"But then came the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC). The Labour government was panicked into introducing the Crown retail deposit guarantee scheme to prevent a collapse in confidence in the banking and finance company sector.
The taxpayer was suddenly underwriting savers in what mostly looked like sound businesses."
Oh dear, simon thinks he has the scoop, claiming to have a leaked cabinet paper re the cannabis referendum….
Turns out the so called leaked paper he has is out of date….. lolololz…. did any of the news agencies check the story before running it? Will news agencies now set the story straight? If not what does that say about NZ media?
"we’ve invited them to work collaboratively multiple times,"
National are not interested in working collaboratively.
Witness the vicious public attacks on the Green Party and the government by Todd Muller over the Zero Carbon Bill.
Not to mention the resulting "flexible" rubber chicken that is the outcome of trying to pander to them.
Anyone who claims they are surprised, after New Zealand's greenhouse emissions continue to rise, after the passing of the Zero Carbon Act, will be a liar.
It's almost like they find some info, think it's a big scoop, do nothing to fact check and then roll with it, just like last Monday and probably the Monday before that and so on.
Meanwhile Stuff appears to be burying the story while both paula bennet and tova o'brien are looking rather foolish on the twitter.
Chloe, why does that not surprise me at all.
“The paper the Nats have got hold of is out of date”
By the way Chloe; – please tell Julie Anne that we all in HB/Gisborne support her call to lower the speed of all "dangerous roads down to an 80 kms speed to lower the deaths on these narrow winding regional potholed roads.
You must push to restore rail passenger services around our provinces too.
Julie Anne also needs to support us and speak for us in the press to reopen the rail services they promised us before the last election to Gisborne .
Simply so we older retired folks can use rail safely to get to our families.
Actually, it's about a ladder-kicking self-promoter angling for a tilt at the practically-vacant caucus leadership by releasing "leaked" out of date information when they would have had the current information if they'd accepted an invitation to actually participate in the process.
Actually it's not. It's about an irrelevant MP from an irrelevant political party claiming to know the leaked material was old but providing zero evidence. Meanwhile, the Greens continue to be Labours lap dog.
When has the Green Party been the largest political party in NZ?
That would be never.
When have the Greens led a government?
That would be never.
The Greens are nothing more than also rans, a repository for benefit frauds, those who misrepresent their work history, or who seem to think reclaiming the ‘c’ word is somehow virtuous. No wonder bugger all people vote for them.
Precisely. National chose to be irrelevant on this issue, that is why their information is out of date. They should be at the table, rather than going through the rubbish bins.
Alluding to past glories does not hide the fact that the fractured remnants of the nat caucus are in the wastelands of opposition.
keep telling yourself that a coalition party's spokesperson on the relevant issue knows less about cross-party work on the issue than a fifth-rate ladder-kicker who was handed a bit of trash.
I wonder if one of Judith's friends gave Bennett the paper, knowing it was out of date?
lol no, that's how national treated its own coalition "partners". Labour are better than that at making and keeping friends. After all, that's why they're in government and Benefit isn't..
Drowsy, National are simply at a predictable stage of an electoral cycle in which people are more consumed with the PM's baby than with her governments failings. It is amusing, because meanwhile nothing much gets changed, which is all good with me. But let me ask you this. At the same stage of the electoral cycle in 2010, where were Labour? Around 31%, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2011_New_Zealand_general_election.
At the same stage of the electoral cycle in 2010, where were Labour? Around 31%…
Greens were on 9%, so the left parties then were around 40%, about the same as the right parties' current 40%. A situation also known as "Up shit creek with little prospect of winning the next election."
It's actually a little bit sad that many tories don't know how respectful partnerships work between colleagues who are not in complete agreement.
It's as if the only relationship they can envisage in that circumstance is inherently abusive, where the party with the most to lose ends up a manipulated supplicant, forced to endure incessant humiliation and exploitation from the more powerful party.
Irrelevant. Unless you are suggesting the Greens are Labour lacky's?
There are two left-wing parties and two right-wing parties. What matters is the combined support for the two parties, not the proportion of support held by an individual party. It doesn't matter whether a 41% level of support for right-wing parties might be 40% National and 1% ACT, while a 41% level of support for left-wing parties might be 35% Labour and 6% Green. The outlook for election results is the same in both cases – screwed.
Given how the Greens are being treated as the Coalitions lap dog, I doubt Chloe would have a clue.
It's almost comical how the ignorant are often full of confidence that people who know a lot more than them about any given subject actually don't have a clue. Although, on reflection, I might be confusing "comical" with "depressing commentary on the state of humanity."
How are your opinions of relationships between the governing coalition partners relevant to the question of whether Chlöe Swarbrick "would have a clue" about issues of cannabis legalisation?
Because the relationship is so distant that she wouldn't know whether or not the leaked document was current or old. The Greens have been on the outer of so many decisions this government has made they are becoming a joke.
Your theory that the Greens in cabinet don't keep their spokeswoman on this issue up to date on cabinet's deliberations on the subject is an interesting one but not a very likely one.
If a party is considered a "joke" by people who would never vote for it, who in that party would care? I doubt anyone in the ACT Party reads my opinions of David Seymour and thinks "Oh no, this means we're losing our left-wing voter base!"
I don't think the Greens are a joke. I think this government is turning them into a joke.
"We've made it abundantly clear throughout the negotiations that our preferred position was to see legislation passed through parliament before the referendum…"
a major study published a year ago found that Trump's support among non-college-educated whites—arguably the key to his Electoral College success—was driven far more by sexism and racism than by economic anxiety.
Now, a new study that focuses on one key constituency—white people in Iowa who voted for Barack Obama, and later for Trump—comes to that same conclusion.
Yep, it'd pay to be a seething lowlife to back that man. There's no other decent explanation to sink so low except one is bounded by hatred and ignorance and wishing to bestow blame on others for personal limitations.
That'll work. Get a few university elites to tell 'em they're just a bunch of racists. And by the way we can't help or work with racist deplorables. Our work here is done.
I know right. Calling a racist a racist and a sexist a sexist is just plain mean. They should be able to base their lives around falsities, victimising and fear. Calling them out is victimising them.
What these racist wife beaters need is support groups – like the US Republicans.
Grace and decency is all well and good, but you can't meet a bigot in the middle. You can't be nice to racists in the hope that they might be nice to you and fights have always been won by fighting, not cuddling. You may not like it, but it's true.
The town's Open Arms day centre for the homeless says high rents are forcing more people on to the streets as winter approaches – and a number of them have serious disabilities.
"Some are too immobile or in too much pain to get out of their cars to come in for lunch so we take the food out to them in the carpark," manager Sam Cassidy said.
When RNZ paid a visit on Thursday, several regulars were toughing it out in their vehicles, with bedding crammed into the back seats.
One older man was hunched over the driving wheel of his van in obvious discomfort.
The 70-year-old former farm worker has been waiting years for a knee replacement, and he told RNZ he was on morphine for the pain.
Not that it helps much, he said.
"I can't bloody walk at the moment, eh. Might as well cut the leg off and be done with it."
The pensioner left his rental home near Kaikohe last winter when the landlord put the rent up.
"He wanted $200 a week for a leaky home – I couldn't pay that."
He's been living in his van with his small dog, ever since.
I honestly don't know what to say about this.
Elsewhere there's a conversation developing about how badly some folk treat other folk that was triggered by an article featuring an eighty year old fired in an email.
Welcome to 2019, old- timer.
I guess a working eighty year old's dignity deserves greater protection than that of those who perhaps struggle to manage the basics.
But no one deserves to be forced to live in a car.
In pain, injured, living with significant impairments and often mental health and addiction issues.
With a 15 year old son crammed in the back seat of the Suzuki car.
I really don't know…so much for this coalition of kindness, this transformational government claptrap.
These folk aren't feeling the love, that's for sure.
Where are the homes for the homeless Jacinda? You promised.
(And no, sending them off to live in a motel is not the answer.)
Rosemary, I think it's time to go on another media blackout. It's just getting too depressing again. More and more stories like this are going to keep surfacing, but seriously, what's going to change?
Now on the 6 month countdown to the end of my lease and hoping like hell I can get it rolled over. You see, I'm not allowed to drive so I don't have a car to sleep in… why the hell are we having to live (exist) like this??
There is every reason for Robertson to be all over this hands-on approach to moving citizens from welfare to work. He was, after all, the man assigned the task of investigating “The Future of Work” by Labour leader, Jacinda Ardern’s, predecessor, Andrew Little. He knows full well that as artificial intelligence wipes out more-and-more middle-class professional occupations, the whole concept of a “steady, well-paid, nine-to-five job” will become increasingly archaic. The trick, politically, will be to make it possible for the same technological and scientific revolution that is wiping out all these “good” jobs to be harnessed to the task of ensuring that the emerging “gig economy” is both less individually exploitative and more socially beneficial.
It is in this potentially game-changing context that the Ministry of Social Development might finally begin to live up to its name. The expertise it gains in assisting the least qualified and most vulnerable citizens into situations where their strengths can be maximised and their weaknesses worked around will become increasingly useful in a society where the work required to make profits for capitalists will be the preserve of intelligent machines, and the work required to sustain social, cultural and physical environments will be the preserve – and delight – of human-beings.
