Silly old dearie Rosemary McLeod needs to get off her sexist ageist and racist ranting. She doesn’t even seem to realise that her bigotry and stereotyping is exposing her lack of insight and wisdom. This morning in the Press she has the second column in two weeks which rants on about naughty old men. She is obsessed.
She is an ageing old doris. A silly old white woman. Although I suppose non-white women can be just as silly – aint noticed any difference between them myself.
She is joining the ranks of other bigots of the same mould – Eleanor catton (who is a silly young white woman), michelle a’court, beck eleven and others who take a few people who do dumb shit and highlight their gender, age and race as if it somehow material to the dumb shit.
It is becoming an obsession right across the country – witness the finger-pointing around the roast busters. Did any white mothers stand up and take responsibility for raising these sons? Any white sisters? Any non-white sisters? Any women at all? There were plenty pointing fingers at men (always white and older, despite evidence that offenders are usually non-white and younger), despite men not being responsible, as a group. Maybe we should start looking at the actions of white women a little more closely instead of just assuming that everything is the responsibility of that white man driving to work this morning in the car next to you…… It is becoming a joke.
There is something yucky going on in this country. There is a witch hunt going on.
he he, crunchtime, RT and grumpy,… been outa the hood since punching that out
It was a bit of a rant, but there are usually currents of reality underlying rants of all who rant.
right, now, back to the honest tranquility of the tui and the flowering harakeke, the kahawai and the hurrying inanga, the sandy bank and the sheltering rock…
Lolz the ACTors will leave no stone unturned in their quest to find someone, anyone, who might attract more than a handful of votes,
i would have thunk Hooten would have been high on the list but the rumor there is that Slippery is spewing on wee Matty for being involved in the Chorus broadband roll-out fiasco and has told ACT no way,
The other rumor doing the rounds is that Hooten doesn’t want a bar of ACT either as He is planning the launch of a ‘new’ Liberal Party and is simply waiting for the ACT Party to be declared legally dead befor doing so,
My pick for wee Matty’s new party name would be the ‘If You Thought The Last Lot Were All Flakes,Hypocrites, and Criminals, Wait till You See Us Lot In Government Party’….
… can hardly wait for his hysterical (womb affected) and lunatic ( moon affected) comments on evolution .. must be coming soon ! thx for smiles this morning phillip ..
but you missed one:
Blue moon, you saw me standing alone ….. ( also to be known as Sunset over East Coast Bays) …
Listened to this audio. Craig sounds like he has learned to have a bob both ways. The ‘sorta believe it’ nonsense is designed to not alienate his crazy supporters.
I spoke to one moon doubter last night. I just said that the moon broadcast was screened live for hours and it would have been bloody hard for an actor to mime moon walking for hours faultlessly. He’d didn’t appreciate my miming a moon walk slow leaping style around the car park where we were.
His response? “They could have had a cable attached to him…..”
I don’t feel at all ‘lowered’, thanks, Phillip. But you’re right about the ‘cold war”. The same had occurred to me. This ‘moonbat,’ as you called him, has been a soldier and a policeman, which is even more scary…………..
Very disappointing, and plays completely into orthodox monetary and economic theory. The point I made at Conference stands: access to real resources for the elderly is key (are there enough doctors, aged care facilities, home care staff etc); but money is not a constraint – the govt always has money for super (if it is considered important enough) because it can act as the monopoly supplier of NZD.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 5.3.1
That’s interesting because what you say would indicate that the majority at the Labour conference voted to raise retirement. The question is: Is this the will of the members or the will of the representatives at the conference?
Either way, it’s a vote killer. If Labour want National in next term then they will keep this policy.
Conference voted to give caucus the discretion to make the decision on the retirement age. Stuck in ” we can’t afford super” and “we need to make it financially sustainable” modes of thinking.
Ah. Thanks for that. The membership’s goose is cooked.
Incidentally, was the Cunliffe leadership meant to help TINA pack up and move out or is the membership about to discover that TINA is a permanent resident in Labour’s broad church?
Operations etc done in NZ can actually act as multipliers in the economy. I know this goes against established wisdom but if work can be carried out in depressions that provide needed things in the community, to keep circulation of money and jobs and skills going, why can we not afford needed, reasonable health care?
The money earned goes back into the community. It keeps the nurses in employment, many are in the older age group, very skilled and experienced. All that is needed is to keep those able in the retired putting something into society that is helpful to it and a lot of our present problems would be minimised from the extra personpower available to help overcome it. And they would still be able to go away for their holidays, fishing, family visits, garden tours etc. Those who couldn’t afford those could get opportunities to be volunteers at events where they could apply what skills they have.
What you’re actually seeing is part of the major problem with a monetary system especially when that monetary system has been designed to get most of the money into the hands of the few as a capitalist system is designed to do. Society has been conditioned to believe that we need money to do anything but that we don’t have enough money and so we can’t afford to do everything despite having the resources available to do it.
This is where the government being able to create money would fix things. We would have enough money, no matter what, to utilise our own resources.
Yeh I saw this too. Vote loser.
My complaints are:
Why don’t the self employed have to join. They can pay along with their taxes and then they too have a stake in the ultimate outcomes.
Lots of women vote on the left and also do that wonderful non earning job called looking after the kids for no pay while they are abused by the state and the other parent contributes sweet FA for the kids and is never bothered by the state.
What are they going to do about that? Nothing it seems so that low or non earners will be poor all their lives and in retirement too while the rest of the community bludges off them. Some one has to care for future taxpayers after all
The more there is in kiwisaver the less incentive there is for a decent state retirement amount for those who have never made the cut.
Rules by the rich for the poor and rules by the boys for the boys.
Still far too much of ACT in there for my liking, Risildo. At a time of massive youth unemployment, and when anyone over 50 without a job already is basically unemployable, Parker’s ideas are about as anti-worker as you can get. I’ll add him to my list of Rogernomes that Labour still has to free itself of – Duckface McDuck, Sealord Jones, Phil Lawnorder Goff, David ACT Parker, David Roofman Shearer,…….. They still need a bloody good purge.
David Parker has just proved Labour is still hardwired to neoliberalism with his announcement they will lift the age for National Super to 67.
He seems completely oblivious to the fact there may be choices in how we deal with the bump in older people resulting from the ageing of the boomers.
We are also still waiting for any signal from Labour that they intend to do anything about reversing the disgusting welfare reforms of the Key and Clark governments.
Lolz, Labour appear to have taken the ‘vows of silence’ when it comes to things like Welfare and State Housing,(although David Cunliffe did make mention at the recent Conference that the ‘middle class’ were having trouble paying their rent),
Face it people, with the advent of MMP Labour no longer needed to represent ‘the poor’,(after all they do not donate lots to the Party),
In my opinion Labour have been for some time, if Socialist at all, the Socialists of, for and by the middle class,
You only have to see what occurred surrounding the ‘Working for Families tax credits’ to understand who they truly represent, when this little scheme was dreamed up there was still 400 and 50 odd million dollars in the budget, there was a choice of letting the children of beneficiaries into ‘Working for Families’ or giving ‘Business’ a tax cut,
“..You only have to see what occurred surrounding the ‘Working for Families tax credits’ to understand who they truly represent, when this little scheme was dreamed up there was still 400 and 50 odd million dollars in the budget, there was a choice of letting the children of beneficiaries into ‘Working for Families’ or giving ‘Business’ a tax cut,
We all know what the ‘choice’ Labour took was…”
ditto..ditto..ditto..
..the leopards’ spots still haven’t gone..
..this foot-shot from labour is the proof they just have pancake-makeup plastered all over them..
Crazy, I can’t believe Labour thinks it’s a good idea.
According to the last census, there’s around 300,000 people within the 55 -65 age group all counting down to when they retire.
From what I’ve seen of people within this age group is that they all vote and take voting very seriously.
You tell me who are these people going to vote for, the party that lets them retire at 65 or the party that boots them in the private parts and tells them they have to work for another two years.
Unbelievably dumb and arrogant, especially going into an election as tight as the 2014 election will be.
It is basically a kamikaze policy electorally, as you point out BM. And a completely unnecessary one. Foisted on us by people with very good govt Kiwi Saver schemes.
Yeah, I struggle sometimes with the reality disconnect.
What sort of political party goes into an election with a punishment as one of their selling points?
“Vote for Labour and you get to work for another two years!!”, ummmm I don’t think so.
Do Labour actually think people give a shit about the aging population and are concerned about how NZ is going to pay for super?, people only care about what’s in it for them selves.
This is a sort of policy that an out going government pushes through when they know their time is up, not one that’s trying to win power.
i hate agreeing with you BM, but your comment is pretty much correct, if Slippery’s current National Government can get away with being ‘good financial managers’ by totting up 70-80 billion dollars of government debt by the time they are thankfully kicked from the Treasury Benches then Labour could simply do the same,
Not that i am an advocate of that, as other’s have pointed out Government need simply ‘produce’ the needed monies to cruise through the retirement bump, the figures are not that great that doing such will alter any of the monetary indicators…
The beauty of Parker’s latest announcement …… which actually surprisingly unites a number of otherwise usually opposing commentators here. And the votes are not really in Labour’s favour.
The last census also showed a drop in the proportion of people under the age of 15.
Expecting the young generation to pay for the oldie’s retirements, when they’ve also hoovered up all of the resources over the last 40 years, is delusional.
It is not a benefit at all. It is a pension which is promised to every citizen. Calling it a benefit helps to demean it in the eyes of all those not receiving it.
OK Ron, I agree, perhaps benefit isn’t the right term. It is though, I think, a form of social security, which if you don’t need it, you shouldn’t take it, regardless of whether it was promised or not.
I see plenty of fairly young people hoovering up loads more resources than many older people.
I’d favour moving older people to part time work – with maybe a smaller super payment. Works for me with my modest pensions from the UK. I’m also fine with earning a lower rate of pay than when I was younger, although for others, it’d depend on the amount of their previous income.
I can see that many people approaching 65 are ready for withdrawal from full time employment.
But really, I would have thought it was a priority for any “Labour” government to be looking at decreasing the inequality gap, improving social security, raising wages, improving employment legislation, increasing the amount of jobs, apprenticeships, etc.
I see younger people who take for granted that they have cars, the newest technology, – basically far more consumerist than many of us oldies have ever been.
Also, I see some children of boomers (in my own wider whanau) who get access to more resources than some of my boomer colleagues ever had – and have good jobs and prospects, sometimes from the networks their parents operate in.
It’s true that economically, and with respect to jobs, more young people are struggling than back when us boomers were young. Although it’s hard to compare. More jobs were available, and they paid well enough for the smaller amount of consumer items and services that were considered necessary compared with today. It was often a struggle from payday to payday for me and my mates in our late teens and early twenties.
There have always been socio-economic differences within all generations – this is glossed over by the blanket claims about what the older generations have done or benefited from.
I also think the period when it seemed very good for a lot of young (mostly upper working class to and above) was those that grew up in the late 1970s and in the 1980s. It wasn’t such an easy ride for many youngsters in the late 60s and 70s.
One of the biggest complaints from younger people is being shut out of the housing market. This is something that is starting to impact on the middle class young more than ever before. But it was always a struggle to get on the housing ladder for many on the lowest incomes.
And me, as a life time renter I just don’t get all this obsessing over home buying – was never such an obsession in many parts of Europe.
And me, as a life time renter I just don’t get all this obsessing of=ver home buying
Can’t say that owning a house has been of major concern to me either but I’m against rentals as it encourages rentier behaviour from the rich. The private persons who own the homes that are rented out effectively get to live on the hard work of the renters and a few of them get to live a hell of a lot better than the people supplying their income while working far less.
The only way I support rentals is state owned rentals set at a low percentage of household income.
Well, I am OK because I have/had a reasonable income, no dependents and am happy to live in a studio with limited material possessions.
On the issue of rentier landlords/ladies making money on the back of my (boomer) work. My last 2 landlords have been younger than me (one was definitely too young to be a boomer, the other may be on the cusp or slightly younger than the youngest boomers).
I’m not in favour of the policy but the group you mention (55 to 65 year olds) will barely be affected by it. By 2020 today’s 55 year olds will be about 62. Given that it will be phased in even they will be working only for an extra year.
The irony in terms of the argument about ‘inter-generational fairness’ is that the baby boomers will just sneak under this bar.
It would be interesting to see the percentage of GDP spent on education and children’s health (and the family benefit, etc.) in the post-war decades to see how we could afford the baby boomers then but apparently not when they retire. I suspect they were pretty expensive then, too, yet apparently as a society we afforded it without so much as an economic twinge, let alone pain.
Back then, I think the gap between rich and poor wasn’t so great. There wasn’t so much siphoning off of profits to enrich the top 10%.
And yes, it seemed to me odd that the talk was about the boomers, but most won’t be impacted by Labour’s raising the super age. It will impact more on younger ages (given NZ boomers are meant to be those born between about 1946 & 1961).
Labour would raise the age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation to 67, make KiwiSaver compulsory for employees and increase the KiwiSaver contribution rate if voted into power.
There is another issue being ignored with the policy of raising the Super age. High unemployment is being ignored. Jobs for younger people need freeing up. This won’t happen with raising the retirement age.
It might be better to focus on developing a healthy functioning society that can afford to pay people to retire rather than wringing more work out of older people at the expense of and ignoring other serious issues.
I think this is a real mistake for Labour to pursue raising the retirement age.
“Labour understands the importance of universal superannuation to people. That’s why we are committed to keeping it in a way that is fair across generations. If we don’t steadily raise the age, Treasury says we will have to lift GST to 17 per cent.
“Polls show that New Zealanders support our policy.
the only other option is to raise GST???? for fucks sake get a grip you tards…TINA once again.
Sold my omnicorp shares and doubled my money…made about $120…my first ever vote, a sunny Saturday, strolled to the booth with my mate, me labour, him nat….both realised we could’ve stayed at home and saved the bother. Hamilton West. 1987. Mallard. Jesus wept. 1987. I know it is.
