.)
It’s no surprise to me all the FPP thinking that’s been evident before AND after the 23rd September.
I’m not sure why it is that we’ve become so fucking yea/nah about various gains and so pig ignorant (1893 Women’s Suffrage); a contribution to LGBTI and YouMan! roights; the implementation of a proportional representation system (with all its inadequacies) that we’re so frikken insecure or ignorant about that we all see this past month or so as a competition that someone NEEDS to convincingly win.
After 30+ years of neoliberalism, I guess it should be no surprise, but it’s kind of uphill.shit.push – which, in the end is a “loser’s battle”
A law abiding gun-owner right up until, surprise, he wasn’t.
An Australian man who came to know Stephen Paddock intimately in recent years has offered the most detailed public portrait yet of the Las Vegas mass killer.
He said Paddock was a highly intelligent, strategic though “guarded” individual who won a fortune applying algorithms to gambling, and studied arguments for his right to own weapons under the US constitution.
Their encounters came via their respective girlfriends, Philippine-born sisters – one of whom, Marilou Danley, has returned to the US to be interviewed by the FBI in the wake of Paddock’s meticulously planned massacre.
Their acquaintanceship, through more than half a dozen encounters in the US and the Philippines between 2013 and 2015, revealed Paddock’s generosity – which had his overseas guests living in “palatial” style – and the existence of a “gun room” at his home in Mesquite, Nevada.
“Yes, I was familiar with him,” the man, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Guardian at his Brisbane home on Wednesday. “He was extremely intelligent, methodical, conservative – guarded – and strategic. A planning, thinking type of guy.”
If they were to apply Paddocks profile across the population how many US citizens would trigger an alert.
I’d suggest the bulk of US gun owners would come up which in itself tells you somethings very much amiss in America as their biggest terrorist threat is likely to be coming from their own citizens.
I guess it makes a change from the US govt and it’s backing of violent conflict outside of the USA.
The report in The Press on (killer) Paddock: 64 years, left no immediate hint of motive. He had 34 guns, and shot at least 59 people.
He was a retiree with penchant for gambling – but no criminal record.
‘Paddock was not known to have served in the military, or to have suffered from a history of mental illness or to have registered any inkling of social disaffection, political discontent or radical views on social media.’
I think he was just infected with a bad case of empty USA propaganda with the disadvantage of ‘Being Born in the USA’ and believing the empty bit in their Constitution about his Right to be Happy. Which as anyone who thinks knows is only a passing feeling, not appropriate as full-time goal for questing humans.
Paddock’s behaviour would seem the likely outcome for many of male humanity who succeed in getting money and then buying what they decide they want from life, and then find this doesn’t provide a satisfactory reason for living.
The rich man Howard Hughes ended up degraded after having a surfeit of his wealth, accomplished some personal goals, and finding nothing else to stimulate him. He got beyond wanting, living on chicken soup in the entire floor of a hotel where the windows were blacked out, sitting on a toilet for hours, long hair, long nails, and with someone managing his affairs for him. http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1902376_1902378_1902405,00.html
On a lower level of wealth a guy from NZ killed his girlfriend Crystal or killed himself or someone else at his apartment in some Australian resort where he had retired after making money investing in some vitamin pill company. I
registered the negativity of this ‘successful’ investor, but his details weren’t worth remembering.
These individuals are unconnected to the real world where people actually work for their earnings, not just invest in likely profitable business or housing where they live off others striving and work. I think the term is rentier.
There will be more of these crazed individuals who show symptoms which psychiatrists do not deign to consider insane because of narrow definitions. Otherwise, we might recognise our world is daily near-insane, and I guess the trick-cyclists are just peas in the soup. And crazed individuals within the individualistic society seem to be proliferating in the neo liberal economic religious system imposed on us. In the free market, we have to be careful to look for real friends to give life with each other meaning as in The Three Musketeers – inseparable friends who live by the motto “all for one, one for all” (“tous pour un, un pour tous”). Individualistic men and women probably don’t have real friends, more drinking buddies, investor leads and suitable social partners but if we can only trust a few friends, a group separate from society, then do we actually have a society or is life another version of Game of Thrones?
You have to also question the wisdom of US law enforcement and the demand for every detail of the crime from the news media in these situations.
With every passing ‘massacre’, prospective lone-wolf gunmen get an ever more detailed blueprint on how to commit one of these crimes; e.g.: it was the gun smoke in the room setting off smoke detectors giving him away. Without that and, presumably a suppressor, he could have remained undetected for a lot longer than what he did.
Some how I think I’m going to end up like a lot of people thought our history that have fought for equal rights and who fought against the the establishment like Eddie Grant a controversial death it has happen many times through out our history . But I will keep for OUR Earth because we have only one Earth only one WORLD.
Big UPPS To those supermarkets taking the lead and banning plastic bags .
The big picture is all OUR people in a position to make changes that will benefit our environment should not wait for government . They need to take the lead and make these changes for our grandchildren future.
Governments are a complicated beast that need US to show them the right path to a brighter future.
P.S. It awesome to see MSM taking the lead and showing the fact,S on climate change Ka Pai
Eco Maori i agree plastic bag use should be banned.Should have already happen long before now.And feel its also good to see Greenpeace actively involved.However i fail to see banning any kind of bag as a workable answer.Shopping isn’t necessarily always a planned event for everyone.So why not allow replacement of plastic with paper?.Many more people would be likely to then get right behind the idea, and freely adopt that as change that’s easy to accept. I’d really like to understand why Greenpeace hasn’t taken up this approach .Perhaps somebody,here,can help explain why?
Catalonia is spectacularly rich compared with other parts of Spain. It’s got 16% of the population and 19% of the GDP. Barcelona gets massive tourism and has one of the biggest ports in Europe. Tarragona has one of the biggest chemical industries in Europe.
So of course they pay more taxes than the rest of the country, and more of it gets spent in poorer regions than where it came from. Doing what proper government does with taxes: redistribute from those with the average wealth, to those who need it more.
The Catalan government also owes E77b in public debt. They’ve been the biggest beneficiary of the special fund the Spanish government set up to get the regions going again after the protracted effects of the GFC. Catalan took far and away most of this facility to do good for its own people. But of course, that rich region and its on average wealthy and educated region wouldn’t have to pay that back if they struck out independently.
Tax. Debt.
No doubt calls for independence stirs the heart of old socialists and anarchists brought up on For Whom The Bell Tolls. But before you start asking for another Crimea, ask yourself: who benefits?
weka
I think it might have been on a placard at one of the demonstrations, though I didn’t see it in the linked article’s video (maybe one in the weekend). Ad seems to have seized on the idea that the Catalan independence movement is entirely economic; which seem to be overly simplifying matters, and ignoring history (such as the torture and execution of the last independent Catalan president by Franco’s regime).
However, I found it grimly amusing for a member of an heridatary Bourbon monarch (descendant those overthrown during the French revolution and whose father had been handpicked by Franco as his successor) to be lecturing those who had been engaged in a largely symbolic referendum on; “democratic principles of the rule of law”. The excessive reaction by the Spanish government in sending in their armoured goon squad was very counterproductive in assuring the Catalan people that they not oppressed.
I wondered about that too, would have been good to see the context. Madrid robbing Catalonia could refer to the election, or democracy, or independence etc.