There is every reason for Robertson to be all over this hands-on approach to moving citizens from welfare to work.
Seeing as around half the children living in poverty come from working households, it would be wiser for the Government to first improve work and wage conditions if they want work to be the solution.
This goes beyond political disappointment. This is about denying via delaying further help to real people struggling in poverty. So no, I'm not here to gloat, I'm seeking solutions. Is a new left party the answer or do you think it will be possible to encourage Labour to act with urgency?
No hope for progressive welfare reform from this government – Sue Bradford.
If we’re ever going to hope for transformative and progressive welfare reform, it is now clear it will need to be championed by a party that is not yet in Parliament.
Using McFlock's handy link, the evidence that voters gave no mandate for radical welfare reform:
1. Parties supporting progressive welfare reform of any description (Labour and Green): 54 seats.
2. Parties opposed to progressive welfare reform of any description (National, NZF, ACT): 66 seats.
Now it's your turn (or Bradford's): what evidence is there that Labour/Green have either a mandate from voters or the numbers in Parliament to enact the radical welfare reform you'd like to see?
McFlock’s handy link fails to back your assertion.
Where is your evidence NZF are opposed?
This report (in the link below) counters your NZF assertion.
New Zealand First has shown support for the overhaul, with Tracey Martin, a New Zealand First MP and Minister, saying the working group would be a great support to the "much needed overhaul" of the welfare system.
The Welfare State must be an umbrella to meet genuine and deserving need. Government has a duty to properly determine those needs and respond to them. That said, social welfare must no longer neglect assisting recipients to become independent of the State.
Note the bit about welfare being for the "deserving," and the importance of making recipients independent of the state. I'm not seeing any support for what the likes of Sue Bradford would call "progressive" reform in that.
You're not making sense. Labour and the Greens are willing to commit to this level of action, and you call it "beyond political disappointment" and "denying help to people struggling in poverty." Sue Bradford describes it as "no hope for progressive reform."
NZ First are also willing to commit to this level of action, and you claim it's evidence of their commitment to progressive reform.
So, is this action demonstrative of commitment to progressive reform or not? If it is, stop bad-mouthing Labour and the Greens over it. If it isn't, accept that NZF's fundamental principles are in opposition to the radical reform you and Bradford would prefer to see.
The Greens, Labour, and NZF are all supportive of the report and are committed to doing more, it's the extremely long delay that goes beyond disappointment.
Now you are suggesting NZF's opposition (which you have failed to prove) is the reason for the hold up. Yet, I've yet to hear the Greens, Labour or NZF claim that. Therefore, where is your evidence for this nonsense?
Labour are largely claiming (such as Incognito is) it is going to take years to formulate policy. Which, is total rubbish.
No, I'm suggesting that the government has no mandate from voters for radical welfare reform and that's why it's taking a cautious approach. The retirees and rural conservatives who vote NZF don't do so because of their enthusiasm for radical leftist policy, and Labour also has a considerable bloc of electoral support that is really not very left-wing. The fact that you and Sue Bradford would like the government to pursue a far more radical agenda than it has a mandate for is worth one vote apiece, so you can expect the government to value your preference on that basis.
No, I'm suggesting that the government has no mandate from voters for radical welfare reform and that's why it's taking a cautious approach.
Here we go again. You've yet to prove that. Merely repeating it doesn't make it so.
Sixty-five percent of New Zealand First supporters wanted the party to go with Labour. Who widely campaigned on addressing poverty and inequality.
Additionally, if it were just Bradford and I that are disappointed Labour wouldn't have a problem. Unfortunately for them, the disappointment is widespread.
Moreover, failing to deliver on more of the recommendations sooner will lead to their fiscal management coming under the spotlight. People will question why they aren't prepared to invest now to save the greater cost and social harm of not doing so.
Of course I can't prove that the retirees and rural conservatives voting NZF weren't doing so in the hope that the party would promote a radical left policy agenda. Likewise, I can't prove there aren't fairies at the bottom of your garden.
However, we can have a high level of confidence that there actually aren't fairies at the bottom of your garden, and likewise we can have a high level of confidence that Winston's retirees and rural conservatives really didn't vote for his party because they felt it would promote their desire for radical left reform.
Voter support for radical welfare reform comes from Green voters, a subset of Labour voters, and (presumably) a subset of NZF voters. Most likely there were also some supporters who gave their support to sub-5% parties, but their votes don't count. I'd question whether the voter support for Bradford-style reform was any higher than voter support for further right-wing restrictions on welfare. In short – no mandate.
I'd argue that the reason why Labour is struggling with welfare reform is simply because none of the mainstream parties have a clue how to go about it.
They're stuck fiddling with a fundamentally broken system. If they had a reform model that was efficient and made sense to the majority of people they would have gotten on with it by now.
The report is not a detailed blueprint for transformative policy. The Government needs to take in the report and design a coherent suite of policies, a policy platform, which addresses as many points raised in the report as possible as well as many others that are completely outside the report. That’s the job of the Government and it is a huge one. One of the obstacles they’ll face is that they’ll have to deconstruct to rebuild. That is never an easy thing to do in politics and comes with risk and upheaval. And it takes time!
People are jumping up & down in a frenzy, impatiently shrieking “Scrap this! Do that! The report!!”. As if saying “make it so” makes it so.
Of course, the Government is out of its depth. But they took on the job and they should bloody well get on with it (AKA let’s do this). And I think they are. I have to think so because otherwise we are utterly stuffed. As with Climate Change …
I see, you are a policy analyst now, in fact, a whole team of senior policy analysts. You know exactly how to take the recommendations of the report and turn them into effective policy. You know how to avoid gaps, overlap, duplicity, unintended consequences, clashes with other existing and/or new policies, compliance issues with the Law, budget blowouts, etc. You know how to get these policies pushed through the political system and Parliament, if any bills or amendments are required. You know all these things and yet you don’t tell us or anybody in Government. All you do is criticise in an unconstructive manner. Your concerns lack credibility IMO.
Again, nobody is expecting them to deliver it tomorrow, but as the report highlights, it requires urgent attention and Labour are not acting with urgency, hence the uproar.
This failure to act with urgency will lead to a lot of avoidable social ills and cost the lives of a number of those struggling. It's shameful.
I see, you want Labour to run around like headless chickens giving the impression of urgency and immediate action while serious policy professionals burn the midnight oil to draft policy. What exactly do you want Labour to do urgently, Mr Policy Analyst? Should they call a National Emergency, cancel all rugby matches and flights in and out of Wellington until all recommendations of the report have been fully tested and implemented? Or should they continue to govern this country whilst absorbing the report and putting a coherent plan together? I hear you roar and bark but very little of substance seems to emanate from you.
I said act with urgency (not headless chickens) as the report recommended. So you do understand this isn't just coming from me a single voice in the crowd? Seems you missed my little tutorial on Labour trolls.
Lifting benefits (and all interrelated criteria) must be done first and foremost.
Again, you offer nothing constructive and of substance. You act like an impatient petulant child chanting “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”. Ad infinitum. You feel bolstered because of other ignorant children chanting the same tune. You understand that repeating your own lines it does not make it happen? You understand that your ‘tutorials’ are simply rants? You understand that engaging Government is a little more nuanced than simply stating demands and ‘huffing & puffing’ when they don’t respond immediately?
For the record, benefits need to be lifted and brought into line with wages and CoL. You see, I even agree with you …
National listed the assets they proposed to sell if they were re-elected in 2011. They did it prior to the election. Well they were elected and they did sell the assets. Your mates in the current Government claimed they were going to buy them back, didn't they?
First of all, there had been plenty of polling which show in excess of 75% of people opposed asset sales. And then there was the 2013 referendum which also indicated asset sales lacked a popular mandate, 67% being opposed. A referendum the corrupt Key Kleptocracy naturally ignored.
"That is untrue Stuart, and you know it."
What I know Alwyn, is that you don't have a leg to stand on and as usual you have resorted to making shit up.
To think, not long ago I was on the verge of rejoining the Labour Party.
Two things made me hold off, despite the promises of transformational change and the grand plans – most of which I am/was in agreement with, and which 'resonated' with coalition partners. I'll probably still have to continue with Labour/left (maybe) because, as always it's becoming evident it might be the least worst option
But, the first thing was when being unintentionally stuck half/quarter way up a himalaya unintentionally doing a Ben Fogle for a few months and receiving a sibling/Jacinda Adern's "selfie' at a gorgeous post-election Martinborough Conference. All around me, and half a world away, people and families had been adversely affected in some way by all the "best practice" of NZ (and OZ, UK, and to a lesser extent, Canadian Immigration policy) – i.e. truly ripped off as a result of false promises, outright lying, lack of basic government oversight, and what amounts to the same sort of 19thCentury colonial thinking. In many cases, those "best practice" policies had been just as devastating as the large international corporate impact on farming and subsistence living right throughout families beneath central and north western Himalyan areas – indebtedness, desperation (leading to) suicides, the works! In fact, quite obviously under the previous gNat junta, it had all been not just enabled, but also encouraged. The bizzniss of shitty immigration, shoddy tertiary education, exploitative work practices, ticket clipping – in some cases worse than one expects from 3rd World places.