Lefty
Your point is very important. I want to know too without further delay. We are also still waiting for any signal from Labour that they intend to do anything about reversing the disgusting welfare reforms of the Key and Clark governments.
But more, ‘what they are going to do in reversing’ We need firm commitment, not any of those PC airy fairy comments about those with the poster features of poverty, mostly the cute children and the grey-haired. Get sentimental if you must but don’t forget that adults are cute too, and great, and needy, and deserving, single or parents.
Back on your medication there, that would rate as the most sexist, racist, ignorant rant i have read for some time although i did have a chuckle and thats always a good way to start a Thursday
Calling someone like Eleanor Catton (that just won an international prize) a silly young white woman ??? Why ? maybe VTO could elaborate a bit more as to why she and others in her post deserve this
Sorry there was no reply button when i posted the original msg
I thought that was a bit rough too. But I get his point: communities raised these young men into what they are, and communities aren’t made up of just men.
I tried looking at the McCleod articles published this week, and, as far as I can see, they have little to do with VTO’s rant. They are idiosyncratic op eds – and yes they do have a pretty middle class focus. They don’t really make majorly sweeping statements about differences between men and women, but focus on a small number of news items. Basically they are light weight pieces – superficial, but she makes one or two good points on the way.
She’s pretty scathing about the activities of some middle class new age pretenders, particularly some female celebs
The justification for this revolting new-age practice is that all other mammals do it, so it must be good for you.
Well, my cats have brought two dead rats into the house this week, but I don’t see myself tracking vermin on all fours and snapping their necks with my teeth. There’s a reason why humans walk on two legs, not four: We find better things to eat.
[..]
When feminists crossbred with hippies some curious beliefs arose, and I am surprised that in Jones’ case they survive, if only in California.
Rebirthing was one of those beliefs, and my placenta friend tried it. It involved people holding her down firmly under tightly packed blankets, and making her wriggle out of them a new person, her former bad birth experience as an actual baby put to rights. Anyone who has been involved in real births will immediately see the humour in that. She did, too, I’m glad to say.
[…]
Friends who went that way all came from middle-class homes with lots of books and no lack of parental money, but they felt the need to turn their back on luxury and live the way my family had for lack of choice. Only the happy parts of subsistence living appealed – they could ignore the nasty bits – and so they lived, as a brave experiment, a lifestyle they didn’t have to, and could opt out of, and felt superior and smug.
Which brings me to the terrible gang-rape and murder of a young Indian medical student, which has led to mass demonstrations against the Indian Government and police, and turned her into a martyr.
Totally weird segue. It goes on:
Feminists protest that a woman is raped in India every 20 minutes, but their complaints are not taken seriously by police or by lawmakers.
Protesters spoke of misogyny and sexual abuse of women in everyday life – as they faced tear gas, police batons and water cannons.
Hopefully, good will come of this shocking crime; it seems the government there may change the law. But I’m thinking of the people I knew who thought India was all about patchouli, gurus and spangly clothing, and were happy to overlook the lives of grinding poverty they saw there. I wonder if they ever came to understand that those people had no choice.
Also rather a strange take on the issues, focusing on Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Charles Saatchi. She seems to take heart from the fact that mysogyny and sexism is a great equaliser for women, providing other women with the same kinds of experience as the likes of Nigella Lawson:
I am perhaps shamefully heartened by the thought that the wives of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Charles Saatchi, such worldly, sophisticated and intelligent charmers, may have had as crappy a time in the end as any of us who don’t have credit cards with unlimited spending, and are not ourselves both beautiful and independently rich.
The article ends with a comment, not about all men, or even about al aging white men, but a certain sub species who are bullies.
Giving evidence in court last week over another matter, Mr Saatchi explained, “I was holding her head by the neck to make her focus, can we be clear?”
We are all so much clearer, about how a bully thinks, at any rate, no matter how charming, sophisticated, brilliant and urbane.
At least he has taken back his temper-tantrum claim that Ms Lawson is a cokehead. If this were true, I wouldn’t blame her. You’d have to have an unnaturally bovine disposition to cope serenely with the infantile tantrums and misdemeanours of ageing men who, in the midst of worldly success beyond anyone’s dreams, forget to grow up
McCleod – not a great thinker or at the forefront of (white middle class) feminism: more a proponent of superficial chatter for the dinner party circuit, with a bit of a feminist slant. She does make some good points along the way, but fails to present them in any kind of coherent, in-depth or useful argument.
Yep, the woman’s been writing utterly meaningless gibberish for quite some time now.
Not so much “brilliant”, grumpy, as god-awful !!! Little general knowledge, little principle, little common-sense. Exemplifies the way our dear old ex-boarding school elite seem to effortlessly move into these high-profile positions despite zero talent.
To illustrate her uncaring, self-absorbed, inherently glib brand of doziness, McLeod’s response (Afternoons with Jim Mora) to the anti-democratic army coup in Egypt, was something along the lines of “Yeah, it’s a shame. They’re obviously not ready for democracy yet.”
“I thought that was a bit rough too. But I get his point: communities raised these young men into what they are, and communities aren’t made up of just men.”
If you think those few weeks of focus on the rape club were about blaming men and holding them solely responsible, then sorry, but you have majorly missed the point.
Most feminists I’ve known who have raised boys are acutely aware of what that means. Likewise, when feminists talk about rape culture and men’s responsibility in that, they’re not saying it’s all men’s fault. What they are doing is pointing out to men, now that we are finally allowed to, that we’ve been working on solving rape all this time and now it’s time you lot stepped up and sorted your shit out around this issue (we can’t do that part of it). Women generally know where they fit in the scheme of things. It’s men like vto who project their own insecurities onto the politics.
If I say that men have a responsibility in resolving the high rates of sexual assualt in this country, and vto hears that as “men are solely to blame and women are completely blameless”, that’s actually about vto, not me.
I agree with Garbage man, the racism and misogyny in vto’s comment was breathtaking. It was also nasty, and serves to muddy the issues (although I fail to see how saying women are just as bad if not worse than men helps).
You need to make allowances for vto. He started off on here as a bit of a rightie, caught Stockholm Syndrome and headed left.
He’s a bit confused but should come out of the closet any day now……….
Well, McCleod can be criticised heavily. But VTO seems to have done a very selective reading of her columns then headed off on his own tangent. McLeod was also scathing about young middle class new agers who fail to understand what poverty is really about, and about various male and female celebs.
Garbage men don’t read Eleanor Catton.
Yes they do they just don’t understand it.
It seems that there is a sensitive guy emerging from the corpse of a ranter who wants to attack the bastion of society, the caring parent who works hard at raising children well to the best of her ability.
Actually im a middle wing non troll that enjoys many blog sites and is entitled to his opinion as much as you are and FYI i enjoyed The Luminaries, and once again nothing to do with the topic at hand …so whos the troll then
Oh well i will look on the bright side of the coin then, if Muldoon gave it too you when you hit sixty you wont be voting National for too many more elections will you,
He (or she) wouldn’t have to be that old actually. Muldoon introduced it in 1977 and it stayed at 60 until 1991 whan it was increased to 61 as the age of eligibility with a phased rise to 65.
Anyone therefore who turned 60 in late 1990 would therefore have started receiving super at that age.
They would only be 82, as of today, which is not really that old by today’s standards. Not young, perhaps, but you would probably have, if you were a female of 82 at least another 10 years of life expectancy. Might out-live you bad12. After all unsmiley people don’t live as long as those who are cheerful.
Lolz, and where are most of these 82= year olds to be found, being not looked after in some cruddy ‘nursing home’ perhaps???,
The amusement for me is watching this orgy of ‘save save save’ for your retirement, what exactly are the old uns,(and i am not far off it),going to do with hundreds of thousands of dollars at age 79+ when the fact is that the older you get the less you actually spend,(in my experience),
If 82 is to mean that i will be spoon fed and have to have someone wipe it off of the other end i think i will pass on that anyway, (other than that i want to live forever and rule the world)…
On this matter we are clearly in agreement, and also in agreement with Robert Mortimer and Kingsley Amis.
As Mortimer said “There is no pleasure worth foregoing just for an extra three years in a geriatric ward”.
Amis’ version was “No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-mare”.
I wonder who said it first or did they both plagiarise it from a third, earliar author?
It is running my computer and engineering equipment that keeps me young, just got my licence to drive until 84 …. but I had an easy life and didn’t work my guts out for the capitalists. Drove a five tonne truck from Wanaka to Dunedin and back when I was 80, I’m the only one in my family with an HT licence , did the same this year with my SUV…. but I’m just a youngster with too many projects for a rest home or the grave as yet.:)
That 90yo is an inspiration as are the youngsters I know celebrating their 80ths this year.. I am afraid Laabour-Greens would have to do, not promise, something special to beat what National are doing for the older person.
I shouldn’t really wave the red flag but the comments prompt me 🙂
cheer up bad 12 the volunteer place where I work has a brnch of 80 year olds that make some 60 years look decrepit. One of our oldest insisted on being at work until she died over 90, she was getting shaky but still feisty. I guess you will be the same from reading your comments.
A sheet of talking points for employees of the National Security Agency and Central Security Services, was sent out ahead of Thanksgiving to help guide conversations with family and friends during the holiday season . . .
Meanwhile, Rupert’s empire turns on the ABC for daring to speak truth while over in the UK, editor of The Guardian is hauled before a Parliamentary Committee which sets about attacking the freedom of the press. Can’t be much longer before we see some revelations of New Zealand’s involvement in the mass spying on its citizens . . . or maybe there will be something of a delay until Kim Dotcom’s case gets back to court.
He seems to tick all the right boxes. He is a Senior Fellow with the Adam Smith Institute and writes lots of stuff tailor made for and celebrated by the addled nutters who think profits are more important than people.
These seven goods are health, security, friendship, leisure, personality, respect, and Savile Row suits. No, only joking: not Savile Row suits, harmony with nature.
But, joking aside, why are Savile Row suits less important than harmony with nature or leisure or all the other things on the Skidelskys’ list? The Skidelskys provide no empirical evidence that leisure is objectively more valuable than a nice suit (how could they?) nor any valid argument for this conclusion from obviously true premises (again, how could they?). Their list is compiled simply from their own judgements about what really matters in life – judgements that they ask us to believe are a more reliable guide to the true, objective values than are the judgements of us dissenters.
If this is the philosopher economist they have in mind, he appears to be a perfect nactoid, primed and ready for the TPPA era.
Nah, they don’t. They have a few unbalanced nutters waiting for an invitation to the fox hunt with Montague. I’ve seen what hangs around posing as right wing thinkers inside universities – 14 virgins, all after the same girl, and planing to be at the Ayn Rand statue unveiling in 2018, because they’re pretty sure Wendy or Jennifer will be there. They are very sad people.
Jamie Whyte: The formerly British-based journalist made an appearance at ACT’s conference. He now lives in New Zealand and has confirmed he is in the running.
Jamie Whyte is a management consultant. He was formerly a philosopher who wrote on philosophy for a general audience. Born in New Zealand, he now lives in the United Kingdom. He was formerly a lecturer in Philosophy at Cambridge University.
He has written numerous articles for The Times newspaper, and books including Bad Thoughts (whose US edition is called Crimes Against Logic ), A Load of Blair) Free Thoughts (a collection of various articles) and Quack Policy. His style attempts to dissect confused logic and nonsensical arguments, specifically the public pronouncements of modern politicians.
In Bad Thoughts Whyte identifies and provides examples of the most common devices used to present flawed arguments, and encourages the reader to develop the ability to spot flawed reasoning.
Whyte is a committed defender of the free market economist Friedrich Hayek and he supports right wing politics.
Whyte has defended the morality and the right of wealthy individuals to use tax avoidance schemes to massively reduce their tax, following criticism by British Prime Minister David Cameron of the comedian Jimmy Carr, who had been accused of reducing his tax liability through using such a scheme to about 1% of his £3.3 million income.
Oops. On National Radio this morning it was said that if David Cunliffe is not prosecuted for his call for people to vote in Christchurch East, then Mr Mcready has vowed to do so. A bit tough?
Yeah Graham Mac seems to be a bit long in the tooth to be clothing Himself in the lycra of the caped crusader,
Listening to that bloke Andrew Geddis a legal eagle at Otago University this morning, He seems to think that ‘Tweeting’ is a grey area of the Law surrounding publicly advocating that people vote for a certain candidate,
Are ‘tweets’ public as they are sent to ‘selected’ individuals seems to be His question,
Lolz i wont be donating to Graham Macs ‘legals’ against Cunliffe if it gets that far, i think the bloke has a bit of an addiction to the ‘fame’ that comes with this particular game…
I imagine he’d be eligible for diversion, karol, if the police bothered with it all.
The question would be whether a prosecution would be in the public interest. That, as well as the legal niceties of whether it’s an offence anyway and the fact that only a small percentage of his twitter followers would be Chch East voters (and presumably all of them already committed labour voters) suggest to me that this will peter out to nothing.
Next up, they’ll be busting Labour politicians for jaywalking.
Don’t underestimate the determination of the right wing to make an issue of this non-issue, however: Cunliffe’s tweet has the potential to be the next (utterly spurious) cause célèbre for the National Party and its media outlets.
I heard on news that someone was calling for Cunliffe to resign. Wow that would create a problem sticking with the leader has to be called David that only leaves Parker left
Now you really are starting to scare me.”Cunliffe will be found guilty by police and fined”
Do you really want the police to be prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner?
Exactly Alwyn. I don’t think our police are yet at the point where the law allows them to find someone guilty of such an offence and fine them. Are they? They quite often aren’t even capable of mounting a successful prosecution of the obviously guilty.