Surprising precisely nobody, here is episode number 271,828,182,845,904,523,536,028,747,135,266,249,775,724,709,369,995 of awesomely blatant conservative political hypocrisy. In this case, rabidly “pro-life” politicians pressuring their mistresses to abort the unborn child they had fathered.
Episode number 271,828,182,845,904,523,536,028,747,135,266,249,775,724,709,369,996 of blatant pro-life hypocrisy.
9 million kids get insurance through CHIP. Congress is about to let its funding expire
On September 30, funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program expires. After Republicans took a rushed and ultimately failed run at repealing Obamacare one last time, the program’s spending authorization is now at imminent risk of lapsing.
On NBC, @SRuhle clarifies that her source says Tillerson didn’t just say moron — “he said F-ing moron"— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) October 4, 2017
And to address the question in the cartoon: yes they did put something into the constitution to deal with that possibility. The Electoral College. It had one job. And failed.
So very english, the protester stooped as he was lead out, presumably so as not to disrupt too much.
And Corbyn, Corbyn, Corbyn he clearly has them rattled.
Reminiscent of the Tories here, spent more time talking about the ‘enemy’ rather than articulating their vision.
If our Tories articulated their vision then very few people would ever vote for them. And so they articulate the same vision as the Left while putting in place policies that bring about its antithesis.
She seems to suffer from some sort of acute stage-fright which might explain the dreadful coughing.
How that guy got anywhere near her with the P45 form is amazing and the Frida Kahlo bracelet and all the letters falling off the wall was just the icing on the cake.
SDHB are having public meetings fora next week to put a gloss of public consultataion on their; “strategy and action plan” through to 2030, particularly focusing on the hospital rebuild. The ODT is a bit vague on the details, but the SDHB facebook page has a scan of a print ad (probably from the ODT, I seldom see a physical copy these days). For Dunedin that is; 13:00-14:30 Tuesday 10/10, at the Barclay theatre in the museum. Nothing about whether you have to book to speak as with the public forum prior to the start of ordinary public advisory committee meetings.
This seems worth trying to make your voice heard at, if you can make it during workhours. Or you could just leave it up to the unelected SDHB in conjunction with an multinational professional services corporation to do what is best for the people of Otago:
SDHB and WellSouth were working with Ernst & Young to create the strategy and plan.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Ian Powell said the senior doctors’ union supported the move ”in principle”, but the health board would have difficulty convincing the public.
”They will be up against a difficulty in terms of what happened last time they developed a strategic plan and it was handled very poorly,” he said.
The public forums would be held in Dunedin on October 10, Invercargill the following day and Cromwell on October 12.
Queenstown resident and former Queenstown Lakes District councillor Kirsty Sharpe said the public forum in Cromwell was inconvenient for Queenstown residents.
It appeared the forums were being held at a time of day that suited DHB staff rather than the public, she said, and was also disappointed a forum would not be held in the resort.
”It’s cutting a lot of people out from going.”
SDHB did not respond yesterday to questions about why no forum was being held in Queenstown, or the timing of them
A friend of mine gasped when she saw the Vulcan episode of American Gods. “That’s Civic Religion!” she said. She’d been enrolled in religious studies and apparently one of the tools for understanding how states operate is to look as societies as religions or cults.
The creators of American Gods here explain why they created an episode not in the original book to look at this.
In today’s paper Herald Grant Bradley the aviation commentator has an article of the CEO of Air NZ speaking to an audience of 400 in the Business Section. The CEO says its “no time to slash and burn” with businesses looking for short term goals of cutting jobs, cutting investment and cutting customer services”. I would like to link this article but I cannot find it on the online Herald.
His words “the reality is that the business world is sadly littered with companies that are just cutting jobs and ultimately not fulfilling their purpose to do anything useful. That’s pretty sad”.
He goes to on say they Air NZ have greatly reduced the income parity between the genders and is endeavouring to make their company more sustainable – for example the recycling scheme where unsealed food/drinks left on trays will be recycled where its safely possible.
My first thoughts were of this National Government and previous Labour Governments which have sold off state owned assets purely to pay down debt and get that instant gratification of money in hand. No thoughts of the dividend stream that might still be coming in if they hadn’t been sold off. Also their customer service in all of their departments is a bloody disgrace especially at WINZ. The attrition of staff in departments and front line in essential departments is another serious problem.
Banks are another where customer service is next to nothing. It seems we have a way to go yet where customers are valued and staff treated with respect.
“words “the reality is that the business world is sadly littered with companies that are just cutting jobs and ultimately not fulfilling their purpose to do anything useful. That’s pretty sad”. ”
I take some heart that more and more businesses are operating beyond just bottom line return to shareholder or owner. More than 30 years ago. Still more need to transition but it is a start
It seems some in the media have caught on that the labour party are economically ‘orthodox’ rat bags. That if they stick with what they been saying (policy), nothing will change, actually just like the last 9 years it will only get progressively worse.
Well we are giving our daughter and son and inlaw a break we have 3 of there children till Sunday man they keep you on your toes 2 girls whom are blonde and very well behaved and our eldest grandson well he has a real full of life personality . We are very proud of our whole family we created. But when we were bring up our children I did not realize how much time goes into bring up children most of the time I was out there chasing the big money fishing and other various jobs. So most of the time I just past the money over and my wife did most of the hard yards bring up our family .
But when my daughters started having children this opened my eyes to the hard ship Lady’s go through carrying a baby for 9 months having no sleep for the first 6 months it is a 24 7 job bring up children and can be a very dangerous life threatening time giving birth and most males are totally unaware of these fact’s . For this reason we give our young lady’s all the help we can with bring up our grandchildren and this is one of the reason that I get the big picture . Which is we have one Mother Earth and we have to look after her as no one else is Kia Kaha
I love a bit of self awareness from a male who actually gets how hard a woman works when she becomes a mother. I still remember the absolute exhaustion I had from when I had my first child and then second . Right through till….. Can’t remember.Good on you. High five. Oh, and that was over 40 years ago.
Has anyone seen/read this? It exposes the smokescreen that trade is about encouraging democracy rather than a greedy grab to be first in. Remember how being in WTO woukd help China be more Democratic and better on Human Rights…
” To make matters worse, the Trump family have placed themselves conspicuously on China’s payroll, accepting future profits in the form of trademarks for both the Trump and Ivanka brands, and seeking Chinese investment in Kushner real estate projects. When China Labor Watch, a New York–based labor rights organization, published information on poor conditions in a factory where Ivanka’s brand-name shoes had recently been produced, China detained the group’s three field investigators, the only time CLW’s investigators have been detained for exposing the abuse of Chinese workers.2 ”
“Remember how being in WTO wou[l]d help China be more Democratic and better on Human Rights…”
Fark! That’s almost as big a lie as all the others the new neo-libs told us would happen – in the future, going forward, actually-as a matter of fact, to coin a phrase, so-to-speak.
Public Service reforms
The market the market as the natural leveler
Privatisations
etc
etc
etc
“Auckland ratepayers [are] now paying 6 percent more this year for council salaries. A staggering 52 percent of rates are now used by the council just to pay staff.”