Yes! I L-G is a nice guy; J A is a nice compassionate lady; I L-G had himself been exploited and knows what's going on; the gNats have left such a shambles that needs to be fixed, and Rome wasn't built in a day.
And then all that leading to the second. Given all the above, and the apparent awareness among Labour politicians of all the problems left by a decade or more of bullshit, of under-funding and under-resourcing, an apparent lack of awareness of those complicit and encouraging the dysfunction.
I think I've given enough time for sufficient 'conversations' out of which there have been a number of 'learnings' (and as I think I heard JA say on RNZ MR last Thursday or Friday ), some 'resonations' – which presumably means agreements.
The Natives are getting restless, and it'd be a big bloody shame for Labour to piss their political capital (which is well on the credit side of the ledger) up against the wall, on the trivial – especially when there are some really easy things that they could be doing that don't require legislative change that'd earn a few brownie points. Perhaps the problem might be that JA and cohorts are too nice – alternatively that they're a little bit naive.
Meantime, in the absence of anything else, it'll be a case of the least worst option, but it's all a bit reminiscent of a staunch Labour father-in-law abandoning the party when it embraced the neo-liberal religion.
Well that, AND simply more and more becoming disengaged and staying away from the polling booth.
The worst part of it all is that it's not as though Labour and its partners don't have a few quite smart cookies within their ranks. Especially when you contrast it all with the current gNat crop on the front bench.
Like I said, from what I can see, the natives are becoming quite restless whilst the bubblistas continue to sup.
In fact, despite Winnie's fatherly oversight and willingness to protect the current star (who deservedly does have all that star status), I would'nt be surprised if there are a few in NZ1 who're beginning to worry about a bit of the namby pamby-ism. After all, NZ1 have made a few 'compromises' as well when they signed up to it all.
We'll see I 'spose. We get the politicians (and the bullshit artists) we deserve……and apparently, we don't know how lucky we are
From left leaning mouthpieces and social advocates on NZ social media.
The Governments inaction over the Welfare Report is going down like a cup of cold sick.
Moreover, their failure to address more of the reports recommendations looks fiscally irresponsible as the savings it produced going forward would outweigh the cost of investing more now.
" their failure to address more of the reports recommendations looks fiscally irresponsible as the savings it produced going forward would outweigh the cost of investing more now."
Labour and the Greens made all this song and dance about their BRR and being fiscally responsible to avoid attacks from the right, only to now act fiscally irresponsible, gifting National more ammo to shoot them down with. Go figure?
Seems they'd rather risk their fiscal reputation than act fiscally responsible and help the poor.
In an alternative universe, only slightly different to this one, Ghahraman would be leading the charge against kneejerk demands for blanket curbs on hate speech. She would be reminding New Zealanders of what it actually involves: radio stations broadcasting instructions to “kill the cockroaches” (i.e. the Tutsis). She would explain how these incitements to genocide were preceded by many months of unrestrained racial vilification across all media.
n that universe, Ghahraman would be calming down her more zealous followers: warning them that unreasoning zealotry is always the problem – never the solution. She would also be reassuring them that New Zealand’s statute books already contain plenty of legal remedies against dangerously hateful expression.
The reason why the Green Party leadership should pay heed to Quin’s biting criticism of Ghahraman’s failure to supply much-needed guidance on this issue, is because he is very far from the only person expressing misgivings about the Greens’ justice spokesperson.
(I like the quote that Trotter picked:
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” ― George Orwell (goodreads)
Super-cynicism there Gabby, but maybe he is saying that Hate Speech is linked to fear or dislike of the truth? Usually it is linked to a false truth, to my mind.
Appreciate your point, Kevin, but let's be clear about this: Bolton is in no way a morally superior or more responsible person than the Sultan of Brunei or anyone else.
Hell, even Prince Jeffie is a saint compared to Bolton.
Behind big oil is the road freight industry and the truck building industry, so they are layered interest groups all pushing to use more oil so their profit rises.
They all hate rail as it uses far less oil and use no tyres that are produced using oil as well, so that is why rail is given the heave ho by these criminals sadly.
The public cheated of building use because of inadequate design allowing for robust and practical use in a coastal position which has led to toxicity and now likely demolishment 20 years later after years of deterioration.
""They're proposing to spend $1.2m on a building worth $1.2m. The only money we should be spending is to run a bulldozer over it.""
This is the second Kapiti Coast council building to be affected. Who were the prime movers involved in enabling the building of these with new unproved systems?
The background to the building of the Paraparaumu Library.
In 1998 the Council agreed to site a new library to the northwest of the Rimu Road council building. This decision reopened questions about a vision for a town centre – and plans for the new library were temporarily put on hold. In April 2001, councillors voted unanimously for the new library concept plan – with a focus for community pride and awareness.
Ironically in April this year there was a meeting there to discuss the problems and hazards of 5g EMF. So while the public are trying to deal with degraded building standards for structures we have been building for centuries, now with perverted methods, they are confronted with new and dangerous future-changing and very likely toxic technology looming over them. Coping with all this, trying to comprehend; how hard, how difficult!
Harry [Harry Dillon, Property consultant with Prendos] questions whether untreated timber framing and various cladding systems should ever have been permissible under New Zealand construction law (use of untreated timber framing in houses has been largely banned since July 2011). The problem was already known in Canada, where it is called “leaky condo syndrome”, he says, and Canadians are now going back to fix what they thought they had already fixed years ago as we are now doing in New Zealand too….
What causes leaky buildings? (See panel.) Harry puts it down to people opting for the cheapest price, and being willing to accept cheaper untreated wood from dominant timber companies. It was also poor design coupled with a drive to maximise the house size on its footprint, typically using Tuscan-styled architecture. Couple these to a general lack of knowledge and skill and a 1991 performance-based building code that permitted “fit-for-purpose” product to be used, and you can have leaky buildings.
The [Canadian] Barrett commission [1998 and 2000] estimated there were serious leaks in about 25 per cent of British Columbia's condominiums (multi-unit apartments or developments) built from 1980-99. Experts later estimated that more than half leaked, and one report put the problem rate as high as 90 per cent….
Canada's experience is effectively the blueprint for New Zealand's leaky building crisis. When the building industry here belatedly woke up to the problem in March, [2002] it called in experts from Vancouver to lead a "weathertightness" conference in Auckland.
So the war on terrorism was started with the death of 3 and a half thousand US citizens lives.
But the US can kill near on 40,000 in Venezuela via sanctions in two year. The real kicker is that media tells us the democratically elected government in Venezuela is evil.
Simply put, which no doubt someone will work out a weaselly way to side track this – the US sanctions would fit the definition of collective punishment of the civilian population as described in both the Geneva and Hague international conventions.
I saw an online interview with a prominent American psychiatrist the other day. He is certain Trump is in the early stages of dementia and regards the Republican Party's refusal to have Trump impeached for this reason alone as bordering on treason.
Great interview from RT with one of the greatest political cartoonists of any period, Steve Bell…about the only thing with any credibility left on The Guardian.
Mondays on Morning Report sounds more like a party political broadcast on behalf of the National Party, who the hell is running RNZ National ? I thought the Silver Fox had gone.
This bad weather that went through America was not well published trump suppressing our reality once again the Papatuanukue has to act NOW to save our decendints future. PLEASE PEOPLE.
We’re talking about an event here of historic proportions, circumstances that nobody ever recalls ever happening in their lifetime,” said Steve Wellman, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture director and third-generation.
The “bomb cyclone” – an intense winter storm – that swept through the US in March followed record-breaking cold in January and unprecedented snow in February. Huge blocks of loose ice jammed waterways, and the Missouri river swelled, topping levees in four states, and breaking DAMS Ka kite ano links below.
He's previously held roles as the Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court and chair of the Waitangi Tribunal – and was appointed as a Judge of the Court of Appeal last year.
"It's a big leap from the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court, to the last court, and of course being the first Māori always creates expectations that will undoubtedly not be met, but I'll do my best," he said.
"I am kind of excited and a little afraid for how the future will play out.
Justice Williams said it was important that Māori in the courts came to see their culture was valued, and it was up to the system to signal that it valued Māori culture.
He wanted to see more tikanga Māori and culture and identity programmes in prisons, and cultural training also needed to be targeted at officials, he said.
"I think it is happening and it needs to happen quickly, not just the prison population but those who create the prison population – the officials, the corrections officers, the probation officers, all the way through to the judges.
"Once people at the bottom of the pile see that they are valued, my experience is that that brings quite an important shift in attitude amongst those people."
He said it could be as simple as pronouncing Māori names and place names correctly, understanding concepts of whanaungatanga, mana, tapu and local whakpapa Ka kite ano links below.
Here's a good story about the sad state OUR Papatuanukue and her creature are in at the minute if we act now we can pull back from the brink of Extinction .