Doesn’t apply in this case does it? Cunners is already pleading guilty in the media to a brief fit of stupidity in the commission of an offence against the electoral act. The nature of the offence is trivial, the tweet would have reached a tiny audience all of whose minds would’ve already been made up on who to vote for (either supporters or RWNJs looking for a chance to “get” him, and the “publication” was so short-lived the worst that should happen should be a teensy fine.
RWNJs can have a field day making hyperbolic twits of themselves over it.
No, I’m not even sure we still have instant fines for traffic offences anymore.
It would make politics more fun though, if instant fines were leveled at polititions for minor offences like David Cunliffes recent untimely endorcement of Poto Williams.
You could extend it to things like crimes against the internet (Judith Collins on twitter), or bad puns (though I suspect this would unfairly target David Cunliffe).
… perhaps everytime a politition says “I can’t recall”.
Very much like a swear jar, but for polititions
The penalty doesn’t need to be a fine. Vodka shot for every member of cabinet (or shadow cabinet for the opposition) per offence would be fine.
Most of the people who use Twitter should probably be banned from doing anything else at all :). Never has a social medium been so aptly named. I regard it as an idiot detector.
I think McCready has stopped clock syndrome. I’m as happy that he prosecuted Banks as I am that a German capitalist may expose Key in court as a serial liar. Every now and then, you need a toilet plunger, but not for fine dining.
Is the noted NZ National Party NZ Herald jonolist John Armstrong suffering from a disease of the mind,
Today Armstrong devotes His whole column in the Herald to trying to convince us all that John Banks was leaving the Parliament at the end of the year anyway,(and not because He got told by Boscowan ”don’t bother re-applying”),
i could spend a lot of pixels and time venting anger at such spurious and utter trash,(i refuse to call That journalism),
Better tho to just say ”what a load of S**t” and move on…
maybe labour understand that a graduating extension to retirement age recognises the enormous cost of super and that 65 isnt “old” anymore. You could be construed as saying why suggest something for the greater good if you wont win votes. The corollary of which is do anything to get votes no matter how bad it is for the greater good. Oh wait a minute you support national.
Yeah you could say 65 aint old for the people that sit around all day tapping on computer keys for a living but what of those who provide the ‘real ergs of work’ in the economy, those who labour physically for their daily bread???,
Most such people have worn out their bodies by the time 50 comes around and does not Labour feel that they are due some recognition…
Actually, I also know one or two businessmen who work at a pretty intense pace, who are approaching 65 and looking forward to the relief of retirement – or maybe semi-retirement in a less stressful, less time consuming job.
Agree bad12. Perhaps they need to look at the universality of super or make it needs tested to continue to supply it. The suggestion to up retirement age to 67 from a Labour politician is really dumb. Perhaps he needs to retire or go work for ACT. I hear they need a new leader and it would not be the first time someone from Labour has been there. It starts to look like a well worn path and I wonder how they get to be representing Labour. Any wonder voters are confused.
+100% on that Bad12 …. though I am not sure how and with any honesty a retirement age, and pension, based on what one had done in ones working life could work.
Goodness me, what did I have for breakfast today. You are even starting to sound persuasive. When I saw the David Parker announcement, I went WTF. You are quite right about (2) and the subsequent statement. All that reminds me of a conversation I once had with Rodney Hide a long time ago.
Btw, what is the story with Parker’s stand-alone announcement about super. Is that the party policy after membership support and caucus agreement?
Does Labour now think it is in an invincible position to begin announcing unpopular policies on their own? I take it that Cunliffe is still alive and well and he approved Parker’s announcement, i.e. this super policy is also supported by Cunliffe?
Bloody hell, Labour should reduce super age to 63 on the condition that peeps do 20 hours community and social volunteer work a week. I mean, come on, let’s change society.
How to afford it? Print an additional $25M pw into the Cullen Fund starting right now. Easy as. The key is ensuring that when those payments are made, the real economy is healthy enough to provide the resources and services that people are expecting to be able to purchase with the money.
That is the most important issue I think, with David Parker’s announcement. I am not sure whether or not printing money is the answer, but attending to the health of the real economy seems central to anything that could be termed real change. If a rise in the retirement age, with penalty-free allowances for those longer able to work, was embedded within a range of policies aimed at the health of the real economy, I do not think it would raise alarm bells. But by itself, it looks like more of the same old fakery, designed to reduce the poor to wretched, and more slowly and surreptitiously, the middle class to poor, under the cloak of “balancing the books.”
The other problem is, this policy, along with the TPP, was shelved at the conference for further consideration, due to disagreement between the membership and the caucus. Now it looks as if “further consideration” means “what the caucus decides once dissenters are out of the way.” I hope this not going to apply to the TPP as well.
No to mention the other policy announced today about extending passports. Again by itself maybe not so serious, but as one of the few policies annonunced, it’s looking like the Labour Party continuing along the path of representing the interests of the comfy and ignoring those with less cushy lives (and the wishes of their members).
While all the while having an office in Putaruru which is open part-time 2 days a week, what a miserable bunch of Arse-wipes WINZ and Slippery’s National government are,
i have to wonder how many people are being put through this unnecessary expense who live in Putaruru or other small towns with the same ‘part-time WINZ office’,
The ‘efficient’ means of having all the beneficiaries fulfill their ‘obligations’,(no matter how stupid and a waste of time they are), would be for them all to go to the Putaruru office on the same day of the month with that office remaining open all day…
That was my thought. Closely followed by the words caravan and bus. Basically the WINZ people in areas without public transport should be kicked off the arses and and setup at local shopping centres in the villages and smaller towns.
But of course under Paula Bennett they aren’t there to help in any respect from finding jobs to making and effort to do their jobs. It is National’s policy to be stupidly punitively stupid with people..
Caravan , bus what are you thinking. The WINZ staffers could ride a push bike over Putararu. If it’s good enough for a beneficiary…..
And while we are at it:
How about our politicians catch the airport flyer in to Parliament.
In the morning it runs about every 10 minutes and takes about 25 minutes .
They could keep costs down, mix with the voters, get there just as fast
reduce the need to drill for oil
What’s not to like
and I would not be tempted to make gestures at Gerry Brownlee passing in the crown limo
1+1 =2 .. so why not give this fit and able walking beneficiary a job serving in the not-open-enough Putaruru office ?? She’s been told she has to find work under their new rules which is why she needed to show for the WINZ appointment.
“The other problem is, this policy, along with the TPP, was shelved at the conference for further consideration, due to disagreement between the membership and the caucus. Now it looks as if “further consideration” means “what the caucus decides once dissenters are out of the way.” I hope this not going to apply to the TPP as well.”
And by the time the nationwide membership meets again, it will be too close to the election and too late for the membership to do much (and, hey membership, don’t rock the boat). Haha. I am wondering now how transparent and honest the Labour caucus is.
How to afford it? Print an additional $25M pw into the Cullen Fund starting right now.
If the government is creating money then we don’t need the Cullen Fund either. Nor do we need retirement schemes. All we need to do is plan so that the economy can provide the goods and services that will be needed but it seems that the political parties are still wedded to the neo-liberal BS of not planning and leaving it all to that mythical beast the “free-market”.
I’ve got no links to cite or statistics to ply but engagement in one’s community especially when it’s pursued on a notionally voluntary basis MUST be good.
One thing is sure. Moral and social isolation is the killer of a decent society. Selfishness and lust for exclusively personal gain are the very planks of it. Pity that we’re encouraged in it by the false smiles and weasel words of charlatans.
Only if you accept the neo-liberal rights wings meme that transfer payments for welfare, including super are solely a “cost”. As if transfer payments to the old simply disappear without trace, like tax cuts to the wealthy for Hawaii holidays.
On the other hand, you could say that universal super has been so successful in ensuring less than 3% of the elderly live in poverty, at a relatively cheap net cost to the economy, that rather than reducing it, we should extend the concept to all ages. Especially children!
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Thanks Tracey. Found that, but also saw their previous work which seems different from the run of the mill PR companies. Which makes me want to continue if this is the case, have only two days to go.
Will probably ask the researcher off-line for clarity on who is funding the research.
Commentator from Brit saying David Cameron is holding himself apart from Boris Johnson opinion expressed that ‘Greed is good’. Apparently Cameron believes in social mobility and that there is too much inequality. Oh if only politicians had to eat their words. He would be holding his bowl out for more gruel like Oliver, sent to the school for chronic degenerates for being a lying fibbing sly little s.d.
And Graham Edgler Graham McCready – what’s with this little husk of a person. In his retirement setting himself up to be Don Quixote as a hobby. Can’t tell the difference between taking the equivalent of a married beneficiary annual payment for personal support and the mistake of putting out a ten minute tweet to supporters. Not the letter of the law, but a response of strong criticism would be appropriate for that, even a fine of $1000 would indicate a serious response, more than a slap on the wrist which might leave RW with fodder for their endless litany of lies about the ‘other side of politicians’.
These RW they don’t care about society. They want to pick at bits of it that don’t suit and they don’t like until it hasn’t a fabric, just a lot of holes separated by threads thinner than human hairs. Which have probably been torn out by anguished citizens who support democracy for all.
This comment by Dr Ell struck me as very apt given the concern we have about constant testing. I totally agree.
Dr Fiona Ell is a lecturer in primary teacher education in the School of Learning, Development and Professional Practice at the Faculty of Education, University of Auckland.
Focus on the Pisa “score” and the Pisa “rank” have led other countries to narrow their education agenda, effectively “teach to the test” and increase accountability and surveillance of teaching. There’s plenty of evidence that this doesn’t work.
When I was teaching back in the 80s and the UK government started on the foregrounding of testing – we all knew that too much testing takes the focus away from teaching to encourage real and significant learning. The evidence was there back then, but the “neolibs” just ignored it and wrote their own arguments/polices.
Actually to design a test pre-supposes that there are only right/wrong answers which rather defeats the purpose of discovery learning and self directed enquiry. There is of course a place for right/wrong answers (eg basic facts), but kids interested in their own enquiries will have a variety of answers to problem solving. Not easy to test.
But also, the righties aren’t interested in the masses developing real learning and critical skills, only learning what they are told to learn for the tasks TPTB want them to do: authoritarian approach to “education” for the masses/workers, who must just learn to jump through the right hoops.
ianmac
I remember a question about the humourous point in a cartoon by Murray Ball on The Dog.
I got a wrong answer. And thought how could that be. It is a personal response and there could be dozens of those depending on the main lines of culture the viewer came from.
Molly they probably wont tell you on the basis it might influence yoyr answers
bad
I agree @ manual workers. But I dont subscribe to bms tell the punters what they want to hear and then consider the public good if you get elected. That is about spin and consealment and assumes punters are ignorant. Bms way treats it like a game. Its more important to win at all costs. Its why so many bms hate consultation and consensus cos they need to know who “won”.
the trade me boards are ameeting place for the scum of new zealand to air their bigotry and prejudices.
any body who takes them seriously needs their head examined.
BM – hangin’ out with the good folks on TS has improved your social/moral/emotional IQ outa sight ! We’ll travel to the voting booth together to cast two party votes for Mana then aye ?
“The government is committed to developing our oil, gas and mineral resources in a sensible, safe and environmentally responsible way. Block Offer 2013 is delivering on that,” Mr Bridges said.
Just doesn’t get it does he? There is no way to develop oil in an environmentally responsible way, not when the plan is to dig it up and burn it.
A Radio New Zealand political reporter said the ceremony at Parliament was like an awards ceremony, with each successful company getting a round of applause from the 100 or so representatives from the petroleum industry there.
Surpised they didn’t get Mark Richardson in to compere…
A primer for Mothers (and Fathers) attempting to establish communication channels with their young adults in the family so as to inspire enthusiasm for simple tasks around the home. Recommended by the Oxford Dictionary of Tomorrow’s In-Words and Phrases.
Just looking at The Daily Blog which is crowing about beating the standard after only 8 months.
It has outstanding presentation but as I prefer limited hyperbole and exaggeration and less emotionally charged description, I find it a bit much.
Reading Tim Selwyn is like watching a large boy trying to take over the school playground. Unpleasant in his rant about RadioNZ, and Chris Laidlaw was unreasonably flagged, not being Tim’s style. So therefore only 5 plus half people in Auckland could be interested.
Too much regurgitation on that blog I think. I don’t want my news pecked out of the eyes of passing individuals and then fed into my open brain. Give me some facts and help me form a reasoned opinion rather than throw a full bladder at me that bursts leaving an unpleasant taste. How’s that for hyperbole and mixed metaphors and colourful description.
It is “visits” that Open Parachute uses for ordering for some obscure reason. The problem is that “visits” are entirely variable depending on which measuring program is used and how the site is laid out.
I run 3 different page and visit trackers here. One had last month at ~130k visits, one was at ~170k visits, one was at ~220k visits. That is just on the basis of how much time each “visit” is set to. For that matter you can set that time in two of these as well, which makes it a bit hard to do comparisons.
They all roughly agree on numbers of page views. So that is what I tend to look at as well. The TDB is way behind on that. Looking at the PV/visit ratio I suspect that they are also way way behind the minutes per “visit” as well and I suspect that get a lot more quick browsers.
It was a sluggish month last month. Lower numbers of posts posted after the Labour leadership stuff at the start of the month. Lower numbers of comments. And it is leading into xmas which in non-election years causes comments to drop.
But it does give me a good reason to consider that the TDB startup time is over. I’ll put in the code for tabbing their feed into their own sections. Far too many repeats of other people’s press releases that I can’t seperate. Same for scoop. That will leave the smaller blogs with more real estate to be noticed in.
TDB also boosts it’s page views by re-posting various things including press releases from Labour & Green parties
It’s not comparing like with like.
Another difference is the lack of/limited amount of front page links to the latest comments on TDB. So one has to keep clicking back on posts to see if there are any more comments.
Another difference is the lack of/limited amount of front page links to the latest comments on DTB. So one has to keep clicking back on posts to see if there are any more comments.
/agreed
It’s their bloody horrible layout and navigation that has pretty much stopped me going there.