…Mr Town (CEO)- who got a $34,000 payrise to $690,000…”
Note the article attacks democratically elected Phil Goff NOT the unelected CEO Town who earns $690,000 who is supposed to ‘run’ the council.
Not sure how much the Ports of Auckland get, or Metrowater CEO’s but probably more than Phil Goff.
Like Fonterra, it’s about time CEO salary is linked to real results, ratepayer (or in the case of Fonterra farmers) satisfaction, real public services and real results. Hard to see how the current situations of both organisations can meet normal measures of results.
Apparently Auckland council has some unbelievable dissatisfaction rate from ratepayers.
So, Judith Collins has done a Facebook rant about climate change, peddling the same shit National has been shovelling for the past twenty years: the impacts are overstated, there's no need to do anything about it, and its too hard anyway (oh, and its so unfair that people who peddle ...
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When they were running for election, Labour promised to overhaul the Employment Relations Act and introduce fair pay agreements to set basic pay and conditions on an industry level, preventing bad employers from undercutting good ones. They followed this up by establishing a working group, which reported back in January ...
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The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...
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Back in the 90's and early 2000's, the building industry was building leaky homes which should never have been granted consent. Now it turns out they've been building dodgy office blocks as well:New imaging technology has revealed hundreds of major buildings nationwide have defective or missing concrete or reinforcing steel. ...
Local body election results were released over the weekend, to joy or despair depending on where you live. In Auckland, Phil Goff trounced John Tamihere, who is muttering darkly about running for Parliament again (but which party would want him?) Wellington is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weta Workshop, except ...
Two years have now gone by since the Friday afternoon when my university-student son and I headed out of our Barcelona flat to a nearby primary school, designated as a polling station for the vote that was to be held the following Sunday: the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain ...
Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...
A Statement on Abortion Law Reform by the Council of Disobedient Women On the eve of bringing an end to antiquated, anti-women abortion laws Green MP Jan Logie intends to write women out of the Bill. With a stroke of the pen, the woke are aiming for total erasure ...
Musings continue apace about “the experienced businessman!” soon to be taking up a National Party MP position. Or to be more accurate, being parachuted into a seat to shut down their former MP Jamie-Lee Ross, who despite his own shortcomings shed at least some more light on the inner workings ...
The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...
New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
Back in 2011, journalist Nicky Hager published Other People's Wars, an expose on NZDF's activities over the previous decade of the "war on terror". NZDF didn't like this, and especially didn't like the fact that it was base don leaks from their own. So, they had the SIS investigate him ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is due back from select committee in two weeks, and will likely pass its final stages in November. So naturally, farmers are planning a hate-march against it. But they're not just demanding lower methane targets so they can keep on destroying the planet; they're also demanding ...
Last year, California burned. This year, to stop it happening again (or rather, to stop themselves from being found liable if it happens again), Pacific Gas and Electric is cutting power to half the state for a week:Schools are closed. Traffic lights down. Tunnels dark. Businesses unopened. Hospitals running on ...
The Best Way: Missing from the on-line voting debate is any reference to the voting system that produces turn-out figures ranging from 77 to 93 percent of registered voters. The voting system used to collect and count the votes cast in our parliamentary elections. The system that involves citizens making ...
Among the great new bunch of political friends we have been making recently is the excellent Australian-based Marxist gender-critical site, Freer Lives. So we asked the comrade who set up that blog to write something for Redline on the blog, himself, his analysis of the rise of gender politics and ...
by Don Franks The Auckland City Mission is struggling with a 40 percent increase in demand for food parcels this year. A total of 23,020 were needed by June. Last month Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the “cupboards are bare” and without an emergency food drive, he can’t see ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Massey Wellington Student Association had a sit-in today. Imagine a sit-in. On a campus. Against a women’s rights meeting. Did the ’60s really happen or did we fucking dream it? They gathered in the student square, an echo chamber. Sitting on soft pillows ...
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...
First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
Yesterday was the last day for (reliably) posting your vote away in local body elections. Turnouts are mostly much lower than the equivalent time last year (Palmerston North is down 2.3%), and so naturally people are pushing their online-voting snake oil again. Because the online census worked so well, lets ...
This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
Another year, and the government has announced another enormous government "surplus". And just like last year, its nothing of the sort. When we have people homeless and sick and hungry, when we have schools and hospitals still falling down, when we have underpaid public servants and infrastucture unmaintained or unbuilt, ...
James Forsyth at The Spectator (I know, I know) has tapped one of his contacts inside Number Ten for an insight into the Johnson administration's thinking and strategy.It is fascinating, unsettling and quite, quite mad. Some key points:Negotiations have stalled and the Johnson administration are keen to blame the EU: ...
Fatal Contact: With the arrival of captain James Cook in October 1769, the islands of what would become New Zealand ceased to be the preserve of Polynesian navigators and settlers and became a part of both the world’s map and the world’s history.THE MAORI NATIONALIST assault upon the historical meaning ...
Another round of tactical talks about forming a Government of National Unity have come to nothing with the Liberal Democrats still refusing countenance putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street:Opposition talks on Monday made little headway over when to try and vote down Boris Johnson's government and who might succeed him as ...
by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
The Workshop is a charitable trust for public good. The Workshop undertake research to find ways of communicating that will build support for the solutions that work to solve complex social and environmental problems. See their Report on Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform below. ...
Being and Being Bought (Spinifex Press, 2013) by Kajsa Ekis Ekman A synopsis and commentary of Chapters 1-2 by Daphna Whitmore Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book She opens the discussion with a definition of ...
I make no claims to having much legal knowledge, so I defer to those trained in this area.I am very much enjoying this twitter stream from m'learned friend in Edinburgh, deciphering the legal arguments around the Scottish court challenge to Boris Johnson, based on the charmingly obscure principle of Nobile ...
Ivory Folly? The University of Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon, upheld the right of the radical nationalist group, Action Zealandia to exercise their freedom of speech – not matter how distasteful that speech might be. A wiser community of students and scholars would have nodded their agreement and moved on. ...
If you are not convinced terrorist Organisation ‘Extinction Rebellion’ is very, very dangerous – watch this video at one of their recent meetings. Not only is this obviously mentally ill Woman begging the other terrorists to promote killing and “eating” babies and children, if you watch carefully other members nod ...
The Ombudsman has been surveying people about their knowledge of the OIA and the right to information. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that widespread:The Chief Ombudsman says too many New Zealanders were in the dark over their right to access official information. Peter Boshier said an independent survey released yesterday on ...
In the wake of last Friday's climate strike, Peter McKenzie had an article in The Spinoff about protest strategies. The school strike movement is "polite" and cooperates with those in power because that's its kaupapa - its led by schoolkids who understandably don't want to risk arrest. But there's more ...
So, the latest ruminations on the gnews from Westminster (Again, sorry; I'll stop making that pun right now). This follows on from, and likely repeats bits of, my last post, on the suggestion that a Government of National Unity (GNU) should be set up and then oversee a referendum before ...
Several people have asked me whether a particular repeat litigant could be declared a vexatious litigant, in light of their recent decision to appeal an adverse High Court ruling. My nascent tweet thread was getting ridiculously long, so it became this blog post instead.The short answer is: no. The particular ...
New Zealand likes to think of itself as not a racist country (despite being founded on the racist dispossession and subjugation of Maori). But for years, we've had a racist refugee policy, which basicly excludes refugees from Africa and the Middle East unless they already have relatives here. Now, the ...