There is no need to make mitigateing climate change to complex KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Stop using carbon plastic and recycle everything . At this point in time the only environmental engineering that is smart and simple is design everything to minimise waste and the waste of energy just getting rid of the inefficiency can save millions of tons of carbon emissions being pumped into OUR atmosphere.
May be paint our roofs white but major geo engineering project are only going to pump more carbon into our atmosphere they are just a blind from the carbon barron designed to make us think that we can carry on burning carbon and geo engineering is going to save us but know we have to make sacrifices in our way of living to combat climate changes small price to pay to protect our Mokopuna futures.
'The future of life on Earth lies in the balance' – a picture essay
Almost 600 conservation experts have signed a letter by the wildlife charity WWF, published to coincide with UN report into loss of biodiversity
Overfishing
“We are overfishing our oceans at an alarming rate and choking them with plastic and other pollutants. If we want to see healthy seas that will continue to provide us with food, we need to stop this over-exploitation, protect our incredible marine environments and make sustainable fishing the norm, as we see here. Ka kite ano link below
I think that it's good sacking the health board of Waikato hospital it been a bit of a mess there lately.
HUMANS have disrespected our wildlife and environmental for long enough it time for a change in our attitudes and the ways in how we live its a couple of decades out because of oil barron suppression of the truth about human caused climate change.
We all know that trump cannot resist grabbing good publicity from Rakau Ka pai it's good for multicultural tangata all around te Papatuanukue Kia kaha Rakau.
Condolences to the Whanau of the Maori leader who's has pasted his tangi was in Rotorua sorry I miss his name my te reo and Mokopuna are at fault Kia ora .
Just so long as Maori stop being turned into jailbird because weed a medicine is illegal at the minute what a stupid law.
I support the people protesting about tangata not getting the correct treatment for their cancers at the Beehive.
Tangata whenua O tairawhiti the ones that know the correct history are still greaveing so is Eco Maori about the stuff that was served up to us by the Crown if they want Cooks statue removed and put in a museum so be it Kia kaha Ka kite ano
Cameron it cool that you are checking out your whakpapa.
I think you idea about the youth serving one year in the army no. But one year in civil training and the army teaching trades would be awesome for OUR youths Wairua.
I say that teaching the youth about respect in school is a must the early the better 9 yeas old would be good .
A lot of children with behaviour problems get the imbalances of their chemicals make up from birth when the mother is a drug addict pharmaceutical drugs pee ect its stuffs up the children now everyone's wondering why we have heaps of lost wayward children .
I agree with Verity our new government has made changes for the better it ain't perfect but people's lives are getting better slowly. Ka kite ano
There you go Whanau simon and national useing the housing short they created to damage our new government Mana go figure
Farmers have to be included in our climate change mitigatetion as they are big greenhouse gas emitters if we don't get our farmers emissions down we will have a hard time meeting our Paris agreements..
Mike some people have no care of others people wellbeing ripping those poor foreign workers off is unethical respect is need .
I wonder if trumps m8 sold up their shares yesterday .
That ausse bloke who flooded the hotel in Australia it shows me how the hard drugs stuff you up don't touch the shit whanau .
Its a sad day when tangata whenua lose a leader he was a te reo tohunga .
Its gives Eco Maori a sore face seeing our government committing to combat climate change and setting targets for our fast reduction of green House gas emissions I it's about te Mokopuna.
I agree a few small changes can make a whare dry and warm thermal drapes ruggs and blocking drafts I most times end up having to do that mahi to my whare shut all windows at 5 pm to
Ka pai Turanga health checking the Whanau vehicles to make sure they have the pepi car seats installed correctly.
The worms will live in every hostIt's hard to pick which one they eat the mostThe horrible people, the horrible peopleIt's as anatomic as the size of your steepleCapitalism has made it this wayOld-fashioned fascism will take it awaySongwriter: Twiggy Ramirez Read more ...
Hi,It’s almost Christmas Day which means it is almost my birthday, where you will find me whimpering in the corner clutching a warm bottle of Baileys.If you’re out of ideas for presents (and truly desperate) then it is possible to gift a full Webworm subscription to a friend (or enemy) ...
This morning’s six standouts for me at 6.30am include:Rachel Helyer Donaldson’s scoop via RNZ last night of cuts to maternity jobs in the health system;Maddy Croad’s scoop via The Press-$ this morning on funding cuts for Christchurch’s biggest food rescue charity;Benedict Collins’ scoop last night via 1News on a last-minute ...
A listing of 25 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 15, 2024 thru Sat, December 21, 2024. Based on feedback we received, this week's roundup is the first one published soleley by category. We are still interested in ...
Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chairWhispering that same prayer half a million timesIt's a lie, though buried in disciplesOne page of the Bible isn't worth a lifeThere's nothing wrong with youIt's true, it's trueThere's something wrong with the villageWith the villageSomething wrong with the villageSongwriters: Andrew Jackson ...
ACT would like to dictate what universities can and can’t say. We knew it was coming. It was outlined in the coalition agreement and has become part of Seymour’s strategy of “emphasising public funding” to prevent people from opposing him and his views—something he also uses to try and de-platform ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are we heading ...
So the Solstice has arrived – Summer in this part of the world, Winter for the Northern Hemisphere. And with it, the publication my new Norse dark-fantasy piece, As Our Power Lessens at Eternal Haunted Summer: https://eternalhauntedsummer.com/issues/winter-solstice-2024/as-our-power-lessens/ As previously noted, this one is very ‘wyrd’, and Northern Theory of Courage. ...
The Natural Choice: As a starter for ten percent of the Party Vote, “saving the planet” is a very respectable objective. Young voters, in particular, raised on the dire (if unheeded) warnings of climate scientists, and the irrefutable evidence of devastating weather events linked to global warming, vote Green. After ...
The Government cancelled 60% of Kāinga Ora’s new builds next year, even though the land for them was already bought, the consents were consented and there are builders unemployed all over the place. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political ...
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on UnsplashEvery morning I get up at 3am to go around the traps of news sites in Aotearoa and globally. I pick out the top ones from my point of view and have been putting them into my Dawn Chorus email, which goes out with a podcast. ...
Over on Kikorangi Newsroom's Marc Daalder has published his annual OIA stats. So I thought I'd do mine: 82 OIA requests sent in 2024 7 posts based on those requests 20 average working days to receive a response Ministry of Justice was my most-requested entity, ...
Welcome to the December 2024 Economic Bulletin. We have two monthly features in this edition. In the first, we discuss what the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update from Treasury and the Budget Policy Statement from the Minister of Finance tell us about the fiscal position and what to ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi have submitted against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill, slamming the Bill as a breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and an attack on tino rangatiratanga and the collective rights of Tangata Whenua. “This Bill seeks to legislate for Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles that are ...
I don't knowHow to say what's got to be saidI don't know if it's black or whiteThere's others see it redI don't get the answers rightI'll leave that to youIs this love out of fashionOr is it the time of yearAre these words distraction?To the words you want to hearSongwriters: ...
Our economy has experienced its worst recession since 1991. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, December 20 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below ...
Twas the Friday before Christmas and all through the week we’ve been collecting stories for our final roundup of the year. As we start to wind down for the year we hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and new year. If you’re travelling please be safe on ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the year’s news with: on climate. Her book of the year was Tim Winton’s cli-fi novel Juice and she also mentioned Mike Joy’s memoir The Fight for Fresh Water. ...
The Government can head off to the holidays, entitled to assure itself that it has done more or less what it said it would do. The campaign last year promised to “get New Zealand back on track.” When you look at the basic promises—to trim back Government expenditure, toughen up ...
Open access notables An intensification of surface Earth’s energy imbalance since the late 20th century, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment:Tracking the energy balance of the Earth system is a key method for studying the contribution of human activities to climate change. However, accurately estimating the surface energy balance ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guests and , ...
“Like you said, I’m an unreconstructed socialist. Everybody deserves to get something for Christmas.”“ONE OF THOSE had better be for me!” Hannah grinned, fascinated, as Laurie made his way, gingerly, to the bar, his arms full of gift-wrapped packages.“Of course!”, beamed Laurie. Depositing his armful on the bar-top and selecting ...
Data released by Statistics New Zealand today showed a significant slowdown in the economy over the past six months, with GDP falling by 1% in September, and 1.1% in June said CTU Economist Craig Renney. “The data shows that the size of the economy in GDP terms is now smaller ...
One last thing before I quitI never wanted any moreThan I could fit into my headI still remember every single word you saidAnd all the shit that somehow came along with itStill, there's one thing that comforts meSince I was always caged and now I'm freeSongwriters: David Grohl / Georg ...
Sparse offerings outside a Te Kauwhata church. Meanwhile, the Government is cutting spending in ways that make thousands of hungry children even hungrier, while also cutting funding for the charities that help them. It’s also doing that while winding back new building of affordable housing that would allow parents to ...
It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management.This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not going to cover the National Party contribution. Frankly, like every other careful observer, I cannot make up ...
This morning I awoke to the lovely news that we are firmly back on track, that is if the scale was reversed.NZ ranks low in global economic comparisonsNew Zealand's economy has been ranked 33rd out of 37 in an international comparison of which have done best in 2024.Economies were ranked ...