Bomber’s unstated moderation policy and opinion that he is above criticism are coming close to stopping me. The layout also sucks. They do, however, have some good contributors.
There is the occasional article thats good on TDB, but the layout does not encourage feedback or any sort of critical discussion.
It’s more like a notice board where if something interests you, you read it.
I imagine that most of the views on any one page, are only viewed once by a visitor.
There’s a fair amount of clickbait on there as well, copying WOBH modus operandi.
The more time I’ve spent reading thestandard, the more impressed I am with the layout and functionality of the site. Particularly the ease with which you can read and engage in ongoing conversations.
It presents as nice and clean, but theres a ton of functionality lurking just under the surface.
Repeats of others comments. I was looking on google and went to NBR to look up their piece on the subject and all I found was links, no content to read that had their particular findings.
Very strange. Not what I expect for a publication like the NBR newspaper.
I think we are probabably wired to think, put DTB now. Pavlovian acshually.
“Life is a competition… Not with others, but with ourselves. We should seek each day to live stronger, better, truer lives. Each to master some weakness of yesterday. Each day to repair a mistake; Each day to surpass ourselves.”
Just checking to see whether I’m still banned from Martyn Bradbury’s ‘Daily Blog’ because he didn’t agree with my standing against Mana’s John Minto as a Mayoral candidate.
(Checked, and this comment still appears to be ‘awaiting moderation’ …..)
Having been a political activist since I was 18 years old (I’m now in my 59th year), I find this hypocrisy regarding purported ‘freedom of expression’, quite disturbing.
And – I WILL ‘blow the whistle’ – when and where I see fit.
Today I found out that during the height of the Cold War, the US military put such an emphasis on a rapid response to an attack on American soil, that to minimize any foreseeable delay in launching a nuclear missile, for nearly two decades they intentionally set the launch codes at every silo in the US to 8 zeroes.
A comment from this side of the ditch to people back home –
Labour was looking pretty on the ball after the leadership selection just recently.
Now, with only a brief period to go before Christmas and before people switch off for the holidays, what is Labour’s narrative?
Is Labour powerfully leading a clear and strong narrative, in a week that has been slightly distracted by what seems like an honest mistake over a tweet and then this morning’s eye-rolling policy announcement?
Is Cunliffe well supported by his deputy and caucus and can his chief of staff and his chief press secretary/media director help craft something tactical as well as strategic before we knock off for the festive and holiday season?
Has anyone thoughts about what ake asked? Before the holiday season?
It definitely would be wise to make a plan as to releases and policy. The news is always hungry for content over the holiday season and will repeat stuff over and over again. Give them something good to repeat eh!
“New Zealanders expect sport to be played fairly and they expect sports men and women to perform – in a way which upholds the ethics of their sport and not to be doing it to make money in an underhand way. It would be a very, very serious issue indeed if it is proved to be correct.”
if we replaced ‘sport’ and ‘sportsmen and women’ with ministers of the crown would it make any difference?
Questioning from NZFirst MP Tracey Martin to Hekia Parata today has revealed that the Minister doesn’t even know if contractual arrangements around the Charter Schools programme allows the Ministry of Education to seize assets (paid for by the taxpayer) in the event that the charter school goes broke or collapses.
The part I found most fascinating ScottGN in those questions was the possibility that the charter school given the funds has bought 81 hectares of Northland farm land with it, and has no money left to build proper school buildings so is putting up portloos and portacoms. Parata didn’t know the answers to questions about this by Tracey Martin …. so either its happened, or it hasn’t …. and we’ll have to wait until someone else questions Parata for further details.
“That Prince Harry is one TOUGH customer!”
Uttering inane platitudes is not always an easy task
Television One Breakfast, Thursday 5 December 2013, 8:08 a.m.
Last item on the news ends with a dramatic long shot of human figures walking across an icy landscape. It’s a PR piece about Prince Harry racing to the South Pole with injured servicemen to raise money for the charity Walking with the Wounded. Apparently, just as Nero used to win the chariot races at the Olympics, this modern-day Milo of Croton is coming first in this icy race.
However, far from being impressed, the Television One Breakfast crew are, to put it charitably, lukewarm in their response to this royal hero….
NADINE CHALMERS-ROSS: That Prince Harry is one TOUGH customer!
….[Awkward extended silence]….
TONI STREET: He sure is.
….[Further awkward silence]….
SAM WALLACE: Do you think they’re all letting him win because he’s royal?
TONI STREET: Oh no no no! He’s a very fit soldier!
RAWDON CHRISTIE: He’s a VERY fit man!
TONI STREET: He’s got a bit of MONGREL in him!
NADINE CHALMERS-ROSS: Oh yes, yes, yes.
….[More dutiful murmuring, followed by further awkward silence]….
RAWDON CHRISTIE: Okay, it’s time for the weather, Sam….
Morrisey why do you do it? I know after reading that I never want to watch Breakfast Television as it might be bad for the television and costly for me – break fast…..
What puerile stuff. Your brain must be turning to raspberry spaghetti.
Of course it is so cool for today’s free-thinking young people to scorn royalty. Just like the funny ones on Oz radio ringing about Kate’s condition, and ending up besmirching a high achiever’s reputation so that the nurse concerned couldn’t face the shame of being made to look ridiculous in that way and killed herself. The young people of today…. The comfortably off, who have never had to sweat their guts out to get on, don’t take anything too seriously.
Family members, lovers or flatmates who are having breakfast would do considerably better to spend their precious time by having a conversation among themselves, with the tv OFF.
“Ms Martin asked Ms Parata whether she knew the charter school being set up by Nga Parirau Matauranga Trust had spent its more than $1.6 million from the Government on 81 hectares of farmland and now didn’t have enough money to build the school.”
interest.co.nz is not usually known for its leftward leanings but the comment stream on this one is worth reading to see what i think could be called a real swing to the left
I’ve just been listening to Bryan Crump interview Nigel Turvey from Charles Darwin University which i feel is probably in Queensland. I think he has written a book on cane toads. There is a rich history behind their introduction around the world and particularly in queensland.
Some trivia. The sugar cane industry was introduced by two ex army men one called Hope and the other Wish. (Spelling?) The releasing of toads was resisted by the head of the entomology of the then CSIRO whose name was Froggett. But disagreeing with him was a Mr Ribbett. Quite amusing connections there.
The scientist who dissected 300 toads found some cane beetles in their stomachs and concluded they would be a suitable control on the beetles. Which only come out of the ground for a day mate and then go back underground where they live in their thousands and eat the roots of the cane. They have only been researched in 1995 by the government, 60 years after they were introduced. Gardeners loved them because they were so good at keeping slugs and snails down.
He made the point that when there is such a groundswell of acceptance of anything it is hard to give proper consideration to the overview of whatever.
Charles Darwin University is located in Darwin NT not Queensland and those bloody Cane Toads are moving south and west ie Northern Western Australia. The F-ing Toads around where I work and are at our friends cattle Station just out of Katherine.
They are making a mess along with the feral cats in Armhem land just the ferrets/cats and bunnies do back home in NZ.
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In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Responding to an Auditor-General's report slamming failures in the administration of the 2023 General Election, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said: ...
The Taxpayers’ Union says the Beehive need to lead by example, following reports of more than $50,000 spent upgrading video conferencing equipment and furniture in the Prime Minister’s office. Taxpayers’ Union Campaign Manager, Connor Molloy, ...
An objective list of the 50 most powerful people in New Zealand, as judged by the Spinoff Editorial Board. It’s power list season, baby, and we want in on the action. Sure, there’s the rich list and the powerful “c-suite” list and the young people with power (hmmm) but here, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the names of deceased people, and describes ongoing colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. First Nations people in Australia ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Macquarie University Netflix Baby Reindeer’s phenomenal success has much to do with its writer and lead, Richard Gadd, who plays Donny in a tender semi-autobiographical account of sexual abuse, harassment and stalking. Gadd’s story has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle KarolinaGrabowska/Pexels If you didn’t have food allergies as a child, is it possible to develop them as an adult? The short answer is yes. But the reasons why are much ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Moon, Professor of History, Auckland University of Technology Ans Westra, self-portrait, c. 1963. National Library ref AWM-0705-F They try but invariably fail – those writers who believe they are capable of encapsulating in prose or verse the essence of ...
Stewart Sowman-Lund looks at the growing concern around the world in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. What’s all this? When Covid-19 arrived on our shores in early 2020, some argued we were too slow, or crucially, ill-prepared for a pandemic. So ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Franco Montalto, Professor of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and Director, Sustainable Water Resource Engineering Laboratory, Drexel University Water runs into a storm drain in a Los Angeles alley on Aug. 19, 2023, during Tropical Storm Hilary.Citizen of the Planet/Universal Images ...
The inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones has turned up a new witness who says he saw two teenagers and a small child in a high vis vest in the area where the boy’s body was found the day he died. Lachie’s body was discovered face up ...
Stories from the tenancy trenches, featuring spider infestations, cupboard rats and same-sex discrimination. Lucy’s brother was living in a damp 1930s building in Mt Eden where “he had to tie the cupboard doors closed so the rats didn’t get in”. Although he shared custody of his six-year-old son, his property ...
Simeon Brown, Chris Luxon, and Wayne Brown climbed into a hole and announced a plan to solve Auckland’s water woes. This is how it’ll work. New Zealand’s pipes are munted. They’re cracked and leaking, and struggling to handle all the extra poos excreted by our rising population. It’s a big, ...
After replacing a fifth of their caucus in just four months, the Greens’ opportunity to reset, reshuffle and refocus on the Government is quickly slipping away The post Persistent Green Party scandals delay caucus reset appeared first on Newsroom. ...
I knew Taika Waititi quite well when he was a kid. His mother lived in a tall narrow house in Aro St, and my youngest sister had a similar house two doors along. They were both single mums, they each had a son aged seven. Taika and my nephew Stepan ...
Opinion: “As time passes, knowledge of the circumstances of the August 2016 outbreak will fade and its immediate impact will be lost.” This statement is from the 2017 report of the Official Inquiry into the Havelock North campylobacteriosis outbreak. The then National-led government established the inquiry after the outbreak left ...
Opinion: Nicholas Khoo looks at two key points in the high-stakes foreign policy pact debate – and asks if NZ can engage with as little drama as possible. The post Where to next for the Aukus ruckus? appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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Opinion: ‘Reference-class forecasting’ is at the heart of improving pricing a project and identifying the expected timeframe but it doesn’t appear to be in use here The post ‘Think fast and act slowly’ is failing big projects appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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an idea for a political ‘joke’..
..hire an astronauts’ suit..
..and take a selfie standing in front of colon craigs’ office..
..holding a sign saying:..
..’yes i did..!’..
phillip ure..
“Let the little kids suffer” is Nats’ mantra:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9477622/Children-suffering-say-benefit-cut-critics
Where are your ghost jobs, John?
Silly old dearie Rosemary McLeod needs to get off her sexist ageist and racist ranting. She doesn’t even seem to realise that her bigotry and stereotyping is exposing her lack of insight and wisdom. This morning in the Press she has the second column in two weeks which rants on about naughty old men. She is obsessed.
She is an ageing old doris. A silly old white woman. Although I suppose non-white women can be just as silly – aint noticed any difference between them myself.
She is joining the ranks of other bigots of the same mould – Eleanor catton (who is a silly young white woman), michelle a’court, beck eleven and others who take a few people who do dumb shit and highlight their gender, age and race as if it somehow material to the dumb shit.
It is becoming an obsession right across the country – witness the finger-pointing around the roast busters. Did any white mothers stand up and take responsibility for raising these sons? Any white sisters? Any non-white sisters? Any women at all? There were plenty pointing fingers at men (always white and older, despite evidence that offenders are usually non-white and younger), despite men not being responsible, as a group. Maybe we should start looking at the actions of white women a little more closely instead of just assuming that everything is the responsibility of that white man driving to work this morning in the car next to you…… It is becoming a joke.
There is something yucky going on in this country. There is a witch hunt going on.
I give it the finger.
Nice rant vto.
I take your point (I think). Perhaps just a bit less coffee so early in the morning………
he he (some believe that you are ‘under-rated’ vto 😉 )
Grumpy old man grumps about silly old woman. More news at 11.
he he, crunchtime, RT and grumpy,… been outa the hood since punching that out
It was a bit of a rant, but there are usually currents of reality underlying rants of all who rant.
right, now, back to the honest tranquility of the tui and the flowering harakeke, the kahawai and the hurrying inanga, the sandy bank and the sheltering rock…
michelle boag to stand for act in epsom..?
..national to do a double-stand aside deal..?
..in epsom for act..
..and in east coast bays for colon ‘moon-landing-denier’ craig..?
phillip ure..
Lolz the ACTors will leave no stone unturned in their quest to find someone, anyone, who might attract more than a handful of votes,
i would have thunk Hooten would have been high on the list but the rumor there is that Slippery is spewing on wee Matty for being involved in the Chorus broadband roll-out fiasco and has told ACT no way,
The other rumor doing the rounds is that Hooten doesn’t want a bar of ACT either as He is planning the launch of a ‘new’ Liberal Party and is simply waiting for the ACT Party to be declared legally dead befor doing so,
My pick for wee Matty’s new party name would be the ‘If You Thought The Last Lot Were All Flakes,Hypocrites, and Criminals, Wait till You See Us Lot In Government Party’….
Hooton very effectively contributing to John Key’s shipwrecked Ultra Fiasco Broadband project. An own goal. And quite appropriate too.
new colon craig theme-songs:
..’fly me to the moon’..
..moon river’..
..’there’s a bad moon rising’..?
phillip ure..
‘
I seldom fully get what you’re on about most of the time, but on this ocassion, hahahahaha!!! Nice one.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/video.cfm?c_id=1&gal_objectid=11167073&gallery_id=139517
@ blip..thank you..i think..(oh tautological-one..)
..actually..those three moon songs mark/relate the arc of craigs’ short-lived political-career..