Appealing To The Past: Action Zealandia, like so many of the organisations springing up on the far-Right, across what they call the “Anglosphere”, is born out of the profound confusion over what a man is supposed to be in the twenty-first century and, more importantly, what he is supposed to do.THE STATUE OF ...
The attempts of anti-democratic transactivists to (often violently) disrupt women’s rights organising is largely ignored by those sections of the left most prone to misogyny and authoritarianism in New Zealand. In Britain, however, scores of trade union and left activists added their names to a letter in July, defending ...
The Justice Committee has reported back on the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill. The Bill would establish an independent, quasi-judicial body to investigate and review potential miscarriages of justice, and refer them back to the Court of appeal if required. It would be a vital backstop to our judiciary, help ...
by The Spark On September 14, a total of 22 drones and cruise missiles struck two oil installations in Saudi Arabia, the Abqaiq processing facility and the Khurais oil field. Abqaiq is the largest oil production facility in the world. For a few days afterwards, Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national ...
How much will NeoLiberal irregulation of the building sector and subsequent leaky homes crisis cost us? $47 billion, according to a new book:The total cost to fix all of New Zealand's leaky homes would be $47 billion, probably. The estimate comes from a new book, Rottenomics written by journalist Peter ...
Below is the start of another excellent article on the Freer Lives blog. Click onto the link at the end of this extract to read the full article. The punch-a-terf, kill-a-terf message pervades social media, always righteously delivered, chin held high. By contrast, the dehumanised “terfs” themselves, that is gender-critical ...
The Reserve Bank is currently planning tighter banking regulation, requiring banks to hold enough local capital to survive a 1-in-200 year financial crisis in order to protect consumers. The big Aussies banks, those foreign leeches who suck $5 billion in profit out of our economy every year, don't like that, ...
Its the usual story: a police officer beats a handcuffed suspect so hard they break one of their own fingers. The IPCA investigates and concludes that the use of force was unlawful. And the police refuse to do anything about it:A man punched repeatedly in the face by a police ...
From time to time we add links to our blogroll. The latest blog we have added is Freer Lives. This is a Marxist gender-critical blog, based in Melbourne, Australia. On it you will find a bunch of excellent articles which use the tools of Marxist analysis to critique the rise ...
Last Friday say the largest protest in a generation, as 170,000 people joined the school strike and marched to demand real action on climate change. The demands of the school strike were simple and clear: declare a climate emergency, set a climate target of net-zero by 2040, impose a total ...
Labour is a rather middle of the road capitalist party and earlier this year we discussed how far from being ‘transformative’, Ardern’s government is. An article published this week in the Guardian, by Bryce Edwards (political scientist and commentator at Victoria University), looks at Ardern’s business as usual performance. Where ...
In the hours since my last interminable wittering about the possibility of a Government of National Unity (GNU) in Britain, there has been a slight maybe development:A Corbyn-led caretaker government could then sit for several months while it enacted and delivered a referendum with the support of smaller parties and ...
Jeremy Clarkson says much like Greta Thunberg, Anne Frank “didn’t like what was going on”, but “she didn’t have a tantrum about it.” Former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has offered praise to historical figure Anne Frank, comparing her favourably to 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, who he attacked in ...
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) biennial conference, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told unionists that any future attacks on the Government won't work. "Now, we are being attacked by the union movement in this country. You can have your views but I'm here to say standing ...
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opened fire against "unreconstructed morons" after NZ First MP Shane Jones was photographed on holiday holding an AR-15 rifle. Mr Peters is defending Mr Jones, telling Magic Talk host Peter Williams that his MP was just having fun "like most people do". "The ...
New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau was in attendance during the morning blessing of the Rotorua Lakefront development project. Around 60 people gathered on the shores of Lake Rotorua, including city mayor Steve Chadwick and deputy Dave Donaldson. The Lakefront development is a ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
Another busy week, from speaking with world leaders on the world stage about climate change, to equipping our school leavers with everything they need to get ahead in life. ...
New Zealand First MP Shane Jones says Air New Zealand has "an obligation to look after Kiwis", and urged the national carrier not to hike up their prices after Jetstar airline announced their withdrawal from regional flights this week. The Provincial Champion also expressed his disappointment at Jetstar’s decision on ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed further details on the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s visit to New Zealand next month. Their Royal Highnesses will visit New Zealand from 17-23 November – their third joint visit to New Zealand and first in four years. They arrive in Auckland ...
Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth and Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, heads to Thailand today to attend the final Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Ministerial meeting, as negotiations enter their final stages. “The RCEP Agreement would anchor New Zealand in a regional agreement that covers 16 countries, ...
Pacific young people living in the Hawke’s Bay, Southland and Otago regions will have access to support services that have proved successful in helping young people find new earning and learning opportunities. “Tupu Aotearoa is about changing Pacific young peoples’ lives. Our young people are talented, they are smart, they ...
Introduction As the Minister for ACC I thank you all for the work that you do supporting New Zealanders in their literally most vulnerable moments. From those who hold people’s lives in their hands, to the people who research technique, technology and trends, your work is highly valued. A special ...
Notes prepared for speeches in Christchurch – Wednesday 9 October 2019 Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There ...
Minister of Health Dr David Clark and Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare say this year’s World Mental Health Day theme is a reminder of why the Government’s work on mental health is so important. “This year the World Federation for Mental Health has made suicide prevention the main theme ...
Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni will represent the government at Australia’s Meeting of Cultural Ministers in Adelaide this week. “This year’s meeting is special because New Zealand is expected to become an International Member of the Meeting of Cultural Ministers at this Australian forum,” Carmel Sepuloni said. “The meeting is an opportunity to ...
The Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service has resolved 608 insurance and EQC claims in its first year in operation, Minister Megan Woods has announced. The government service, which celebrates its first birthday today, provides a one stop shop to help Cantabrians still battling to get their homes repaired or rebuilt ...
Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There has been an increasing amount of attention paid to the outlook ...
The Government is acting swiftly to strengthen NZTA’s regulatory role following a review into the Transport Agency, and Ministry of Transport’s performance as its monitor, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. An independent review by Martin Jenkins has found NZTA failed to properly regulate the transport sector under the previous ...
The Netherlands and New Zealand have a long-standing and close relationship based on many shared interests and values. We value the rule of law, our democracies, and multilateralism. And we value our environment – at home and globally. Right now there are major global challenges in all of these areas – ...
The Government is putting right a decade’s worth of underpayment to nurses, doctors and other health workers, says Health Minister Dr David Clark. Initial sampling of District Health Boards payroll records has found that around $550-$650 million is owed to DHB staff to comply with the Holidays Act. It’s expected ...
A strong surplus and low debt show the economy is performing well, and means the Government is in a good position to meet the challenges of global economic uncertainty. “The surplus and low levels of debt show the economy is in good shape. This allows the Government to spend more ...
New applications from mining company OceanaGold to purchase land in Waihi for new tailings ponds associated with its gold mines have been approved. Minister of Finance Grant Robertson and Associate Minister of Finance David Parker considered the applications under the Overseas Investment Act. Earlier this year, applications from OceanaGold to ...