Remember those silent movies where the heroine is tied to the railway tracks or going over the waterfall in a barrel? Finance Minister Nicola Willis seems intent on portraying herself as that damsel in distress. According to Willis, this country’s current economic problems have all been caused by the spending ...
Similar to the cuts and the austerity drive imposed by Ruth Richardson in the 1990’s, an era which to all intents and purposes we’ve largely fiddled around the edges with fixing in the time since – over, to be fair, several administrations – whilst trying our best it seems to ...
String-Pulling in the Dark: For the democratic process to be meaningful it must also be public. WITH TRUST AND CONFIDENCE in New Zealand’s politicians and journalists steadily declining, restoring those virtues poses a daunting challenge. Just how daunting is made clear by comparing the way politicians and journalists treated New Zealanders ...
Dear Nicola Willis, thank you for letting us know in so many words that the swingeing austerity hasn't worked.By in so many words I mean the bit where you said, Here is a sea of red ink in which we are drowning after twelve months of savage cost cutting and ...
The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent ...
Today I tuned into something strange: a press conference that didn’t make my stomach churn or the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Which was strange, because it was about the torture of children. It was the announcement by Erica Stanford — on her own, unusually ...
This is a must watch, and puts on brilliant and practical display the implications and mechanics of fast-track law corruption and weakness.CLICK HERE: LINK TO WATCH VIDEOOur news media as it is set up is simply not equipped to deal with the brazen disinformation and corruption under this right wing ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Acting Secretary Erin Polaczuk is welcoming the announcement from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden that she is opening consultation on engineered stone and is calling on her to listen to the evidence and implement a total ban of the product. “We need ...
The Government has announced a 1.5% increase in the minimum wage from 1 April 2025, well below forecast inflation of 2.5%. Unions have reacted strongly and denounced it as a real terms cut. PSA and the CTU are opposing a new round of staff cuts at WorkSafe, which they say ...
The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, ...
Hi there! I’ve been overseas recently, looking after a situation with a family member. So apologies if there any less than focused posts! Vanuatu has just had a significant 7.3 earthquake. Two MFAT staff are unaccounted for with local fatalities.It’s always sad to hear of such things happening.I think of ...
Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of ...
We're going backwardsIgnoring the realitiesGoing backwardsAre you counting all the casualties?We are not there yetWhere we need to beWe are still in debtTo our insanitiesSongwriter: Martin Gore Read more ...
Willis blamed Treasury for changing its productivity assumptions and Labour’s spending increases since Covid for the worsening Budget outlook. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, December 18 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above ...
Today the Auckland Transport board meet for the last time this year. For those interested (and with time to spare), you can follow along via this MS Teams link from 10am. I’ve taken a quick look through the agenda items to see what I think the most interesting aspects are. ...
Hi,If you’re a New Zealander — you know who Mike King is. He is the face of New Zealand’s battle against mental health problems. He can be loud and brash. He raises, and is entrusted with, a lot of cash. Last year his “I Am Hope” charity reported a revenue ...
Probably about the only consolation available from yesterday’s unveiling of the Half-Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) is that it could have been worse. Though Finance Minister Nicola Willis has tightened the screws on future government spending, she has resisted the calls from hard-line academics, fiscal purists and fiscal hawks ...
The right have a stupid saying that is only occasionally true:When is democracy not democracy? When it hasn’t been voted on.While not true in regards to branches of government such as the judiciary, it’s a philosophy that probably should apply to recently-elected local government councillors. Nevertheless, this concept seemed to ...
Long story short: the Government’s austerity policy has driven the economy into a deeper and longer recession that means it will have to borrow $20 billion more over the next four years than it expected just six months ago. Treasury’s latest forecasts show the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s fiscal strategy of ...
Come and join myself and CTU Chief Economist for a pop-up ‘Hoon’ webinar on the Government’s Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) with paying subscribers to The Kākā for 30 minutes at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream to watch our chat. Don’t worry if ...
In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and ...
New data released by the Treasury shows that the economic policies of this Government have made things worse in the year since they took office, said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney. “Our fiscal indicators are all heading in the wrong direction – with higher levels of debt, a higher deficit, and ...
At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms: The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term ...
AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi are saying that the Government should do the right thing and deliver minimum wage increases that don’t see workers fall further behind, in response to today’s announcement that the minimum wage will only be increased by 1.5%, well short of forecast inflation. “With inflation forecast ...
Oh, I weptFor daysFilled my eyesWith silly tearsOh, yeaBut I don'tCare no moreI don't care ifMy eyes get soreSongwriters: Paul Rodgers / Paul Kossoff. Read more ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob HensonIn this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the ...
In August, I wrote an article about David Seymour1 with a video of his testimony, to warn that there were grave dangers to his Ministry of Regulation:David Seymour's Ministry of Slush Hides Far Greater RisksWhy Seymour's exorbitant waste of taxpayers' money could be the least of concernThe money for Seymour ...
Willis is expected to have to reveal the bitter fiscal fruits of her austerity strategy in the HYEFU later today. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, December 17 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast ...
On Friday the government announced it would double the number of toll roads in New Zealand as well as make a few other changes to how toll roads are used in the country. The real issue though is not that tolling is being used but the suggestion it will make ...
The Prime Minister yesterday engaged in what looked like a pre-emptive strike designed to counter what is likely to be a series of depressing economic statistics expected before the end of the week. He opened his weekly post-Cabinet press conference with a recitation of the Government’s achievements. “It certainly has ...
This whooping cough story from south Auckland is a good example of the coalition government’s approach to social need – spend money on urging people to get vaccinated but only after you’ve cut the funding to where they could get vaccinated. This has been the case all year with public ...
And if there is a GodI know he likes to rockHe likes his loud guitarsHis spiders from MarsAnd if there is a GodI know he's watching meHe likes what he seesBut there's trouble on the breezeSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan Read more ...
Here’s a quick round up of today’s political news:1. MORE FOOD BANKS, CHARITIES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTERS AND YOUTH SOCIAL SERVICES SET TO CLOSE OR SCALE BACK AROUND THE COUNTRY AS GOVT CUTS FUNDINGSome of Auckland's largest foodbanks are warning they may need to close or significantly reduce food parcels after ...
Iain Rennie, CNZMSecretary and Chief Executive to the TreasuryDear Secretary, Undue restrictions on restricted briefings This week, the Treasury barred representatives from four organisations, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, from attending the restricted briefing for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update. We had been ...
This is a guest post by Tim Adriaansen, a community, climate, and accessibility advocate.I won’t shut up about climate breakdown, and whenever possible I try to shift the focus of a climate conversation towards solutions. But you’ll almost never hear me give more than a passing nod to ...
A grassroots backlash has forced a backdown from Brown, but he is still eyeing up plenty of tolls for other new roads. And the pressure is on Willis to ramp up the Government’s austerity strategy. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 8, 2024 thru Sat, December 14, 2024. Listing by Category Like last week's summary this one contains the list of articles twice: based on categories and based on ...
I started writing this morning about Hobson’s Pledge, examining the claims they and their supporters make, basically ripping into them. But I kept getting notifications coming through, and not good ones.Each time I looked up, there was another un-subscription message, and I felt a bit sicker at the thought of ...
Once, long before there was Harry and Meghan and Dodi and all those episodes of The Crown, they came to spend some time with us, Charles and Diana. Was there anyone in the world more glamorous than the Princess of Wales?Dazzled as everyone was by their company, the leader of ...
The collective right have a problem.The entire foundation for their world view is antiscientific. Their preferred economic strategies have been disproven. Their whole neoliberal model faces accusations of corporate corruption and worsening inequality. Climate change not only definitely exists, its rapid progression demands an immediate and expensive response in order ...
Just ten days ago, South Korea's president attempted a self-coup, declaring martial law and attempting to have opposition MPs murdered or arrested in an effort to seize unconstrained power. The attempt was rapidly defeated by the national assembly voting it down and the people flooding the streets to defend democracy. ...
National has only been in power for a year, but everywhere you look, its choices are taking New Zealand a long way backwards. In no particular order, here are the National Government's Top 50 Greatest Misses of its first year in power. ...
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...
After years of advocacy, the Green Party is very happy to hear the Government has listened to our collective voices and announced the closure of the greyhound racing industry, by 1 August 2026. ...
In response to a new report from ERO, the Government has acknowledged the urgent need for consistency across the curriculum for Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools. ...
The Green Party is appalled at the Government introducing legislation that will make it easier to penalise workers fighting for better pay and conditions. ...
Thank you for the invitation to speak with you tonight on behalf of the political party I belong to - which is New Zealand First. As we have heard before this evening the Kinleith Mill is proposing to reduce operations by focusing on pulp and discontinuing “lossmaking paper production”. They say that they are currently consulting on the plan to permanently shut ...
Auckland Central MP, Chlöe Swarbrick, has written to Mayor Wayne Brown requesting he stop the unnecessary delays on St James Theatre’s restoration. ...