..’fly me to the moon’..being that saucer-eyed/over-egged one first hoving into our view..
..’moon river’..seemingly his easy route to parliament unfolding before him..
..and then..?
..uh-oh..!
..then that ‘bad-walking’ moon rose
..and it was all over..
..from ‘i coulda been a contendor!’..
..to a (very funny) joke..’
..and i dunno about you..
..but i am jonesing for the ‘tooth-fairy’-question..
..what further delights has colon ‘i’m no expert on that’ craig in store for us..?
..eh..?
..and isn’t the world of local politics so much funnier since the arrival of the colon..?
..bless him..!..eh..?
..phillip ure..
… can hardly wait for his hysterical (womb affected) and lunatic ( moon affected) comments on evolution .. must be coming soon ! thx for smiles this morning phillip ..
but you missed one:
Blue moon, you saw me standing alone ….. ( also to be known as Sunset over East Coast Bays) …
to vid of craig staring at the empty room that is his next party-meeting..
“..everyone’s gone to the moon..”
..and the soundtrack for colon ‘i’m no expert on that’ craigs first celestial/moon-walking-lesson..?
‘There’s a moon in the sky – The B52’s ‘
phillip ure..
Listened to this audio. Craig sounds like he has learned to have a bob both ways. The ‘sorta believe it’ nonsense is designed to not alienate his crazy supporters.
I spoke to one moon doubter last night. I just said that the moon broadcast was screened live for hours and it would have been bloody hard for an actor to mime moon walking for hours faultlessly. He’d didn’t appreciate my miming a moon walk slow leaping style around the car park where we were.
His response? “They could have had a cable attached to him…..”
to have to patiently explain this one to these moonbats..is to lower oneself..
..but the definitive answer/putdown/laugh-out-loud for them can be summed up in two words..
..’cold war’..
..these fucktards don’t seem to realise that not only was anyone on earth with a telescope tracking the fucken whole saga ..minute by minute..
..but that this was the height of the cold war..
..and the russians and the chinese were also watching like hawks..
..(or were they ‘in on it too’..?..morons..!..)
..tell them this..and then tell them to go and have a long cold shower..
..and to never ever utter an opinion on anything else ever again..
..’cos they have proven beyond any doubt..
..that they are drooling idjits..
..unworthy of speaking/being listened to..ever again.
..their roles in life – proven to be.. figures of fun..
..which brings us back to colon..
..phillip ure..
I don’t feel at all ‘lowered’, thanks, Phillip. But you’re right about the ‘cold war”. The same had occurred to me. This ‘moonbat,’ as you called him, has been a soldier and a policeman, which is even more scary…………..
Another song for such sky gazers is “Blue Smoke”.
You know that moonbat is generally accepted as an epithet for someone on the left side of the political spectrum.
I believe that wingnut is the correct term of abuse.
And when moonbattery converges with wingnuttery the circle of derp is created.
bit of the old moonbat / wingnut convergence around this laboratory, from time-to-time 😀
Man on the moon?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11167081
bah labore aint changed
i agree..why the fuck isn’t parker out there touting/selling a financial transaction tax on the banksters..
..instead of promising business they will be screwing over the workers even more..?..again..
..(and especially galling having this ‘super-austerity’ preaching from politicians who voted themselves the gold-plated super-scheme..eh..?..)
..and electorally stoopid…to boot..
..asking working nz’ers to vote for two more years of their life-long chores/tasks..to age 67..
..is like asking turkeys to vote for thanksgiving..
..stoopid..stoopid..stoopid..
..phillip ure..
I have sudden rather intense dislike for Parker. He’s undermining the party and the leader.
I agree. Raising the superannuation age to 67 is a vote loser not a vote winner.
What’s happened to The Civilian? Doesn’t seem to have resumed on 25 November as promised. I miss its witty insights.
Very disappointing, and plays completely into orthodox monetary and economic theory. The point I made at Conference stands: access to real resources for the elderly is key (are there enough doctors, aged care facilities, home care staff etc); but money is not a constraint – the govt always has money for super (if it is considered important enough) because it can act as the monopoly supplier of NZD.
“plays completely into orthodox monetary and economic theory”
|Yeah. I thought they were moving away form that.
That’s interesting because what you say would indicate that the majority at the Labour conference voted to raise retirement. The question is: Is this the will of the members or the will of the representatives at the conference?
Either way, it’s a vote killer. If Labour want National in next term then they will keep this policy.
Conference voted to give caucus the discretion to make the decision on the retirement age. Stuck in ” we can’t afford super” and “we need to make it financially sustainable” modes of thinking.
Ah. Thanks for that. The membership’s goose is cooked.
Incidentally, was the Cunliffe leadership meant to help TINA pack up and move out or is the membership about to discover that TINA is a permanent resident in Labour’s broad church?
Where is TARA…
abducted by the NRA
Ah, so it’s actually the third option – the will of caucus. Like that worked so well last time 🙄
Operations etc done in NZ can actually act as multipliers in the economy. I know this goes against established wisdom but if work can be carried out in depressions that provide needed things in the community, to keep circulation of money and jobs and skills going, why can we not afford needed, reasonable health care?
The money earned goes back into the community. It keeps the nurses in employment, many are in the older age group, very skilled and experienced. All that is needed is to keep those able in the retired putting something into society that is helpful to it and a lot of our present problems would be minimised from the extra personpower available to help overcome it. And they would still be able to go away for their holidays, fishing, family visits, garden tours etc. Those who couldn’t afford those could get opportunities to be volunteers at events where they could apply what skills they have.
What you’re actually seeing is part of the major problem with a monetary system especially when that monetary system has been designed to get most of the money into the hands of the few as a capitalist system is designed to do. Society has been conditioned to believe that we need money to do anything but that we don’t have enough money and so we can’t afford to do everything despite having the resources available to do it.
This is where the government being able to create money would fix things. We would have enough money, no matter what, to utilise our own resources.
Yeh I saw this too. Vote loser.
My complaints are:
Why don’t the self employed have to join. They can pay along with their taxes and then they too have a stake in the ultimate outcomes.
Lots of women vote on the left and also do that wonderful non earning job called looking after the kids for no pay while they are abused by the state and the other parent contributes sweet FA for the kids and is never bothered by the state.
What are they going to do about that? Nothing it seems so that low or non earners will be poor all their lives and in retirement too while the rest of the community bludges off them. Some one has to care for future taxpayers after all
The more there is in kiwisaver the less incentive there is for a decent state retirement amount for those who have never made the cut.
Rules by the rich for the poor and rules by the boys for the boys.
Still far too much of ACT in there for my liking, Risildo. At a time of massive youth unemployment, and when anyone over 50 without a job already is basically unemployable, Parker’s ideas are about as anti-worker as you can get. I’ll add him to my list of Rogernomes that Labour still has to free itself of – Duckface McDuck, Sealord Jones, Phil Lawnorder Goff, David ACT Parker, David Roofman Shearer,…….. They still need a bloody good purge.
David Parker has just proved Labour is still hardwired to neoliberalism with his announcement they will lift the age for National Super to 67.
He seems completely oblivious to the fact there may be choices in how we deal with the bump in older people resulting from the ageing of the boomers.
We are also still waiting for any signal from Labour that they intend to do anything about reversing the disgusting welfare reforms of the Key and Clark governments.
Lolz, Labour appear to have taken the ‘vows of silence’ when it comes to things like Welfare and State Housing,(although David Cunliffe did make mention at the recent Conference that the ‘middle class’ were having trouble paying their rent),
Face it people, with the advent of MMP Labour no longer needed to represent ‘the poor’,(after all they do not donate lots to the Party),
In my opinion Labour have been for some time, if Socialist at all, the Socialists of, for and by the middle class,
You only have to see what occurred surrounding the ‘Working for Families tax credits’ to understand who they truly represent, when this little scheme was dreamed up there was still 400 and 50 odd million dollars in the budget, there was a choice of letting the children of beneficiaries into ‘Working for Families’ or giving ‘Business’ a tax cut,
We all know what the ‘choice’ Labour took was…
“..You only have to see what occurred surrounding the ‘Working for Families tax credits’ to understand who they truly represent, when this little scheme was dreamed up there was still 400 and 50 odd million dollars in the budget, there was a choice of letting the children of beneficiaries into ‘Working for Families’ or giving ‘Business’ a tax cut,
We all know what the ‘choice’ Labour took was…”
ditto..ditto..ditto..
..the leopards’ spots still haven’t gone..
..this foot-shot from labour is the proof they just have pancake-makeup plastered all over them..
..parkers’ toxic-pail..
phillip ure..
Crazy, I can’t believe Labour thinks it’s a good idea.
According to the last census, there’s around 300,000 people within the 55 -65 age group all counting down to when they retire.
From what I’ve seen of people within this age group is that they all vote and take voting very seriously.
You tell me who are these people going to vote for, the party that lets them retire at 65 or the party that boots them in the private parts and tells them they have to work for another two years.
Unbelievably dumb and arrogant, especially going into an election as tight as the 2014 election will be.
It is basically a kamikaze policy electorally, as you point out BM. And a completely unnecessary one. Foisted on us by people with very good govt Kiwi Saver schemes.
Lolz, can you see the connection CV, what did you think was the ‘plan’ after the introduction of personal retirement schemes???…
Yeah, I struggle sometimes with the reality disconnect.
What sort of political party goes into an election with a punishment as one of their selling points?
“Vote for Labour and you get to work for another two years!!”, ummmm I don’t think so.
Do Labour actually think people give a shit about the aging population and are concerned about how NZ is going to pay for super?, people only care about what’s in it for them selves.
This is a sort of policy that an out going government pushes through when they know their time is up, not one that’s trying to win power.
i hate agreeing with you BM, but your comment is pretty much correct, if Slippery’s current National Government can get away with being ‘good financial managers’ by totting up 70-80 billion dollars of government debt by the time they are thankfully kicked from the Treasury Benches then Labour could simply do the same,
Not that i am an advocate of that, as other’s have pointed out Government need simply ‘produce’ the needed monies to cruise through the retirement bump, the figures are not that great that doing such will alter any of the monetary indicators…
Whilst BMs comments must generally be considered with considerable suspicion he is certainly correct on this issue.
The beauty of Parker’s latest announcement …… which actually surprisingly unites a number of otherwise usually opposing commentators here. And the votes are not really in Labour’s favour.
The last census also showed a drop in the proportion of people under the age of 15.
Expecting the young generation to pay for the oldie’s retirements, when they’ve also hoovered up all of the resources over the last 40 years, is delusional.
And a recipe for intergenerational conflict. Wait until climate change and resource depletion starts biting hard in the next 10-20 years.
Yet another reason why we can’t afford to keep super at 67.
Note that it’s those 15 year olds that’ll be paying for *my* super. You lot will have shuffled off by then.
Labour WTF! don’t raise the age, just limit eligiblity – universality is BS…if you don’t need it don’t take it.
It’s a benefit like them all. Means test the old fuckers.
i now expect the usual crapola of ‘I paid my taxes etc etc’ will be rolled out.
as for kiwisaver, what a scam that is, tax rise for the workers in ordeer to provide a huge fund for financial speculation….
It is not a benefit at all. It is a pension which is promised to every citizen. Calling it a benefit helps to demean it in the eyes of all those not receiving it.
OK Ron, I agree, perhaps benefit isn’t the right term. It is though, I think, a form of social security, which if you don’t need it, you shouldn’t take it, regardless of whether it was promised or not.
I see plenty of fairly young people hoovering up loads more resources than many older people.
I’d favour moving older people to part time work – with maybe a smaller super payment. Works for me with my modest pensions from the UK. I’m also fine with earning a lower rate of pay than when I was younger, although for others, it’d depend on the amount of their previous income.
I can see that many people approaching 65 are ready for withdrawal from full time employment.
But really, I would have thought it was a priority for any “Labour” government to be looking at decreasing the inequality gap, improving social security, raising wages, improving employment legislation, increasing the amount of jobs, apprenticeships, etc.
A couple of for-instances please?
I see younger people who take for granted that they have cars, the newest technology, – basically far more consumerist than many of us oldies have ever been.
Also, I see some children of boomers (in my own wider whanau) who get access to more resources than some of my boomer colleagues ever had – and have good jobs and prospects, sometimes from the networks their parents operate in.
It’s true that economically, and with respect to jobs, more young people are struggling than back when us boomers were young. Although it’s hard to compare. More jobs were available, and they paid well enough for the smaller amount of consumer items and services that were considered necessary compared with today. It was often a struggle from payday to payday for me and my mates in our late teens and early twenties.
There have always been socio-economic differences within all generations – this is glossed over by the blanket claims about what the older generations have done or benefited from.
I also think the period when it seemed very good for a lot of young (mostly upper working class to and above) was those that grew up in the late 1970s and in the 1980s. It wasn’t such an easy ride for many youngsters in the late 60s and 70s.
One of the biggest complaints from younger people is being shut out of the housing market. This is something that is starting to impact on the middle class young more than ever before. But it was always a struggle to get on the housing ladder for many on the lowest incomes.
And me, as a life time renter I just don’t get all this obsessing over home buying – was never such an obsession in many parts of Europe.
Can’t say that owning a house has been of major concern to me either but I’m against rentals as it encourages rentier behaviour from the rich. The private persons who own the homes that are rented out effectively get to live on the hard work of the renters and a few of them get to live a hell of a lot better than the people supplying their income while working far less.
The only way I support rentals is state owned rentals set at a low percentage of household income.
Well, I am OK because I have/had a reasonable income, no dependents and am happy to live in a studio with limited material possessions.
On the issue of rentier landlords/ladies making money on the back of my (boomer) work. My last 2 landlords have been younger than me (one was definitely too young to be a boomer, the other may be on the cusp or slightly younger than the youngest boomers).