New Zealanders in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa / Poverty Bay will witness Māori, Pākehā and Pacific voyaging traditions come together today as the Tuia 250 Voyage flotilla assembles for the first time, Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti Minister Kelvin Davis says. “Tuia 250 is a national commemoration and an opportunity for honest conversations ...
Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker leaves tomorrow for Dubai, London and Berlin for a series of meetings to advance New Zealand’s trade interests. In Dubai he will visit New Zealand’s Pavilion at Expo 2020 where construction is underway. There he will meet Minister of State for International Cooperation, Her ...
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The makeup of the up-coming parliament (based on the preliminary vote). It’s more diverse than last term with a bigger proportion of women Maori and Asian background MPs.
However, it is largely represented by people with previously middle class occupations, according to a Bryce Edwards’ article on Newsroom.
The conclusions are based on the MPs’ previous occupations and not upbringing. Of course, Metiria Turie was one of the few MPs last term who had a working class upbringing, and we know how that ended. i think Cartmel Sepuloni may also have had a working class background.
The stats:
Interesting that it is the greens that have a high number of MPs with a union or activist background amd least from the government sector. The Greens and NZ First have largest proportions from a business background (although Shaw’s business background was not terribly corporate, for-profit).
But what is the background of the remaining National MPs – that’d be 66%? Were they lay-abouts?
What’s with the “much more government” line? Nats = 19% from a government background. Labour = 21%. Big deal!
The differences between NZF and the Greens are more stark, but given that each has a really small caucus, they’re also (if not actually misleading) somewhat sensationalised. One person in a caucus of seven can hugely alter percentage points (with each individual being worth 14.3%).
Extracts from an article in the Herald 4 October, written by a former National MP, explain how the German MMP system has been modified to give the party with the most votes the initial opportunity to form a government.
“The German Constitution, Article 63, provides that the person who receives the votes of a majority of members of the Bundestag (lower chamber of the federal Parliament) shall be elected Federal Chancellor. If no person has a majority in the Bundestag the person who receives the largest number of votes shall be elected. If that person cannot win a majority at an election in the Bundestag within seven days, the Federal President can either appoint that person Chancellor or dissolve the Bundestag for a new general election.”
What follows are the thoughts of a layman, not a legal or political expert. I look forward to reading what others have to say.
So, let’s say these German rules currently apply in New Zealand where English is given the opportunity to be PM. English would be PM for seven days, on the basis that 59 seats (including Act) don’t give him the required majority. If he cannot gather the support required from other MPs’ to achieve a majority, within the seven day timeframe, he can then go to the Governor General and asks to be Prime Minister.
If the Governor General agrees he is then PM of a minority government. If there was a genuine opposition coalition of the majority Left that includes NZ First, Labour and the Greens they would presumably have a large say in how the country is run despite English being PM. In any event a good opportunity to work as a cohesive opposition.
If he is refused by the Governor General, we then have another electoral vote rather than provide Ardern, Peters and Shaw with an opportunity to form an alternative Government. The power goes back to the people not to any particular Party.
You want to provide the link? After all, it’s just as easy to copy and paste the link as it is to copy and paste a quote from it. Rather than make the rest of us waste time searching for it.
Now that I’ve found the link, the extract at the end has almost nothing to do with the rest of the opinion piece by Michael Cox. Who was a total non-entity as an MP, and clearly the thirty years since then have done nothing to improve his cognitive abilities.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11929017
With respect to the idea that only the leader of the party receiving the most votes may form the government, that’s crap. One of the main points of MMP is to include a wide variety of voices and opinions. Then the largest coalition of those voices that can work together form the government.
Making it so only the largest party can from the government hands way too much power back to established large party power structures, who will suppress variety of opinion in order to present the largest possible monolithic bloc. And make even harder for small parties to get traction.
Lets tell the Germans “that’s crap”. My intention is to get comments on the German system not the merits of Michael Cox. Shoot the messenger if you must.
You missed the bit where it says “IF no person has a majority in the Bundestag….”. A majority does not have to come from one party, it can be of any number of participants. So it is very possible for a person to become chancellor if his/her party does not have the most votes in parliament, just enough votes will do, from any party.
I do understand that the majority can come from any number of parties. So in that respect it is no different to here.
+100 Andre
Completely nullifies the reason for MMP in the first place. For instance you could get a situation where the Nats had 35.5, Labour 35.3 Greens 14 NZF 12. Labour/Green could form a stable government (49.3 v 47.5) but would not be given the opportunity. The Nats couldn’t, so there would be a new election. Many other combinations would be possible if a new party got over 5%.
(On a practical note on Peter’s post, surely the week to form a government would start after the Special Votes had been counted. That would at least give 3 weeks to work out a government.)
Thanks for the comments. You would expect the week to start after special votes.
So maybe a modified system would give the largest Party the opportunity to make the first attempt at forming a majority Government? If they cannot do that the second largest Party then has the opportunity?
Why should any party be granted special privileges to form a government? What’s the problem with the current arrangement where the leader of the first coalition to say they have a majority of the house goes to the Governor General who presumably checks it out and if it seems legit, gives them the opportunity to prove it?
Andre has provided a valid reason why this kind of approach is a failure of recognising the democracy that can be provided by MMP.
If a group of like minded parties secures more than fifty percent of the vote, your proposal to adhere to the german method, would only provide space for the largest party vote, even if it was not part of that majority group.
Ultimately, meaning that despite MMP attempting to reflect the diversity of the electorate, the parties with the simplistic, most phatic policies and campaigning would be the ones who are most likely to garner the biggest block of votes, and be given the first priority to form a government.
The bland liars would retain their power – again.
Surely that is not what you are championing?
That’s exactly what he’s championing.
Plus, under our system, the governor general is appointed by the PM (leader of the largest party in what would in this situation be the previous government). Surely that predisposes him/her to stick with the status quo if there is no decisive outcome from an election?
Thanks for the perspective. Have patience while I continue to think this through.
What we really need then is for the NZ public to always expect that the final vote simply indicates peoples party preferences, not a result. So if one party has 49% of the vote and, say, 5 others, have an even split each of the other 51% of the vote they can all decide equally amongst themselves the way forward to forming a government. There is no “winner” until a coalition is formed.
I heard yesterday that in 16 years time, or so, Europeans will be a minority in Auckland. It really is time we starting listening to different voices rzther than trying to shut them down to preserve a world view that hasnt really existed in a long time?
Putting aside the ramifications around MMP, denying the Leader of The Opposition the right to test the confidence of parliament in the event that the PM or leader of the largest party has failed to win a confidence vote would pretty much overturn the parliamentary conventions that we’ve inherited with our version the Westminster system.
Furthermore the article seems to be suggesting that, in the event, that the leader of the largest party in the Bundestag is unable to muster a majority in that house, the President can simply appoint that person Chancellor? So, in our case we would be allowing the sovereign to appoint the PM even if that person has failed to survive a confidence vote in the house?
While I’ve got lots of criticisms of our governing arrangements, the details around how parties can come together to form a governing coalition seem reasonable to me. So I’m waiting for a good argument against what we have now before I get interested in suggested alternatives. So far all I see is flailing distress from Nats that currently don’t have the right to rule they feel entitled to.