Kiwis planning a swim or heading out on a boat this summer should remember to stop and think about water safety, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop and ACC and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “New Zealand’s beaches, lakes and rivers are some of the most beautiful in the ...
The Government is urging Kiwis to drive safely this summer and reminding motorists that Police will be out in force to enforce the road rules, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“This time of year can be stressful and result in poor decision-making on our roads. Whether you are travelling to see ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says Health New Zealand will move swiftly to support dozens of internationally-trained doctors already in New Zealand on their journey to employment here, after a tripling of sought-after examination places. “The Medical Council has delivered great news for hardworking overseas doctors who want to contribute ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has appointed Sarah Ottrey to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). “At my first APEC Summit in Lima, I experienced firsthand the role that ABAC plays in guaranteeing political leaders hear the voice of business,” Mr Luxon says. “New Zealand’s ABAC representatives are very well respected and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced four appointments to New Zealand’s intelligence oversight functions. The Honourable Robert Dobson KC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, and the Honourable Brendan Brown KC has been appointed as a Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants. The appointments of Hon Robert Dobson and Hon ...
Improvements in the average time it takes to process survey and title applications means housing developments can progress more quickly, Minister for Land Information Chris Penk says. “The government is resolutely focused on improving the building and construction pipeline,” Mr Penk says. “Applications to issue titles and subdivide land are ...
The Government’s measures to reduce airport wait times, and better transparency around flight disruptions is delivering encouraging early results for passengers ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Improving the efficiency of air travel is a priority for the Government to give passengers a smoother, more reliable ...
The Government today announced the intended closure of the Apollo Hotel as Contracted Emergency Housing (CEH) in Rotorua, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. This follows a 30 per cent reduction in the number of households in CEH in Rotorua since National came into Government. “Our focus is on ending CEH in the Whakarewarewa area starting ...
The Government will reshape vocational education and training to return decision making to regions and enable greater industry input into work-based learning Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds says. “The redesigned system will better meet the needs of learners, industry, and the economy. It includes re-establishing regional polytechnics that ...
The Government is taking action to better manage synthetic refrigerants and reduce emissions caused by greenhouse gases found in heating and cooling products, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds says. “Regulations will be drafted to support a product stewardship scheme for synthetic refrigerants, Ms. Simmonds says. “Synthetic refrigerants are found in a ...
People travelling on State Highway 1 north of Hamilton will be relieved that remedial works and safety improvements on the Ngāruawāhia section of the Waikato Expressway were finished today, with all lanes now open to traffic, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“I would like to acknowledge the patience of road users ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds, has announced a new appointment to the board of Education New Zealand (ENZ). Dr Erik Lithander has been appointed as a new member of the ENZ board for a three-year term until 30 January 2028. “I would like to welcome Dr Erik Lithander to the ...
The Government will have senior representatives at Waitangi Day events around the country, including at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, but next year Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has chosen to take part in celebrations elsewhere. “It has always been my intention to celebrate Waitangi Day around the country with different ...
Two more criminal gangs will be subject to the raft of laws passed by the Coalition Government that give Police more powers to disrupt gang activity, and the intimidation they impose in our communities, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. Following an Order passed by Cabinet, from 3 February 2025 the ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Justice Christian Whata as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Whata’s appointment as a Judge of the Court of Appeal will take effect on 1 August 2025 and fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Hon Justice David Goddard on ...
The latest economic figures highlight the importance of the steps the Government has taken to restore respect for taxpayers’ money and drive economic growth, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Data released today by Stats NZ shows Gross Domestic Product fell 1 per cent in the September quarter. “Treasury and most ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities. “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse ...
Police Minister, Mark Mitchell, and Internal Affairs Minister, Brooke van Velden, today launched a further Public Safety Network cellular service that alongside last year’s Cellular Roaming roll-out, puts globally-leading cellular communications capability into the hands of our emergency responders. The Public Safety Network’s new Cellular Priority service means Police, Wellington ...
State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge has officially reopened today, providing a critical link for Northlanders and offering much-needed relief ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“The Mangamuka Gorge is a vital route for Northland, carrying around 1,300 vehicles per day and connecting the Far ...
The Government has welcomed decisions by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and Ashburton District Council confirming funding to boost resilience in the Canterbury region, with construction on a second Ashburton Bridge expected to begin in 2026, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Delivering a second Ashburton Bridge to improve resilience and ...
The Government is backing the response into high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Otago, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says. “Cabinet has approved new funding of $20 million to enable MPI to meet unbudgeted ongoing expenses associated with the H7N6 response including rigorous scientific testing of samples at the enhanced PC3 ...
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Today the House agreed to Brendan Horsley being appointed Inspector-General of Defence, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Mr Horsley’s experience will be invaluable in overseeing the establishment of the new office and its support networks. “He is currently Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, having held that role since June 2020. ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government has agreed to the final regulations for the levy on insurance contracts that will fund Fire and Emergency New Zealand from July 2026. “Earlier this year the Government agreed to a 2.2 percent increase to the rate of levy. Fire ...
The Government is delivering regulatory relief for New Zealand businesses through changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act. “The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill, which was introduced today, is the second Bill – the other being the Statutes Amendment Bill - that ...
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Mr Roger Holmes Miller and Ms Tarita Hutchinson have been appointed to the Charities Registration Board, Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Louise Upston says. “I would like to welcome the new members joining the Charities Registration Board. “The appointment of Ms Hutchinson and Mr Miller will strengthen the Board’s capacity ...
More building consent and code compliance applications are being processed within the statutory timeframe since the Government required councils to submit quarterly data, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “In the midst of a housing shortage we need to look at every step of the build process for efficiencies ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey is proud to announce the first three recipients of the Government’s $10 million Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector Innovation Fund which will enable more Kiwis faster access to mental health and addiction support. “This fund is part of the Government’s commitment to investing in ...
New Zealand is providing Vanuatu assistance following yesterday's devastating earthquake, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. "Vanuatu is a member of our Pacific family and we are supporting it in this time of acute need," Mr Peters says. "Our thoughts are with the people of Vanuatu, and we will be ...
The Government welcomes the Commerce Commission’s plan to reduce card fees for Kiwis by an estimated $260 million a year, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says.“The Government is relentlessly focused on reducing the cost of living, so Kiwis can keep more of their hard-earned income and live a ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour has welcomed the Early Childhood Education (ECE) regulatory review report, the first major report from the Ministry for Regulation. The report makes 15 recommendations to modernise and simplify regulations across ECE so services can get on with what they do best – providing safe, high-quality care ...
The Government‘s Offshore Renewable Energy Bill to create a new regulatory regime that will enable firms to construct offshore wind generation has passed its first reading in Parliament, Energy Minister Simeon Brown says.“New Zealand currently does not have a regulatory regime for offshore renewable energy as the previous government failed ...
Summer reissue: Was it a false measurement, a full-blown conspiracy or just some mild incompetence? Mad Chapman uncovers the truth of Maddi Wesche’s final throw. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and ...
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NewsroomBy Dr Lisa Darragh, Dr Raewyn Eden and Dr David Pomeroy
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Fascinating read into the anxious incompetence of supposed sound financial managers, John Key and Bill English.
The pair of them pissed $1B down the drain.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/112420653/was-the-1b-fate-of-scf-sealed-by-this-one-simple-misunderstanding
They made policy in a day, and ditched him in a minute. Not the mates I'd ever want.
two smiles for Muttonbird. absolutely correct.
Show pony ShonKey was a agent of the global elite.
From the same article:
"But then came the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC). The Labour government was panicked into introducing the Crown retail deposit guarantee scheme to prevent a collapse in confidence in the banking and finance company sector.
The taxpayer was suddenly underwriting savers in what mostly looked like sound businesses."
Oh dear, simon thinks he has the scoop, claiming to have a leaked cabinet paper re the cannabis referendum….
Turns out the so called leaked paper he has is out of date….. lolololz…. did any of the news agencies check the story before running it? Will news agencies now set the story straight? If not what does that say about NZ media?
https://twitter.com/_chloeswarbrick/status/1124878753618845696
i don’t see her posting any evidence to back up her claim.
"we’ve invited them to work collaboratively multiple times,"
You reckon that's not true, James?
What would count as evidence?
"we’ve invited them to work collaboratively multiple times,"
National are not interested in working collaboratively.
Witness the vicious public attacks on the Green Party and the government by Todd Muller over the Zero Carbon Bill.
Not to mention the resulting "flexible" rubber chicken that is the outcome of trying to pander to them.
Anyone who claims they are surprised, after New Zealand's greenhouse emissions continue to rise, after the passing of the Zero Carbon Act, will be a liar.
TROLL Jimmy boy. The biggest Billy Goat Gruff is coming.
james aka asswipe
National wont release the paper or say who gave it to them. No evidence.
Maybe Simon had another "slushy" brain fart moment.
It's almost like they find some info, think it's a big scoop, do nothing to fact check and then roll with it, just like last Monday and probably the Monday before that and so on.
Meanwhile Stuff appears to be burying the story while both paula bennet and tova o'brien are looking rather foolish on the twitter.
Probably found it in a rubbish bin and thought they were super dooper secret agents. Didn't occur to them that it might be out of date rubbish.