Hi BM,
I’m not in favour of the policy but the group you mention (55 to 65 year olds) will barely be affected by it. By 2020 today’s 55 year olds will be about 62. Given that it will be phased in even they will be working only for an extra year.
The irony in terms of the argument about ‘inter-generational fairness’ is that the baby boomers will just sneak under this bar.
It would be interesting to see the percentage of GDP spent on education and children’s health (and the family benefit, etc.) in the post-war decades to see how we could afford the baby boomers then but apparently not when they retire. I suspect they were pretty expensive then, too, yet apparently as a society we afforded it without so much as an economic twinge, let alone pain.
Back then, I think the gap between rich and poor wasn’t so great. There wasn’t so much siphoning off of profits to enrich the top 10%.
And yes, it seemed to me odd that the talk was about the boomers, but most won’t be impacted by Labour’s raising the super age. It will impact more on younger ages (given NZ boomers are meant to be those born between about 1946 & 1961).
The youngest will be 65 in 2026.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11167081
There is another issue being ignored with the policy of raising the Super age. High unemployment is being ignored. Jobs for younger people need freeing up. This won’t happen with raising the retirement age.
It might be better to focus on developing a healthy functioning society that can afford to pay people to retire rather than wringing more work out of older people at the expense of and ignoring other serious issues.
I think this is a real mistake for Labour to pursue raising the retirement age.
david parker, treasury mouthpiece in opposition
“Labour understands the importance of universal superannuation to people. That’s why we are committed to keeping it in a way that is fair across generations. If we don’t steadily raise the age, Treasury says we will have to lift GST to 17 per cent.
“Polls show that New Zealanders support our policy.
the only other option is to raise GST???? for fucks sake get a grip you tards…TINA once again.
what is this 1987?
+1 Syd especially the bit about getting a grip you tards
+ 1 ..4 ‘tards’..
phillip ure..
+1
Who chose this one to be the finance spokesperson?
The Labour caucus cannot have such limited talent, surely??
+1
Bloody stupid economists. It’s time to stop listening to them because they happen to be wrong about pretty much everything.
Where did the country ever go wrong listening to Treasury?
s y d, nail,hammer,head, a really good question= what is this 1987?, way way down inside you know it is…
Sold my omnicorp shares and doubled my money…made about $120…my first ever vote, a sunny Saturday, strolled to the booth with my mate, me labour, him nat….both realised we could’ve stayed at home and saved the bother. Hamilton West. 1987. Mallard. Jesus wept. 1987. I know it is.
I Agree. Unless there aren’t more jobs for young people, the policy is pointless.
Lefty
Your point is very important. I want to know too without further delay.
We are also still waiting for any signal from Labour that they intend to do anything about reversing the disgusting welfare reforms of the Key and Clark governments.
But more, ‘what they are going to do in reversing’ We need firm commitment, not any of those PC airy fairy comments about those with the poster features of poverty, mostly the cute children and the grey-haired. Get sentimental if you must but don’t forget that adults are cute too, and great, and needy, and deserving, single or parents.
Maybe the next Labour conference should happily vote to give caucus the discretion to decide on welfare policy?
🙂
I didn’t place this reply to Lefty very strategically! Lefty is up at No.6 if you’re interested to know.
WOW VTO
Back on your medication there, that would rate as the most sexist, racist, ignorant rant i have read for some time although i did have a chuckle and thats always a good way to start a Thursday
If you have a point, please make your argument for it.
Calling someone like Eleanor Catton (that just won an international prize) a silly young white woman ??? Why ? maybe VTO could elaborate a bit more as to why she and others in her post deserve this
Sorry there was no reply button when i posted the original msg
I thought that was a bit rough too. But I get his point: communities raised these young men into what they are, and communities aren’t made up of just men.
I tried looking at the McCleod articles published this week, and, as far as I can see, they have little to do with VTO’s rant. They are idiosyncratic op eds – and yes they do have a pretty middle class focus. They don’t really make majorly sweeping statements about differences between men and women, but focus on a small number of news items. Basically they are light weight pieces – superficial, but she makes one or two good points on the way.
Earlier this week: “Placenta-eating not for this mammal”
She’s pretty scathing about the activities of some middle class new age pretenders, particularly some female celebs
Totally weird segue. It goes on:
The op ed article today: “Charmers fool even the mighty”
Also rather a strange take on the issues, focusing on Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Charles Saatchi. She seems to take heart from the fact that mysogyny and sexism is a great equaliser for women, providing other women with the same kinds of experience as the likes of Nigella Lawson:
The article ends with a comment, not about all men, or even about al aging white men, but a certain sub species who are bullies.
McCleod – not a great thinker or at the forefront of (white middle class) feminism: more a proponent of superficial chatter for the dinner party circuit, with a bit of a feminist slant. She does make some good points along the way, but fails to present them in any kind of coherent, in-depth or useful argument.
Thank you Karol that goes someway to understanding the original post
I think Rosemary is brilliant, easily the most readable contributor to what is a pathetic excuse for a newspaper.
I gave up reading her a decade ago. Doesn’t know how to say anything straight out. Has to try and hide her actual meaning behind a pile of waffle.
Ummmm so you like her writing. Well it is “polite” stupid bigotry I guess.
Yes – those articles above were a collection of loosely linked points without a strong connecting argument.
like edwards the elder..mcleod lost the plot a while back..
..reduced to reactionary rants about first world issues..
..he should just focus on watching his talent-shows..
..and mcleod has her tapestry..
..they had their moments in the sun..
..but relevance is something neither of them have..
..any more..
..and far too often – basic coherence seems to desert them..
..(like so many of the old neo-lib labour mp’s..eh..?
…yoo-hoo..!..trevor..!..phil..!..annette..!
..their time is done..)
..maybe they should all move to a gated-community together..?
..somewhere..?
phillip ure..
Yep, the woman’s been writing utterly meaningless gibberish for quite some time now.
Not so much “brilliant”, grumpy, as god-awful !!! Little general knowledge, little principle, little common-sense. Exemplifies the way our dear old ex-boarding school elite seem to effortlessly move into these high-profile positions despite zero talent.
To illustrate her uncaring, self-absorbed, inherently glib brand of doziness, McLeod’s response (Afternoons with Jim Mora) to the anti-democratic army coup in Egypt, was something along the lines of “Yeah, it’s a shame. They’re obviously not ready for democracy yet.”
CV,
“I thought that was a bit rough too. But I get his point: communities raised these young men into what they are, and communities aren’t made up of just men.”
If you think those few weeks of focus on the rape club were about blaming men and holding them solely responsible, then sorry, but you have majorly missed the point.
Most feminists I’ve known who have raised boys are acutely aware of what that means. Likewise, when feminists talk about rape culture and men’s responsibility in that, they’re not saying it’s all men’s fault. What they are doing is pointing out to men, now that we are finally allowed to, that we’ve been working on solving rape all this time and now it’s time you lot stepped up and sorted your shit out around this issue (we can’t do that part of it). Women generally know where they fit in the scheme of things. It’s men like vto who project their own insecurities onto the politics.
If I say that men have a responsibility in resolving the high rates of sexual assualt in this country, and vto hears that as “men are solely to blame and women are completely blameless”, that’s actually about vto, not me.
I agree with Garbage man, the racism and misogyny in vto’s comment was breathtaking. It was also nasty, and serves to muddy the issues (although I fail to see how saying women are just as bad if not worse than men helps).
You need to make allowances for vto. He started off on here as a bit of a rightie, caught Stockholm Syndrome and headed left.
He’s a bit confused but should come out of the closet any day now……….
Well, McCleod can be criticised heavily. But VTO seems to have done a very selective reading of her columns then headed off on his own tangent. McLeod was also scathing about young middle class new agers who fail to understand what poverty is really about, and about various male and female celebs.
lol; very turned out, today. 😀
Garbage men don’t read Eleanor Catton.
Yes they do they just don’t understand it.
It seems that there is a sensitive guy emerging from the corpse of a ranter who wants to attack the bastion of society, the caring parent who works hard at raising children well to the best of her ability.
Could this be a RW troll?
Actually im a middle wing non troll that enjoys many blog sites and is entitled to his opinion as much as you are and FYI i enjoyed The Luminaries, and once again nothing to do with the topic at hand …so whos the troll then
Participating in a focus group, and the questions are surprisingly political.
Looked up the company – essential media – and it seems neutral, but I don’t want to be contributing to a PR strategy for anyone.
Does anyone know anything about this research company?
I suppose I vote National becuase Muldoon gave me Super at Sixty and Labour want to make it SixtySeven 🙂
Oh well i will look on the bright side of the coin then, if Muldoon gave it too you when you hit sixty you wont be voting National for too many more elections will you,
(unsmiley face)…
He (or she) wouldn’t have to be that old actually. Muldoon introduced it in 1977 and it stayed at 60 until 1991 whan it was increased to 61 as the age of eligibility with a phased rise to 65.
Anyone therefore who turned 60 in late 1990 would therefore have started receiving super at that age.
They would only be 82, as of today, which is not really that old by today’s standards. Not young, perhaps, but you would probably have, if you were a female of 82 at least another 10 years of life expectancy. Might out-live you bad12. After all unsmiley people don’t live as long as those who are cheerful.
Lolz, and where are most of these 82= year olds to be found, being not looked after in some cruddy ‘nursing home’ perhaps???,
The amusement for me is watching this orgy of ‘save save save’ for your retirement, what exactly are the old uns,(and i am not far off it),going to do with hundreds of thousands of dollars at age 79+ when the fact is that the older you get the less you actually spend,(in my experience),
If 82 is to mean that i will be spoon fed and have to have someone wipe it off of the other end i think i will pass on that anyway, (other than that i want to live forever and rule the world)…
On this matter we are clearly in agreement, and also in agreement with Robert Mortimer and Kingsley Amis.
As Mortimer said “There is no pleasure worth foregoing just for an extra three years in a geriatric ward”.
Amis’ version was “No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-mare”.
I wonder who said it first or did they both plagiarise it from a third, earliar author?
i dunno, but calling the Earl a liar could construe defamation…
is that you Earl?
It is running my computer and engineering equipment that keeps me young, just got my licence to drive until 84 …. but I had an easy life and didn’t work my guts out for the capitalists. Drove a five tonne truck from Wanaka to Dunedin and back when I was 80, I’m the only one in my family with an HT licence , did the same this year with my SUV…. but I’m just a youngster with too many projects for a rest home or the grave as yet.:)
That 90yo is an inspiration as are the youngsters I know celebrating their 80ths this year.. I am afraid Laabour-Greens would have to do, not promise, something special to beat what National are doing for the older person.
I shouldn’t really wave the red flag but the comments prompt me 🙂
cheer up bad 12 the volunteer place where I work has a brnch of 80 year olds that make some 60 years look decrepit. One of our oldest insisted on being at work until she died over 90, she was getting shaky but still feisty. I guess you will be the same from reading your comments.
‘
Heh!
Moar here – http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/12/02/nsa-sent-home-talking-points-for-employees-to-use-in-conversations-with-family-friends-during-holidays/
Meanwhile, Rupert’s empire turns on the ABC for daring to speak truth while over in the UK, editor of The Guardian is hauled before a Parliamentary Committee which sets about attacking the freedom of the press. Can’t be much longer before we see some revelations of New Zealand’s involvement in the mass spying on its citizens . . . or maybe there will be something of a delay until Kim Dotcom’s case gets back to court.
Worried much, John?
EPSOM CANDIDATES GUIDE
No. 1: Jamie White
Who will the sheep of Epsom be instructed to vote for next year?
JOHN BOSCAWEN: We have a number of high quality potential candidates.
SIMON SHEPHERD: Such as?
JOHN BOSCAWEN: Jamie White. [Awkward pause] He’s a philosopher—
SIMON SHEPHERD: Nobody’s HEARD of Jamie White!
JOHN BOSCAWEN: Oooooh, he’s a very very smart individual….
——TV3 Firstline, Thursday 5 December 2013, 7:15 a.m.
Well the first google hit for Jamie White gives me this:
For NZ, take your pick.
Me – I haven’t a clue.
Perhaps it’s this guy ?? Born in kiwiland but (till recently?) based in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Whyte
He seems to tick all the right boxes. He is a Senior Fellow with the Adam Smith Institute and writes lots of stuff tailor made for and celebrated by the addled nutters who think profits are more important than people.
eg: here is an extract from a paper he wrote for the IEA
from- Quack Policy
Abusing Science in the Cause of Paternalism
http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/in-the-media/files/IEA%20Quack%20Policy.pdf
If this is the philosopher economist they have in mind, he appears to be a perfect nactoid, primed and ready for the TPPA era.
Jamie Whyte is a philosopher—if by “philosopher” you mean someone hanging around the extreme right-wing think tanks of England trying to get laid.
I hear those right wing think tanks have some of the best really hot political groupies…..could do worse.
Hmmmm…. I suspect you might be a bit of a philosopher as well, grumpy.
Nah, they don’t. They have a few unbalanced nutters waiting for an invitation to the fox hunt with Montague. I’ve seen what hangs around posing as right wing thinkers inside universities – 14 virgins, all after the same girl, and planing to be at the Ayn Rand statue unveiling in 2018, because they’re pretty sure Wendy or Jennifer will be there. They are very sad people.
WKRP in Cincinnati, Kid. 😀
Actually it’s spelled Whyte:
Thanks – gottit.
Speech at the ACT conference on yt video.
UK Telegraph blog (not posted on it since 2009.
PS: redistribution of wealth via the freemarket – it’s like feeding your kids, giving to charities, and private insurance schemes.
Who is Boscawen’s wet dream, Jamie Whyte?
Jamie Whyte is a management consultant. He was formerly a philosopher who wrote on philosophy for a general audience. Born in New Zealand, he now lives in the United Kingdom. He was formerly a lecturer in Philosophy at Cambridge University.