In the event that some convincing argument against what we now have actually comes up, then yeah, the points you’ve raised are a good argument against following the german model. Particularly since the two worst features of our overall MMP system, a high threshold and coat-tailing, were also apparently copied from a german model.
“So far all I see is flailing distress from Nats that currently don’t have the right to rule they feel entitled to.”
Watching that with interest too.
The last two weeks of watching the echomen bouncing around in their echo chambers has been a study of idiocracy.
Bill has promised to march in the streets for his “right to govern”. Can’t wait.
I think that lowering the threshold to 3% and getting rid of the coat-tailing loophole are the 2 easiest things we could do to improve our version of MMP. And I also thinks there’s a good chance it might happen now that National’s decade long shenanigans in Epsom and Ōhāriu are finished.
It would be good to have the experts reassure everyone of the merits of our system when compared to FPP and the German version. How do you counter the view that NZF have the balance of power?
The “experts” reviewed MMP after the last referendum in 2012 and arrived at the conclusion that the coat-tailing loophole should be scrapped and the threshold lowered to 4%. All of which the, then National government chose to ignore.
http://www.elections.org.nz/events/past-events-0/2012-mmp-review/results-mmp-review.
And I don’t actually want to “counter” the view that NZFirst have the balance of power. The last 2 years has suggested the electoral outcome we find ourselves with. Get over it. Stop thinking in FPP and get on board with MMP. If National has spent the last decade doing that they might not have found themselves in the crappy position they’re in now.
The view that Peters holds the balance of power is totally accurate. Because of the choice of Green party members to effectively close the door on the idea of going into coalition with National thereby rejecting the possibility of holding the balance of power. If the Greens had chosen to be open to National, they too would hold the balance of power making any coalition negotiations much more interesting.
I think one (of many) fair ways of looking at that is that many NZF supporters would swing between Labour and National in the absence of a somewhat centrist party like NZF (or United Future in its heyday). So rather than consciously making the choice between Nat and Lab themselves, they are comfortable delegating that choice to Peters, in the expectation that NZF would also moderate any extreme ideas that make it in from the wings of whomever they go into coalition with. Keeping the bastards honest, if that phrase appeals.
So while I utterly detest Peters, I can respect the choice of his supporters. And if I’m completely honest, despite my loathing of Peters, I still prefer the idea of Nats having to keep Peters onside to the near-as-dammit absolute majority they’ve had the last nine years.
That’s my reading of it.
OR the public and media could grow up politically and wait for negotiations to see which relationships will work for good government in the future?
Shall we also follow Germanys 7 weeks annual leave each year and strong Unions or you just want to cherry pick the bits that help National?
“OR the public and media could grow up politically and wait for negotiations to see which relationships will work for good government in the future?”
Ain’t that the bloody truth! The media (or rather what parades as a MSM/4th Estate) should. Some aspects of this ‘nation’ called NuZull/Aotearoa continue to baffle me.
This little nayshun that “punches above its weight”; is/used to be criticised for that “Tall Poppy syndrome”, all that sort of stuff is actually ultra-competitive (at least amongst the male population – and more lately the Sharlene’s and Shona’s (at the risk of being labelled a sexist cnut) trying to prove they have adequate testosterone levels in order to compete. They seem to care so much about what the rest of the Whurl thinks of us – let alone fellow Kiwis.
Battles between egos in media stars, Hosking/7 Blunt versus The Fucking Project hosted by a Jesssie who has 3 or so hours to undergo a lycra-clad conversion between RNZ and Eden Terrace – the former address where ‘I’m old school and in-depth’ to the latter where ‘I’m superficial and aha ha ha’ with a parade of Mediaworks staff with mortgages to pay to prop him up – and despite an occasional outburst in order to maintain the last vestiges of credibility.
Even the way Kiwis drive a bloody car has become a competition – and despite their penis length, they’re not actually that good at it. (You’ve got to push the pedal to the floor and race to the next red light ahead of someone who’s read the road ahead and realised that exercise was going to be a pointless exercise.)
It’s no surprise to me all the FPP thinking that’s been evident before AND after the 23rd September.
I’m not sure why it is that we’ve become so fucking yea/nah about various gains and so pig ignorant (1893 Women’s Suffrage); a contribution to LGBTI and YouMan! roights; the implementation of a proportional representation system (with all its inadequacies) that we’re so frikken insecure or ignorant about that we all see this past month or so as a competition that someone NEEDS to convincingly win.
After 30+ years of neoliberalism, I guess it should be no surprise, but it’s kind of uphill.shit.push – which, in the end is a “loser’s battle”
Ah, so you want us to change the rules so that only National can form a government – got it.
I think we’ll pass.
A law abiding gun-owner right up until, surprise, he wasn’t.
An Australian man who came to know Stephen Paddock intimately in recent years has offered the most detailed public portrait yet of the Las Vegas mass killer.
He said Paddock was a highly intelligent, strategic though “guarded” individual who won a fortune applying algorithms to gambling, and studied arguments for his right to own weapons under the US constitution.
Their encounters came via their respective girlfriends, Philippine-born sisters – one of whom, Marilou Danley, has returned to the US to be interviewed by the FBI in the wake of Paddock’s meticulously planned massacre.
Their acquaintanceship, through more than half a dozen encounters in the US and the Philippines between 2013 and 2015, revealed Paddock’s generosity – which had his overseas guests living in “palatial” style – and the existence of a “gun room” at his home in Mesquite, Nevada.
“Yes, I was familiar with him,” the man, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Guardian at his Brisbane home on Wednesday. “He was extremely intelligent, methodical, conservative – guarded – and strategic. A planning, thinking type of guy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/04/las-vegas-shooter-stephen-paddock-intelligent-gambler-gun-rights
If they were to apply Paddocks profile across the population how many US citizens would trigger an alert.
I’d suggest the bulk of US gun owners would come up which in itself tells you somethings very much amiss in America as their biggest terrorist threat is likely to be coming from their own citizens.
I guess it makes a change from the US govt and it’s backing of violent conflict outside of the USA.
The report in The Press on (killer) Paddock: 64 years, left no immediate hint of motive. He had 34 guns, and shot at least 59 people.
He was a retiree with penchant for gambling – but no criminal record.
‘Paddock was not known to have served in the military, or to have suffered from a history of mental illness or to have registered any inkling of social disaffection, political discontent or radical views on social media.’
I think he was just infected with a bad case of empty USA propaganda with the disadvantage of ‘Being Born in the USA’ and believing the empty bit in their Constitution about his Right to be Happy. Which as anyone who thinks knows is only a passing feeling, not appropriate as full-time goal for questing humans.
Paddock’s behaviour would seem the likely outcome for many of male humanity who succeed in getting money and then buying what they decide they want from life, and then find this doesn’t provide a satisfactory reason for living.
The rich man Howard Hughes ended up degraded after having a surfeit of his wealth, accomplished some personal goals, and finding nothing else to stimulate him. He got beyond wanting, living on chicken soup in the entire floor of a hotel where the windows were blacked out, sitting on a toilet for hours, long hair, long nails, and with someone managing his affairs for him.
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1902376_1902378_1902405,00.html
On a lower level of wealth a guy from NZ killed his girlfriend Crystal or killed himself or someone else at his apartment in some Australian resort where he had retired after making money investing in some vitamin pill company. I
registered the negativity of this ‘successful’ investor, but his details weren’t worth remembering.