Chloe, why does that not surprise me at all.
“The paper the Nats have got hold of is out of date”
By the way Chloe; – please tell Julie Anne that we all in HB/Gisborne support her call to lower the speed of all "dangerous roads down to an 80 kms speed to lower the deaths on these narrow winding regional potholed roads.
You must push to restore rail passenger services around our provinces too.
Julie Anne also needs to support us and speak for us in the press to reopen the rail services they promised us before the last election to Gisborne .
Simply so we older retired folks can use rail safely to get to our families.
you speak for “all” do you – but full of your own importance there clean green.
"By the way …"
That's not how portfolio responsibility works.
So how did they get hold of the "out of date" paper?
Who gave it to them?
They retrieved it from the shredder and won't release it because we'd see the pieces sellotaped together so they could read it…
The whisky stains may have been a clue.
Given how the Greens are being treated as the Coalitions lap dog, I doubt Chloe would have a clue.
On said issue Chloe is probably the most versed of all the MP's.
Good on her for calling out paula's shite, once again.
Huh? Paula's 'shite'? This is about an alleged leak, nothing to do with the merits or otherwise of decriminalising drugs.
Actually, it's about a ladder-kicking self-promoter angling for a tilt at the practically-vacant caucus leadership by releasing "leaked" out of date information when they would have had the current information if they'd accepted an invitation to actually participate in the process.
Actually it's not. It's about an irrelevant MP from an irrelevant political party claiming to know the leaked material was old but providing zero evidence. Meanwhile, the Greens continue to be Labours lap dog.
It's about an irrelevant MP from an irrelevant political party claiming to know the leaked material was
oldcurrent but providing zero evidence.When has the Green Party been the largest political party in NZ?
That would be never.
When have the Greens led a government?
That would be never.
The Greens are nothing more than also rans, a repository for benefit frauds, those who misrepresent their work history, or who seem to think reclaiming the ‘c’ word is somehow virtuous. No wonder bugger all people vote for them.
Ah, the "look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" argument as to why paula benefit is anything other than a dumpster-diver.
The issue is 'relevance'.
Precisely. National chose to be irrelevant on this issue, that is why their information is out of date. They should be at the table, rather than going through the rubbish bins.
Alluding to past glories does not hide the fact that the fractured remnants of the nat caucus are in the wastelands of opposition.
So having an opposing opinion to you is 'irrelevance'. You have a history of similar opinions McFlock.
No – a pretender to an opposition throne dumpster-diving to find out what happened at meetings they refused to attend is irrelevant.
I don't even know what Benefit's opinion on MJ is. I just know it won't affect the government decision. Therefore: irrelevant.
So 6.3% of voters is "bugger all people" – how's that working out?
In the context of the comparison you were making, yes, it is bugger all.
keep telling yourself that a coalition party's spokesperson on the relevant issue knows less about cross-party work on the issue than a fifth-rate ladder-kicker who was handed a bit of trash.
I wonder if one of Judith's friends gave Bennett the paper, knowing it was out of date?
The Green Party spokesperson would know very little on any issue. Labour treat them like shite.
lol no, that's how national treated its own coalition "partners". Labour are better than that at making and keeping friends. After all, that's why they're in government and Benefit isn't..
National didn't need to get from 35% to form a government. The tail (NZF) is most definitely this dog. Meanwhile, the Greens aren’t even in the pound.
And National, the biggest party in parliament – where are they?
Sinking into the swamp, with millstone Simon around their neck.
Drowsy, National are simply at a predictable stage of an electoral cycle in which people are more consumed with the PM's baby than with her governments failings. It is amusing, because meanwhile nothing much gets changed, which is all good with me. But let me ask you this. At the same stage of the electoral cycle in 2010, where were Labour? Around 31%, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2011_New_Zealand_general_election.
I too find National's current plight amusing, so we can agree on that.
Wonder how much apparent effort the ‘no mates party’ will put into courting the ‘irrelevant’ 6.3% in 2020.
That you’re all good with nothing much changing is a bit of a giveaway – how much longer to you reckon this golden weather can last?
At the same stage of the electoral cycle in 2010, where were Labour? Around 31%…
Greens were on 9%, so the left parties then were around 40%, about the same as the right parties' current 40%. A situation also known as "Up shit creek with little prospect of winning the next election."
It's actually a little bit sad that many tories don't know how respectful partnerships work between colleagues who are not in complete agreement.
It's as if the only relationship they can envisage in that circumstance is inherently abusive, where the party with the most to lose ends up a manipulated supplicant, forced to endure incessant humiliation and exploitation from the more powerful party.
"Greens were on 9%,"
Irrelevant. Unless you are suggesting the Greens are Labour lacky's?
"It's actually a little bit sad that many tories don't know how respectful partnerships work between colleagues who are not in complete agreement."
It's actually a bit sad when supporters of a government support party don't realise when they're getting screwed over. Which is why you're getting headlines like this https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12228385.
Irrelevant. Unless you are suggesting the Greens are Labour lacky's?
There are two left-wing parties and two right-wing parties. What matters is the combined support for the two parties, not the proportion of support held by an individual party. It doesn't matter whether a 41% level of support for right-wing parties might be 40% National and 1% ACT, while a 41% level of support for left-wing parties might be 35% Labour and 6% Green. The outlook for election results is the same in both cases – screwed.
"There are two left-wing parties and two right-wing parties. "
Yep, you're suggesting the Green are Labour's lacky's. Still, there is ample evidence to back you up.
The National party has no mates – they can't even buy a decent lacky.
The National party lament:
Devious thinking!
Given how the Greens are being treated as the Coalitions lap dog, I doubt Chloe would have a clue.
It's almost comical how the ignorant are often full of confidence that people who know a lot more than them about any given subject actually don't have a clue. Although, on reflection, I might be confusing "comical" with "depressing commentary on the state of humanity."
Or you may simply be naively assuming Labour give a rats backside about what the Greens want. Winston Peters has the last say, not the Greens.
How are your opinions of relationships between the governing coalition partners relevant to the question of whether Chlöe Swarbrick "would have a clue" about issues of cannabis legalisation?
Because the relationship is so distant that she wouldn't know whether or not the leaked document was current or old. The Greens have been on the outer of so many decisions this government has made they are becoming a joke.
Your theory that the Greens in cabinet don't keep their spokeswoman on this issue up to date on cabinet's deliberations on the subject is an interesting one but not a very likely one.
If a party is considered a "joke" by people who would never vote for it, who in that party would care? I doubt anyone in the ACT Party reads my opinions of David Seymour and thinks "Oh no, this means we're losing our left-wing voter base!"
Psycho Milt
Great tennis match, your serves and returns are excellent. You are definitely the winner on all points.
I don't think the Greens are a joke. I think this government is turning them into a joke.
"We've made it abundantly clear throughout the negotiations that our preferred position was to see legislation passed through parliament before the referendum…"
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/cannabis-referendum-to-be-a-yes-no-question-govt-confirms/ar-AAAZhmO?ocid=spartandhp
Another fail.
Trump voters were motivated by racism and sexism, not their finances. https://psmag.com/news/new-study-confirms-again-that-race-not-economics-drove-former-democrats-to-trump
Yep, it'd pay to be a seething lowlife to back that man. There's no other decent explanation to sink so low except one is bounded by hatred and ignorance and wishing to bestow blame on others for personal limitations.
That'll work. Get a few university elites to tell 'em they're just a bunch of racists. And by the way we can't help or work with racist deplorables. Our work here is done.
I know right. Calling a racist a racist and a sexist a sexist is just plain mean. They should be able to base their lives around falsities, victimising and fear. Calling them out is victimising them.
What these racist wife beaters need is support groups – like the US Republicans.
Grace and decency is all well and good, but you can't meet a bigot in the middle. You can't be nice to racists in the hope that they might be nice to you and fights have always been won by fighting, not cuddling. You may not like it, but it's true.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/388549/whangarei-people-with-disabilities-join-city-s-homeless
The town's Open Arms day centre for the homeless says high rents are forcing more people on to the streets as winter approaches – and a number of them have serious disabilities.
"Some are too immobile or in too much pain to get out of their cars to come in for lunch so we take the food out to them in the carpark," manager Sam Cassidy said.
When RNZ paid a visit on Thursday, several regulars were toughing it out in their vehicles, with bedding crammed into the back seats.
One older man was hunched over the driving wheel of his van in obvious discomfort.
The 70-year-old former farm worker has been waiting years for a knee replacement, and he told RNZ he was on morphine for the pain.
Not that it helps much, he said.
"I can't bloody walk at the moment, eh. Might as well cut the leg off and be done with it."
The pensioner left his rental home near Kaikohe last winter when the landlord put the rent up.
"He wanted $200 a week for a leaky home – I couldn't pay that."
He's been living in his van with his small dog, ever since.
I honestly don't know what to say about this.
Elsewhere there's a conversation developing about how badly some folk treat other folk that was triggered by an article featuring an eighty year old fired in an email.
Welcome to 2019, old- timer.