He has written numerous articles for The Times newspaper, and books including Bad Thoughts (whose US edition is called Crimes Against Logic ), A Load of Blair) Free Thoughts (a collection of various articles) and Quack Policy. His style attempts to dissect confused logic and nonsensical arguments, specifically the public pronouncements of modern politicians.
In Bad Thoughts Whyte identifies and provides examples of the most common devices used to present flawed arguments, and encourages the reader to develop the ability to spot flawed reasoning.
Whyte is a committed defender of the free market economist Friedrich Hayek and he supports right wing politics.
Whyte has defended the morality and the right of wealthy individuals to use tax avoidance schemes to massively reduce their tax, following criticism by British Prime Minister David Cameron of the comedian Jimmy Carr, who had been accused of reducing his tax liability through using such a scheme to about 1% of his £3.3 million income.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Whyte
sigh
Also man-made climate change sceptic/denier
@ climatechange-denier..
..that puts him in the colon-basket..
..woof..woof..!
phillip ure..
A selfish ideologue then
Perhaps he should stand for his home town province let the whanau sort him out.
Oops. On National Radio this morning it was said that if David Cunliffe is not prosecuted for his call for people to vote in Christchurch East, then Mr Mcready has vowed to do so. A bit tough?
Yeah Graham Mac seems to be a bit long in the tooth to be clothing Himself in the lycra of the caped crusader,
Listening to that bloke Andrew Geddis a legal eagle at Otago University this morning, He seems to think that ‘Tweeting’ is a grey area of the Law surrounding publicly advocating that people vote for a certain candidate,
Are ‘tweets’ public as they are sent to ‘selected’ individuals seems to be His question,
Lolz i wont be donating to Graham Macs ‘legals’ against Cunliffe if it gets that far, i think the bloke has a bit of an addiction to the ‘fame’ that comes with this particular game…
“Are ‘tweets’ public as they are sent to ‘selected’ individuals seems to be His question,”
If I put a poster up in town that is specifically addressed to you, is it public?
If I put an ad in the personal columns, specifically addressed to you, is it public?
I can’t see how tweeting can’t be public to be honest (or is there private tweeting too?).
My prediction – Cunliffe will be found guilty of violating the law, but without malicious intent, by police and fined.
If the police were being consistent, they should find it wasn’t with intent and therefore not do anything.
I noticed that your starting word was in capitals with 128 point font
I thought that was the 6th word 🙂
I imagine he’d be eligible for diversion, karol, if the police bothered with it all.
The question would be whether a prosecution would be in the public interest. That, as well as the legal niceties of whether it’s an offence anyway and the fact that only a small percentage of his twitter followers would be Chch East voters (and presumably all of them already committed labour voters) suggest to me that this will peter out to nothing.
Next up, they’ll be busting Labour politicians for jaywalking.
Don’t underestimate the determination of the right wing to make an issue of this non-issue, however: Cunliffe’s tweet has the potential to be the next (utterly spurious) cause célèbre for the National Party and its media outlets.
+1
I heard on news that someone was calling for Cunliffe to resign. Wow that would create a problem sticking with the leader has to be called David that only leaves Parker left
Nope, National Party Research will follow him as well as other parties. So will journalists.
BTW, the law doesn’t say anything about it being restricted to locality.
My prediction – Nothing will happen
Now you really are starting to scare me.”Cunliffe will be found guilty by police and fined”
Do you really want the police to be prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner?
Exactly Alwyn. I don’t think our police are yet at the point where the law allows them to find someone guilty of such an offence and fine them. Are they? They quite often aren’t even capable of mounting a successful prosecution of the obviously guilty.
Instant fines for minor offences?
Doesn’t apply in this case does it? Cunners is already pleading guilty in the media to a brief fit of stupidity in the commission of an offence against the electoral act. The nature of the offence is trivial, the tweet would have reached a tiny audience all of whose minds would’ve already been made up on who to vote for (either supporters or RWNJs looking for a chance to “get” him, and the “publication” was so short-lived the worst that should happen should be a teensy fine.
RWNJs can have a field day making hyperbolic twits of themselves over it.
No, I’m not even sure we still have instant fines for traffic offences anymore.
It would make politics more fun though, if instant fines were leveled at polititions for minor offences like David Cunliffes recent untimely endorcement of Poto Williams.
You could extend it to things like crimes against the internet (Judith Collins on twitter), or bad puns (though I suspect this would unfairly target David Cunliffe).
… perhaps everytime a politition says “I can’t recall”.
Very much like a swear jar, but for polititions
The penalty doesn’t need to be a fine. Vodka shot for every member of cabinet (or shadow cabinet for the opposition) per offence would be fine.
Most of the people who use Twitter should probably be banned from doing anything else at all :). Never has a social medium been so aptly named. I regard it as an idiot detector.
I think McCready has stopped clock syndrome. I’m as happy that he prosecuted Banks as I am that a German capitalist may expose Key in court as a serial liar. Every now and then, you need a toilet plunger, but not for fine dining.
Is the noted NZ National Party NZ Herald jonolist John Armstrong suffering from a disease of the mind,
Today Armstrong devotes His whole column in the Herald to trying to convince us all that John Banks was leaving the Parliament at the end of the year anyway,(and not because He got told by Boscowan ”don’t bother re-applying”),
i could spend a lot of pixels and time venting anger at such spurious and utter trash,(i refuse to call That journalism),
Better tho to just say ”what a load of S**t” and move on…
Corrupt repeater of corporate propaganda
Bm
maybe labour understand that a graduating extension to retirement age recognises the enormous cost of super and that 65 isnt “old” anymore. You could be construed as saying why suggest something for the greater good if you wont win votes. The corollary of which is do anything to get votes no matter how bad it is for the greater good. Oh wait a minute you support national.
Yeah you could say 65 aint old for the people that sit around all day tapping on computer keys for a living but what of those who provide the ‘real ergs of work’ in the economy, those who labour physically for their daily bread???,
Most such people have worn out their bodies by the time 50 comes around and does not Labour feel that they are due some recognition…
Actually, I also know one or two businessmen who work at a pretty intense pace, who are approaching 65 and looking forward to the relief of retirement – or maybe semi-retirement in a less stressful, less time consuming job.
well, they’ll be waiting longer for hips and knees; recognition…has Treasury costed that…
+65
Agree bad12. Perhaps they need to look at the universality of super or make it needs tested to continue to supply it. The suggestion to up retirement age to 67 from a Labour politician is really dumb. Perhaps he needs to retire or go work for ACT. I hear they need a new leader and it would not be the first time someone from Labour has been there. It starts to look like a well worn path and I wonder how they get to be representing Labour. Any wonder voters are confused.
+100% on that Bad12 …. though I am not sure how and with any honesty a retirement age, and pension, based on what one had done in ones working life could work.
The most important parts of being a successful political party
1.Getting yourself elected
2.Nothing else because you haven’t been elected
Greater good policies don’t get you elected.
Goodness me, what did I have for breakfast today. You are even starting to sound persuasive. When I saw the David Parker announcement, I went WTF. You are quite right about (2) and the subsequent statement. All that reminds me of a conversation I once had with Rodney Hide a long time ago.
Btw, what is the story with Parker’s stand-alone announcement about super. Is that the party policy after membership support and caucus agreement?
Does Labour now think it is in an invincible position to begin announcing unpopular policies on their own? I take it that Cunliffe is still alive and well and he approved Parker’s announcement, i.e. this super policy is also supported by Cunliffe?
Bloody hell, Labour should reduce super age to 63 on the condition that peeps do 20 hours community and social volunteer work a week. I mean, come on, let’s change society.
How to afford it? Print an additional $25M pw into the Cullen Fund starting right now. Easy as. The key is ensuring that when those payments are made, the real economy is healthy enough to provide the resources and services that people are expecting to be able to purchase with the money.
This is new economic thinking.
That is the most important issue I think, with David Parker’s announcement. I am not sure whether or not printing money is the answer, but attending to the health of the real economy seems central to anything that could be termed real change. If a rise in the retirement age, with penalty-free allowances for those longer able to work, was embedded within a range of policies aimed at the health of the real economy, I do not think it would raise alarm bells. But by itself, it looks like more of the same old fakery, designed to reduce the poor to wretched, and more slowly and surreptitiously, the middle class to poor, under the cloak of “balancing the books.”
The other problem is, this policy, along with the TPP, was shelved at the conference for further consideration, due to disagreement between the membership and the caucus. Now it looks as if “further consideration” means “what the caucus decides once dissenters are out of the way.” I hope this not going to apply to the TPP as well.
No to mention the other policy announced today about extending passports. Again by itself maybe not so serious, but as one of the few policies annonunced, it’s looking like the Labour Party continuing along the path of representing the interests of the comfy and ignoring those with less cushy lives (and the wishes of their members).
Same old same old….
nailed it. you don’t (as yet) require a passport to walk from Putaruru to the WINZ office in Tokoroa.
While all the while having an office in Putaruru which is open part-time 2 days a week, what a miserable bunch of Arse-wipes WINZ and Slippery’s National government are,
i have to wonder how many people are being put through this unnecessary expense who live in Putaruru or other small towns with the same ‘part-time WINZ office’,
The ‘efficient’ means of having all the beneficiaries fulfill their ‘obligations’,(no matter how stupid and a waste of time they are), would be for them all to go to the Putaruru office on the same day of the month with that office remaining open all day…
That was my thought. Closely followed by the words caravan and bus. Basically the WINZ people in areas without public transport should be kicked off the arses and and setup at local shopping centres in the villages and smaller towns.
But of course under Paula Bennett they aren’t there to help in any respect from finding jobs to making and effort to do their jobs. It is National’s policy to be stupidly punitively stupid with people..
Caravan , bus what are you thinking. The WINZ staffers could ride a push bike over Putararu. If it’s good enough for a beneficiary…..
And while we are at it:
How about our politicians catch the airport flyer in to Parliament.
In the morning it runs about every 10 minutes and takes about 25 minutes .
They could keep costs down, mix with the voters, get there just as fast
reduce the need to drill for oil
What’s not to like
and I would not be tempted to make gestures at Gerry Brownlee passing in the crown limo
1+1 =2 .. so why not give this fit and able walking beneficiary a job serving in the not-open-enough Putaruru office ?? She’s been told she has to find work under their new rules which is why she needed to show for the WINZ appointment.
Nah .. too simple.
And ‘caravan’ .. yes LPrent.
“The other problem is, this policy, along with the TPP, was shelved at the conference for further consideration, due to disagreement between the membership and the caucus. Now it looks as if “further consideration” means “what the caucus decides once dissenters are out of the way.” I hope this not going to apply to the TPP as well.”
And by the time the nationwide membership meets again, it will be too close to the election and too late for the membership to do much (and, hey membership, don’t rock the boat). Haha. I am wondering now how transparent and honest the Labour caucus is.
+1 Olwyn
If the government is creating money then we don’t need the Cullen Fund either. Nor do we need retirement schemes. All we need to do is plan so that the economy can provide the goods and services that will be needed but it seems that the political parties are still wedded to the neo-liberal BS of not planning and leaving it all to that mythical beast the “free-market”.
Attractive concept there CV @ 14.3
I’ve got no links to cite or statistics to ply but engagement in one’s community especially when it’s pursued on a notionally voluntary basis MUST be good.
One thing is sure. Moral and social isolation is the killer of a decent society. Selfishness and lust for exclusively personal gain are the very planks of it. Pity that we’re encouraged in it by the false smiles and weasel words of charlatans.
Only if you accept the neo-liberal rights wings meme that transfer payments for welfare, including super are solely a “cost”. As if transfer payments to the old simply disappear without trace, like tax cuts to the wealthy for Hawaii holidays.
On the other hand, you could say that universal super has been so successful in ensuring less than 3% of the elderly live in poverty, at a relatively cheap net cost to the economy, that rather than reducing it, we should extend the concept to all ages. Especially children!
Molly
australian based I think.
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Thanks Tracey. Found that, but also saw their previous work which seems different from the run of the mill PR companies. Which makes me want to continue if this is the case, have only two days to go.
Will probably ask the researcher off-line for clarity on who is funding the research.
Commentator from Brit saying David Cameron is holding himself apart from Boris Johnson opinion expressed that ‘Greed is good’. Apparently Cameron believes in social mobility and that there is too much inequality. Oh if only politicians had to eat their words. He would be holding his bowl out for more gruel like Oliver, sent to the school for chronic degenerates for being a lying fibbing sly little s.d.
And
Graham EdglerGraham McCready – what’s with this little husk of a person. In his retirement setting himself up to be Don Quixote as a hobby. Can’t tell the difference between taking the equivalent of a married beneficiary annual payment for personal support and the mistake of putting out a ten minute tweet to supporters. Not the letter of the law, but a response of strong criticism would be appropriate for that, even a fine of $1000 would indicate a serious response, more than a slap on the wrist which might leave RW with fodder for their endless litany of lies about the ‘other side of politicians’.These RW they don’t care about society. They want to pick at bits of it that don’t suit and they don’t like until it hasn’t a fabric, just a lot of holes separated by threads thinner than human hairs. Which have probably been torn out by anguished citizens who support democracy for all.
[lprent: Fixed the misname. ]
I’m confused easily apparently. Too many Grahams. I said Graeme Edgler when I actually was thinking of Graham McCready.
maybe LPrent can fix that for you … wouldn’t want to be seen saying those things about Mr Edgler ! very big oops and shd be removed imho …
This comment by Dr Ell struck me as very apt given the concern we have about constant testing. I totally agree.
Dr Fiona Ell is a lecturer in primary teacher education in the School of Learning, Development and Professional Practice at the Faculty of Education, University of Auckland.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11167033
When I was teaching back in the 80s and the UK government started on the foregrounding of testing – we all knew that too much testing takes the focus away from teaching to encourage real and significant learning. The evidence was there back then, but the “neolibs” just ignored it and wrote their own arguments/polices.