These individuals are unconnected to the real world where people actually work for their earnings, not just invest in likely profitable business or housing where they live off others striving and work. I think the term is rentier.
There will be more of these crazed individuals who show symptoms which psychiatrists do not deign to consider insane because of narrow definitions. Otherwise, we might recognise our world is daily near-insane, and I guess the trick-cyclists are just peas in the soup. And crazed individuals within the individualistic society seem to be proliferating in the neo liberal economic religious system imposed on us. In the free market, we have to be careful to look for real friends to give life with each other meaning as in The Three Musketeers – inseparable friends who live by the motto “all for one, one for all” (“tous pour un, un pour tous”). Individualistic men and women probably don’t have real friends, more drinking buddies, investor leads and suitable social partners but if we can only trust a few friends, a group separate from society, then do we actually have a society or is life another version of Game of Thrones?
You have to also question the wisdom of US law enforcement and the demand for every detail of the crime from the news media in these situations.
With every passing ‘massacre’, prospective lone-wolf gunmen get an ever more detailed blueprint on how to commit one of these crimes; e.g.: it was the gun smoke in the room setting off smoke detectors giving him away. Without that and, presumably a suppressor, he could have remained undetected for a lot longer than what he did.
Totally agree.
Some how I think I’m going to end up like a lot of people thought our history that have fought for equal rights and who fought against the the establishment like Eddie Grant a controversial death it has happen many times through out our history . But I will keep for OUR Earth because we have only one Earth only one WORLD.
Big UPPS To those supermarkets taking the lead and banning plastic bags .
The big picture is all OUR people in a position to make changes that will benefit our environment should not wait for government . They need to take the lead and make these changes for our grandchildren future.
Governments are a complicated beast that need US to show them the right path to a brighter future.
P.S. It awesome to see MSM taking the lead and showing the fact,S on climate change Ka Pai
Eco Maori i agree plastic bag use should be banned.Should have already happen long before now.And feel its also good to see Greenpeace actively involved.However i fail to see banning any kind of bag as a workable answer.Shopping isn’t necessarily always a planned event for everyone.So why not allow replacement of plastic with paper?.Many more people would be likely to then get right behind the idea, and freely adopt that as change that’s easy to accept. I’d really like to understand why Greenpeace hasn’t taken up this approach .Perhaps somebody,here,can help explain why?
Those Catalan government idiots are going to get their asses kicked.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41498685
“Madrid nos roba” – “Madrid is robbing us”
Catalonia is spectacularly rich compared with other parts of Spain. It’s got 16% of the population and 19% of the GDP. Barcelona gets massive tourism and has one of the biggest ports in Europe. Tarragona has one of the biggest chemical industries in Europe.
So of course they pay more taxes than the rest of the country, and more of it gets spent in poorer regions than where it came from. Doing what proper government does with taxes: redistribute from those with the average wealth, to those who need it more.
The Catalan government also owes E77b in public debt. They’ve been the biggest beneficiary of the special fund the Spanish government set up to get the regions going again after the protracted effects of the GFC. Catalan took far and away most of this facility to do good for its own people. But of course, that rich region and its on average wealthy and educated region wouldn’t have to pay that back if they struck out independently.
Tax. Debt.
No doubt calls for independence stirs the heart of old socialists and anarchists brought up on For Whom The Bell Tolls. But before you start asking for another Crimea, ask yourself: who benefits?
“Madrid nos roba” – “Madrid is robbing us”
Where is that from? It’s not in the link.
weka
I think it might have been on a placard at one of the demonstrations, though I didn’t see it in the linked article’s video (maybe one in the weekend). Ad seems to have seized on the idea that the Catalan independence movement is entirely economic; which seem to be overly simplifying matters, and ignoring history (such as the torture and execution of the last independent Catalan president by Franco’s regime).
However, I found it grimly amusing for a member of an heridatary Bourbon monarch (descendant those overthrown during the French revolution and whose father had been handpicked by Franco as his successor) to be lecturing those who had been engaged in a largely symbolic referendum on; “democratic principles of the rule of law”. The excessive reaction by the Spanish government in sending in their armoured goon squad was very counterproductive in assuring the Catalan people that they not oppressed.
I wondered about that too, would have been good to see the context. Madrid robbing Catalonia could refer to the election, or democracy, or independence etc.
Surprising precisely nobody, here is episode number 271,828,182,845,904,523,536,028,747,135,266,249,775,724,709,369,995 of awesomely blatant conservative political hypocrisy. In this case, rabidly “pro-life” politicians pressuring their mistresses to abort the unborn child they had fathered.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/10/03/this_pro_life_congressman_was_caught_telling_his_extramarital_boo_to_get.html
Episode number 271,828,182,845,904,523,536,028,747,135,266,249,775,724,709,369,996 of blatant pro-life hypocrisy.
9 million kids get insurance through CHIP. Congress is about to let its funding expire
On September 30, funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program expires. After Republicans took a rushed and ultimately failed run at repealing Obamacare one last time, the program’s spending authorization is now at imminent risk of lapsing.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/27/16373494/chip-funding-reauthorization-congress
Happy happy….
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/tillerson-s-fury-trump-required-intervention-pence-n806451
Well he’s correct jo90 good post
Trumps old tweets. The Hallmark cards of Twitter: there’s one for every occasion. Even for when his Secretary of State calls him a fucking moron.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/4/16424248/how-is-there-always-a-tweet-trump
And to address the question in the cartoon: yes they did put something into the constitution to deal with that possibility. The Electoral College. It had one job. And failed.
Shows how captured by the system their elected officials are. The private vs public stance on many issues are at variance.
A case of saying whatever is required to get elected.
Theresa May’s disaster speech at the Conservative Party Conference…couldn’t have happened to someone more deserving….
….and the icing on the cake, she was wearing a bracelet depicting the proud Communist artist Frida Kahlo….it sounds like it could have all been scripted by the writers of The Thick Of It.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/theresa-may-frida-kahlo-bracelet-communist-cough-conservative-conference-a7982931.html
But before you start feeling even just a pang of sympathy for her….save it for people who are really suffering under her regime, as the evidence for the relationship between austerity and suicide mounts…
http://discoversociety.org/2017/02/01/suicides-linked-to-austerity-from-a-psychocentric-to-a-psychopolitical-autopsy/
So I say enjoy, have a giggle, a chuckle, it is one of the few times it is OK to laugh at someone else’s misfortune.
So very english, the protester stooped as he was lead out, presumably so as not to disrupt too much.
And Corbyn, Corbyn, Corbyn he clearly has them rattled.
Reminiscent of the Tories here, spent more time talking about the ‘enemy’ rather than articulating their vision.
If our Tories articulated their vision then very few people would ever vote for them. And so they articulate the same vision as the Left while putting in place policies that bring about its antithesis.
She seems to suffer from some sort of acute stage-fright which might explain the dreadful coughing.
How that guy got anywhere near her with the P45 form is amazing and the Frida Kahlo bracelet and all the letters falling off the wall was just the icing on the cake.
ffs that security is non existent – shocking.
Absolutely, just as well it wasnt the other P45, the kahr p45.