Actually to design a test pre-supposes that there are only right/wrong answers which rather defeats the purpose of discovery learning and self directed enquiry. There is of course a place for right/wrong answers (eg basic facts), but kids interested in their own enquiries will have a variety of answers to problem solving. Not easy to test.
exactly, ianmac.
But also, the righties aren’t interested in the masses developing real learning and critical skills, only learning what they are told to learn for the tasks TPTB want them to do: authoritarian approach to “education” for the masses/workers, who must just learn to jump through the right hoops.
+1
ianmac
I remember a question about the humourous point in a cartoon by Murray Ball on The Dog.
I got a wrong answer. And thought how could that be. It is a personal response and there could be dozens of those depending on the main lines of culture the viewer came from.
Molly they probably wont tell you on the basis it might influence yoyr answers
bad
I agree @ manual workers. But I dont subscribe to bms tell the punters what they want to hear and then consider the public good if you get elected. That is about spin and consealment and assumes punters are ignorant. Bms way treats it like a game. Its more important to win at all costs. Its why so many bms hate consultation and consensus cos they need to know who “won”.
I’m sorry, but the punters are complete fucking idiots.
Go read the trade me general boards for a while, it’s a real eye opener on what Joe and Joanne Average consider important.
Be warned though you may start to lose faith in humanity and suffer from intense urges of violence towards your fellow Man/Women.
the trade me boards are ameeting place for the scum of new zealand to air their bigotry and prejudices.
any body who takes them seriously needs their head examined.
BM
+1
BM – hangin’ out with the good folks on TS has improved your social/moral/emotional IQ outa sight ! We’ll travel to the voting booth together to cast two party votes for Mana then aye ?
But not you aye bm
Government awards more oil permits
Just doesn’t get it does he? There is no way to develop oil in an environmentally responsible way, not when the plan is to dig it up and burn it.
A Radio New Zealand political reporter said the ceremony at Parliament was like an awards ceremony, with each successful company getting a round of applause from the 100 or so representatives from the petroleum industry there.
Surpised they didn’t get Mark Richardson in to compere…
he’s busy in dunedin pretending his fellow commentator isnt under investigation for match fixing
ouch!
I hope they all caught the bus there yeah
i found this site where normal english is translated into death-metal english..
sample:..
“..Normal English: “You have to mow the lawn”
Death Metal English:
“BRING DOWN THE SCYTHE OF GODS UPON THE NECKS OF THE GREEN-RIBBED LEGIONS –
– AND SWEEP AWAY THEIR WRETCHED BODIES;
– THOU ART IMPLORED BY ME”..”
phillip ure..
A primer for Mothers (and Fathers) attempting to establish communication channels with their young adults in the family so as to inspire enthusiasm for simple tasks around the home. Recommended by the Oxford Dictionary of Tomorrow’s In-Words and Phrases.
Just looking at The Daily Blog which is crowing about beating the standard after only 8 months.
It has outstanding presentation but as I prefer limited hyperbole and exaggeration and less emotionally charged description, I find it a bit much.
Reading Tim Selwyn is like watching a large boy trying to take over the school playground. Unpleasant in his rant about RadioNZ, and Chris Laidlaw was unreasonably flagged, not being Tim’s style. So therefore only 5 plus half people in Auckland could be interested.
Too much regurgitation on that blog I think. I don’t want my news pecked out of the eyes of passing individuals and then fed into my open brain. Give me some facts and help me form a reasoned opinion rather than throw a full bladder at me that bursts leaving an unpleasant taste. How’s that for hyperbole and mixed metaphors and colourful description.
It is “visits” that Open Parachute uses for ordering for some obscure reason. The problem is that “visits” are entirely variable depending on which measuring program is used and how the site is laid out.
I run 3 different page and visit trackers here. One had last month at ~130k visits, one was at ~170k visits, one was at ~220k visits. That is just on the basis of how much time each “visit” is set to. For that matter you can set that time in two of these as well, which makes it a bit hard to do comparisons.
They all roughly agree on numbers of page views. So that is what I tend to look at as well. The TDB is way behind on that. Looking at the PV/visit ratio I suspect that they are also way way behind the minutes per “visit” as well and I suspect that get a lot more quick browsers.
It was a sluggish month last month. Lower numbers of posts posted after the Labour leadership stuff at the start of the month. Lower numbers of comments. And it is leading into xmas which in non-election years causes comments to drop.
But it does give me a good reason to consider that the TDB startup time is over. I’ll put in the code for tabbing their feed into their own sections. Far too many repeats of other people’s press releases that I can’t seperate. Same for scoop. That will leave the smaller blogs with more real estate to be noticed in.
TDB also boosts it’s page views by re-posting various things including press releases from Labour & Green parties
It’s not comparing like with like.
Another difference is the lack of/limited amount of front page links to the latest comments on TDB. So one has to keep clicking back on posts to see if there are any more comments.
It’s TDB and not DTB 😛
/agreed
It’s their bloody horrible layout and navigation that has pretty much stopped me going there.
🙂 I regularly reverse letters when typing – always need to properly proof read.
Bomber’s unstated moderation policy and opinion that he is above criticism are coming close to stopping me. The layout also sucks. They do, however, have some good contributors.
They do have some good contributors but that isn’t really enough to keep me going back.
There is the occasional article thats good on TDB, but the layout does not encourage feedback or any sort of critical discussion.
It’s more like a notice board where if something interests you, you read it.
I imagine that most of the views on any one page, are only viewed once by a visitor.
There’s a fair amount of clickbait on there as well, copying WOBH modus operandi.
The more time I’ve spent reading thestandard, the more impressed I am with the layout and functionality of the site. Particularly the ease with which you can read and engage in ongoing conversations.
It presents as nice and clean, but theres a ton of functionality lurking just under the surface.
Repeats of others comments. I was looking on google and went to NBR to look up their piece on the subject and all I found was links, no content to read that had their particular findings.
Very strange. Not what I expect for a publication like the NBR newspaper.
I think we are probabably wired to think, put DTB now. Pavlovian acshually.
I didnt know it was a competition
“Life is a competition… Not with others, but with ourselves. We should seek each day to live stronger, better, truer lives. Each to master some weakness of yesterday. Each day to repair a mistake; Each day to surpass ourselves.”
-David B. Haight
Just checking to see whether I’m still banned from Martyn Bradbury’s ‘Daily Blog’ because he didn’t agree with my standing against Mana’s John Minto as a Mayoral candidate.
PENNY BRIGHT says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
DECEMBER 5, 2013 AT 3:57 PM
TESTING …… am I still banned / blocked?
Penny Bright
– See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/12/02/november-2013-blog-stats-the-daily-blog-now-largest-left-wing-blog-in-nz/#comment-151946
(Checked, and this comment still appears to be ‘awaiting moderation’ …..)
Having been a political activist since I was 18 years old (I’m now in my 59th year), I find this hypocrisy regarding purported ‘freedom of expression’, quite disturbing.
And – I WILL ‘blow the whistle’ – when and where I see fit.
So be it.
Cheers!
Penny Bright
Has anyone asked Colin Cray about his views on vaccination? Just for the lulz..
From the oh shit files
HT Interest.co
http://gizmodo.com/for-20-years-the-nuclear-launch-code-at-us-minuteman-si-1473483587
Today I found out that during the height of the Cold War, the US military put such an emphasis on a rapid response to an attack on American soil, that to minimize any foreseeable delay in launching a nuclear missile, for nearly two decades they intentionally set the launch codes at every silo in the US to 8 zeroes.
ie 00000000 !!!
MAD!!!!!!! America leads the world to Hell.
A comment from this side of the ditch to people back home –
Labour was looking pretty on the ball after the leadership selection just recently.
Now, with only a brief period to go before Christmas and before people switch off for the holidays, what is Labour’s narrative?
Is Labour powerfully leading a clear and strong narrative, in a week that has been slightly distracted by what seems like an honest mistake over a tweet and then this morning’s eye-rolling policy announcement?
Is Cunliffe well supported by his deputy and caucus and can his chief of staff and his chief press secretary/media director help craft something tactical as well as strategic before we knock off for the festive and holiday season?
Has anyone thoughts about what ake asked? Before the holiday season?
It definitely would be wise to make a plan as to releases and policy. The news is always hungry for content over the holiday season and will repeat stuff over and over again. Give them something good to repeat eh!
Why I frequently turn them off ……
Paper! Paper! Read all out about It! .
I did and followed up with a donate.
“New Zealanders expect sport to be played fairly and they expect sports men and women to perform – in a way which upholds the ethics of their sport and not to be doing it to make money in an underhand way. It would be a very, very serious issue indeed if it is proved to be correct.”
if we replaced ‘sport’ and ‘sportsmen and women’ with ministers of the crown would it make any difference?
Questioning from NZFirst MP Tracey Martin to Hekia Parata today has revealed that the Minister doesn’t even know if contractual arrangements around the Charter Schools programme allows the Ministry of Education to seize assets (paid for by the taxpayer) in the event that the charter school goes broke or collapses.
The part I found most fascinating ScottGN in those questions was the possibility that the charter school given the funds has bought 81 hectares of Northland farm land with it, and has no money left to build proper school buildings so is putting up portloos and portacoms. Parata didn’t know the answers to questions about this by Tracey Martin …. so either its happened, or it hasn’t …. and we’ll have to wait until someone else questions Parata for further details.
Just shows that NZ First have got something to offer. Unlike the other individuals in the sack race, lost their cloth, lost the ashes.
rofl
Oh dear. Apparently NORAD has decided that Santa needs a fighter escort, in spite of the fact that he must be going faster than any fighter plane currently in service.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/9480904/Santa-tracker-under-fire-for-jet-escort
“That Prince Harry is one TOUGH customer!”
Uttering inane platitudes is not always an easy task
Television One Breakfast, Thursday 5 December 2013, 8:08 a.m.
Last item on the news ends with a dramatic long shot of human figures walking across an icy landscape. It’s a PR piece about Prince Harry racing to the South Pole with injured servicemen to raise money for the charity Walking with the Wounded. Apparently, just as Nero used to win the chariot races at the Olympics, this modern-day Milo of Croton is coming first in this icy race.
However, far from being impressed, the Television One Breakfast crew are, to put it charitably, lukewarm in their response to this royal hero….
NADINE CHALMERS-ROSS: That Prince Harry is one TOUGH customer!
….[Awkward extended silence]….
TONI STREET: He sure is.
….[Further awkward silence]….
SAM WALLACE: Do you think they’re all letting him win because he’s royal?
TONI STREET: Oh no no no! He’s a very fit soldier!
RAWDON CHRISTIE: He’s a VERY fit man!
TONI STREET: He’s got a bit of MONGREL in him!
NADINE CHALMERS-ROSS: Oh yes, yes, yes.
….[More dutiful murmuring, followed by further awkward silence]….
RAWDON CHRISTIE: Okay, it’s time for the weather, Sam….
Morrisey why do you do it? I know after reading that I never want to watch Breakfast Television as it might be bad for the television and costly for me – break fast…..
What puerile stuff. Your brain must be turning to raspberry spaghetti.
Of course it is so cool for today’s free-thinking young people to scorn royalty. Just like the funny ones on Oz radio ringing about Kate’s condition, and ending up besmirching a high achiever’s reputation so that the nurse concerned couldn’t face the shame of being made to look ridiculous in that way and killed herself. The young people of today…. The comfortably off, who have never had to sweat their guts out to get on, don’t take anything too seriously.
+1 Grey W
Family members, lovers or flatmates who are having breakfast would do considerably better to spend their precious time by having a conversation among themselves, with the tv OFF.
Charter School Scam :
“Ms Martin asked Ms Parata whether she knew the charter school being set up by Nga Parirau Matauranga Trust had spent its more than $1.6 million from the Government on 81 hectares of farmland and now didn’t have enough money to build the school.”
he he
The whole point of Question Time is that you don’t ever get screwed like that as a Minister.
Shonkey’s inspiration.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/alec-freerider-homeowners-assault-clean-energy
More about the pricks.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council
http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/alec-the-voice-of-corporate-special-interests-state-legislatures
http://www.interest.co.nz/property/67683/labour-has-introduced-members-bill-would-allow-only-new-zealand-citizens-and-resident#comment-759759
interest.co.nz is not usually known for its leftward leanings but the comment stream on this one is worth reading to see what i think could be called a real swing to the left
I’ve just been listening to Bryan Crump interview Nigel Turvey from Charles Darwin University which i feel is probably in Queensland. I think he has written a book on cane toads. There is a rich history behind their introduction around the world and particularly in queensland.
Some trivia. The sugar cane industry was introduced by two ex army men one called Hope and the other Wish. (Spelling?) The releasing of toads was resisted by the head of the entomology of the then CSIRO whose name was Froggett. But disagreeing with him was a Mr Ribbett. Quite amusing connections there.
The scientist who dissected 300 toads found some cane beetles in their stomachs and concluded they would be a suitable control on the beetles. Which only come out of the ground for a day mate and then go back underground where they live in their thousands and eat the roots of the cane. They have only been researched in 1995 by the government, 60 years after they were introduced. Gardeners loved them because they were so good at keeping slugs and snails down.
He made the point that when there is such a groundswell of acceptance of anything it is hard to give proper consideration to the overview of whatever.
Charles Darwin University is located in Darwin NT not Queensland and those bloody Cane Toads are moving south and west ie Northern Western Australia. The F-ing Toads around where I work and are at our friends cattle Station just out of Katherine.
They are making a mess along with the feral cats in Armhem land just the ferrets/cats and bunnies do back home in NZ.
Simon Bridges website
hackedsimulated by green activists;http://simon-bridges.co.nz/
Going up in smoke 4 oil.
PS; That’s a pretty cool effect.
Go Greenpeace!
The real Simon Bridges site.
http://www.simonbridges.co.nz/
lol
https://twitter.com/patrickgowernz
we shall remain aloof from Twitter.
What is twitter? 🙂
BM
You may want to consider a name change BM
British Movement far right facist
gang .
Snap!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25142557