Commentary from Jonathan Pie:
Iain M Banks, AFAIK, coined the term “power junkie”. There are certain parallels one can draw with Wayne’s recent emissions.
It’s a pity the O,R and Y in COUNTRY didn’t fall off…..oh that would have been so good.
Haha. That’s what it was thinking. Shakespeare!
SDHB are having public meetings fora next week to put a gloss of public consultataion on their; “strategy and action plan” through to 2030, particularly focusing on the hospital rebuild. The ODT is a bit vague on the details, but the SDHB facebook page has a scan of a print ad (probably from the ODT, I seldom see a physical copy these days). For Dunedin that is; 13:00-14:30 Tuesday 10/10, at the Barclay theatre in the museum. Nothing about whether you have to book to speak as with the public forum prior to the start of ordinary public advisory committee meetings.
https://www.facebook.com/southerndhb/
http://www.southerndhb.govt.nz/pages/public-forum/
This seems worth trying to make your voice heard at, if you can make it during workhours. Or you could just leave it up to the unelected SDHB in conjunction with an multinational professional services corporation to do what is best for the people of Otago:
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/forums-chance-have-say-health-services
Work hours? Hmmmmm
Profiles in Craven Cowardice. Repug senators deflect and hide when asked about any kind of legislative response to the Las Vegas mass murder.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mass-shootings-las-vegas-gop_us_59d3ef64e4b04b9f9205baf4?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Religious extremism courtesy of RWNJ’s – a gun shop in Dallas using Crusader imagery and citing biblical verses.
https://www.facebook.com/TEMPLARORDANCE/#
A friend of mine gasped when she saw the Vulcan episode of American Gods. “That’s Civic Religion!” she said. She’d been enrolled in religious studies and apparently one of the tools for understanding how states operate is to look as societies as religions or cults.
The creators of American Gods here explain why they created an episode not in the original book to look at this.
Two more sleeps then roll on 2pm when we will know the results of the Special Votes.
Radio NZ has just said in the 11 am bulletin that the meeting between NZFirst and National was all over in half an hour…?
Seems that way.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/97564343/nz-first-talks-with-national-labour
“Asked what sort of a reception he’d received, Peters replied, “take a wild guess”. “
In today’s paper Herald Grant Bradley the aviation commentator has an article of the CEO of Air NZ speaking to an audience of 400 in the Business Section. The CEO says its “no time to slash and burn” with businesses looking for short term goals of cutting jobs, cutting investment and cutting customer services”. I would like to link this article but I cannot find it on the online Herald.
His words “the reality is that the business world is sadly littered with companies that are just cutting jobs and ultimately not fulfilling their purpose to do anything useful. That’s pretty sad”.
He goes to on say they Air NZ have greatly reduced the income parity between the genders and is endeavouring to make their company more sustainable – for example the recycling scheme where unsealed food/drinks left on trays will be recycled where its safely possible.
My first thoughts were of this National Government and previous Labour Governments which have sold off state owned assets purely to pay down debt and get that instant gratification of money in hand. No thoughts of the dividend stream that might still be coming in if they hadn’t been sold off. Also their customer service in all of their departments is a bloody disgrace especially at WINZ. The attrition of staff in departments and front line in essential departments is another serious problem.
Banks are another where customer service is next to nothing. It seems we have a way to go yet where customers are valued and staff treated with respect.
“words “the reality is that the business world is sadly littered with companies that are just cutting jobs and ultimately not fulfilling their purpose to do anything useful. That’s pretty sad”. ”
I take some heart that more and more businesses are operating beyond just bottom line return to shareholder or owner. More than 30 years ago. Still more need to transition but it is a start
It seems some in the media have caught on that the labour party are economically ‘orthodox’ rat bags. That if they stick with what they been saying (policy), nothing will change, actually just like the last 9 years it will only get progressively worse.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/10/05/bryan-gould-to-labour-this-is-no-time-for-conventional-answers/
Someone’s…??…doppelganger..
https://thedailybanter.com/2017/10/ha-goodman-uses-republican-talking-points/
Hugh Hefner cured a ‘model’ of her eating disorder:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11929842
Now he’s dead, one more miracle like that and he can apply to the Pope for sainthood.
LOLOLOLOLOL
Well we are giving our daughter and son and inlaw a break we have 3 of there children till Sunday man they keep you on your toes 2 girls whom are blonde and very well behaved and our eldest grandson well he has a real full of life personality . We are very proud of our whole family we created. But when we were bring up our children I did not realize how much time goes into bring up children most of the time I was out there chasing the big money fishing and other various jobs. So most of the time I just past the money over and my wife did most of the hard yards bring up our family .
But when my daughters started having children this opened my eyes to the hard ship Lady’s go through carrying a baby for 9 months having no sleep for the first 6 months it is a 24 7 job bring up children and can be a very dangerous life threatening time giving birth and most males are totally unaware of these fact’s . For this reason we give our young lady’s all the help we can with bring up our grandchildren and this is one of the reason that I get the big picture . Which is we have one Mother Earth and we have to look after her as no one else is Kia Kaha
I love a bit of self awareness from a male who actually gets how hard a woman works when she becomes a mother. I still remember the absolute exhaustion I had from when I had my first child and then second . Right through till….. Can’t remember.Good on you. High five. Oh, and that was over 40 years ago.
Has anyone seen/read this? It exposes the smokescreen that trade is about encouraging democracy rather than a greedy grab to be first in. Remember how being in WTO woukd help China be more Democratic and better on Human Rights…
” To make matters worse, the Trump family have placed themselves conspicuously on China’s payroll, accepting future profits in the form of trademarks for both the Trump and Ivanka brands, and seeking Chinese investment in Kushner real estate projects. When China Labor Watch, a New York–based labor rights organization, published information on poor conditions in a factory where Ivanka’s brand-name shoes had recently been produced, China detained the group’s three field investigators, the only time CLW’s investigators have been detained for exposing the abuse of Chinese workers.2 ”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/10/12/chinese-world-order/
“Remember how being in WTO wou[l]d help China be more Democratic and better on Human Rights…”
Fark! That’s almost as big a lie as all the others the new neo-libs told us would happen – in the future, going forward, actually-as a matter of fact, to coin a phrase, so-to-speak.
Public Service reforms
The market the market as the natural leveler
Privatisations
etc
etc
etc
Maybe a good person to bring in on fisheries reform…
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41438279?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook
Tea-service all set?
I have to go numbing my nut somewhere else.
For a last mention, cheese.
“Auckland ratepayers [are] now paying 6 percent more this year for council salaries. A staggering 52 percent of rates are now used by the council just to pay staff.”
…Mr Town (CEO)- who got a $34,000 payrise to $690,000…”
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/10/bump-in-auckland-council-staff-earning-six-figure-salaries.html
Note the article attacks democratically elected Phil Goff NOT the unelected CEO Town who earns $690,000 who is supposed to ‘run’ the council.
Not sure how much the Ports of Auckland get, or Metrowater CEO’s but probably more than Phil Goff.
Like Fonterra, it’s about time CEO salary is linked to real results, ratepayer (or in the case of Fonterra farmers) satisfaction, real public services and real results. Hard to see how the current situations of both organisations can meet normal measures of results.
Apparently Auckland council has some unbelievable dissatisfaction rate from ratepayers.