I guess a working eighty year old's dignity deserves greater protection than that of those who perhaps struggle to manage the basics.
But no one deserves to be forced to live in a car.
In pain, injured, living with significant impairments and often mental health and addiction issues.
With a 15 year old son crammed in the back seat of the Suzuki car.
I really don't know…so much for this coalition of kindness, this transformational government claptrap.
These folk aren't feeling the love, that's for sure.
Where are the homes for the homeless Jacinda? You promised.
(And no, sending them off to live in a motel is not the answer.)
I despair.
Rosemary, I think it's time to go on another media blackout. It's just getting too depressing again. More and more stories like this are going to keep surfacing, but seriously, what's going to change?
Now on the 6 month countdown to the end of my lease and hoping like hell I can get it rolled over. You see, I'm not allowed to drive so I don't have a car to sleep in… why the hell are we having to live (exist) like this??
They are waiting for a new machine to be developed to solve the problem.
Maybe the Welfare Working Group report will be a game-changer. Chris Trotter on WWG. https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/99513/chris-trotter-looks-how-sepulonis-welfare-reform-agenda-bumps-against-robertsons
There is every reason for Robertson to be all over this hands-on approach to moving citizens from welfare to work. He was, after all, the man assigned the task of investigating “The Future of Work” by Labour leader, Jacinda Ardern’s, predecessor, Andrew Little. He knows full well that as artificial intelligence wipes out more-and-more middle-class professional occupations, the whole concept of a “steady, well-paid, nine-to-five job” will become increasingly archaic. The trick, politically, will be to make it possible for the same technological and scientific revolution that is wiping out all these “good” jobs to be harnessed to the task of ensuring that the emerging “gig economy” is both less individually exploitative and more socially beneficial.
It is in this potentially game-changing context that the Ministry of Social Development might finally begin to live up to its name. The expertise it gains in assisting the least qualified and most vulnerable citizens into situations where their strengths can be maximised and their weaknesses worked around will become increasingly useful in a society where the work required to make profits for capitalists will be the preserve of intelligent machines, and the work required to sustain social, cultural and physical environments will be the preserve – and delight – of human-beings.
Seeing as around half the children living in poverty come from working households, it would be wiser for the Government to first improve work and wage conditions if they want work to be the solution.
Yes old containers is it GWS?
Govt underwhelms with welfare report response.
Calls again being made for a new political party to better represent the left.
Mouthpieces of the left widely disappointed.
Labour are proving to be unwilling to deliver. The Greens are just bloody hopeless. Is a new party of the left the answer?
Barracuda cruising around waiting for victims to bite and gloat over political disappointments.
This goes beyond political disappointment. This is about denying via delaying further help to real people struggling in poverty. So no, I'm not here to gloat, I'm seeking solutions. Is a new left party the answer or do you think it will be possible to encourage Labour to act with urgency?
No hope for progressive welfare reform from this government – Sue Bradford.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/06-05-2019/no-hope-for-progressive-welfare-reform-from-this-government/?utm_source=The+Bulletin&utm_campaign=be05b653ca-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_01_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_552336e15a-be05b653ca-533756713
No hope for progressive welfare reform from this government – Sue Bradford.
No mandate from voters for radical welfare reform from this government – Psycho Milt.
Where is your evidence for that?
here
Using McFlock's handy link, the evidence that voters gave no mandate for radical welfare reform:
1. Parties supporting progressive welfare reform of any description (Labour and Green): 54 seats.
2. Parties opposed to progressive welfare reform of any description (National, NZF, ACT): 66 seats.
Now it's your turn (or Bradford's): what evidence is there that Labour/Green have either a mandate from voters or the numbers in Parliament to enact the radical welfare reform you'd like to see?
McFlock’s handy link fails to back your assertion.
Where is your evidence NZF are opposed?
This report (in the link below) counters your NZF assertion.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/05/welfare-reform-government-announces-law-changes.html
Well, duh – if it wasn't willing to support these limited actions that you're turning your nose up at, the actions wouldn't be happening.
The party's fundamental principles state:
The Welfare State must be an umbrella to meet genuine and deserving need. Government has a duty to properly determine those needs and respond to them. That said, social welfare must no longer neglect assisting recipients to become independent of the State.
Note the bit about welfare being for the "deserving," and the importance of making recipients independent of the state. I'm not seeing any support for what the likes of Sue Bradford would call "progressive" reform in that.
That (what you posted) doesn't counter their stated support of the "much needed overhaul."
You're not making sense. Labour and the Greens are willing to commit to this level of action, and you call it "beyond political disappointment" and "denying help to people struggling in poverty." Sue Bradford describes it as "no hope for progressive reform."
NZ First are also willing to commit to this level of action, and you claim it's evidence of their commitment to progressive reform.
So, is this action demonstrative of commitment to progressive reform or not? If it is, stop bad-mouthing Labour and the Greens over it. If it isn't, accept that NZF's fundamental principles are in opposition to the radical reform you and Bradford would prefer to see.
But he is not here to concern troll Winston First.
The Greens, Labour, and NZF are all supportive of the report and are committed to doing more, it's the extremely long delay that goes beyond disappointment.
Whereas, you've claimed NZF opposes the overhaul. Which, evidently isn't so.
Now you are suggesting NZF's opposition (which you have failed to prove) is the reason for the hold up. Yet, I've yet to hear the Greens, Labour or NZF claim that. Therefore, where is your evidence for this nonsense?
Labour are largely claiming (such as Incognito is) it is going to take years to formulate policy. Which, is total rubbish.
No, I'm suggesting that the government has no mandate from voters for radical welfare reform and that's why it's taking a cautious approach. The retirees and rural conservatives who vote NZF don't do so because of their enthusiasm for radical leftist policy, and Labour also has a considerable bloc of electoral support that is really not very left-wing. The fact that you and Sue Bradford would like the government to pursue a far more radical agenda than it has a mandate for is worth one vote apiece, so you can expect the government to value your preference on that basis.
Here we go again. You've yet to prove that. Merely repeating it doesn't make it so.
Sixty-five percent of New Zealand First supporters wanted the party to go with Labour. Who widely campaigned on addressing poverty and inequality.
Additionally, if it were just Bradford and I that are disappointed Labour wouldn't have a problem. Unfortunately for them, the disappointment is widespread.
Moreover, failing to deliver on more of the recommendations sooner will lead to their fiscal management coming under the spotlight. People will question why they aren't prepared to invest now to save the greater cost and social harm of not doing so.
lol
2/3 NZ1 voters supported Labour's welfare policies? OK, let's be generous and take that interpretation. 6 of NZ1's 9 seats go left.
labgrnNZ1(left):46+8+6 = 60
NACTNZ1(noreform):56+1+3 = 60
60:60 is not a mandate for radical welfare reform.
Of course I can't prove that the retirees and rural conservatives voting NZF weren't doing so in the hope that the party would promote a radical left policy agenda. Likewise, I can't prove there aren't fairies at the bottom of your garden.
However, we can have a high level of confidence that there actually aren't fairies at the bottom of your garden, and likewise we can have a high level of confidence that Winston's retirees and rural conservatives really didn't vote for his party because they felt it would promote their desire for radical left reform.
Voter support for radical welfare reform comes from Green voters, a subset of Labour voters, and (presumably) a subset of NZF voters. Most likely there were also some supporters who gave their support to sub-5% parties, but their votes don't count. I'd question whether the voter support for Bradford-style reform was any higher than voter support for further right-wing restrictions on welfare. In short – no mandate.
I'd argue that the reason why Labour is struggling with welfare reform is simply because none of the mainstream parties have a clue how to go about it.
I doubt that is the hold up.
They're stuck fiddling with a fundamentally broken system. If they had a reform model that was efficient and made sense to the majority of people they would have gotten on with it by now.
The report highlights what is required. Therefore, it's not that they don't have a clue.
They aren't stuck fiddling, they are stalling.
The report is not a detailed blueprint for transformative policy. The Government needs to take in the report and design a coherent suite of policies, a policy platform, which addresses as many points raised in the report as possible as well as many others that are completely outside the report. That’s the job of the Government and it is a huge one. One of the obstacles they’ll face is that they’ll have to deconstruct to rebuild. That is never an easy thing to do in politics and comes with risk and upheaval. And it takes time!
People are jumping up & down in a frenzy, impatiently shrieking “Scrap this! Do that! The report!!”. As if saying “make it so” makes it so.
Of course, the Government is out of its depth. But they took on the job and they should bloody well get on with it (AKA let’s do this). And I think they are. I have to think so because otherwise we are utterly stuffed. As with Climate Change …
I never stated the report is a detailed blueprint. But it is a comprehensive report that outlines what is required.
Nevertheless, I understand formulating policy will take time, but it shouldn't take years. Hence, the widespread disappointment and public uproar.
If Labour were wise and wanted to keep supporters onside, they will offer more in the up coming Budget.
The last thing Labour will want is a new left party forming out of the growing disappointment (TPP, CGT, welfare reform etc…).
I see, you are a policy analyst now, in fact, a whole team of senior policy analysts. You know exactly how to take the recommendations of the report and turn them into effective policy. You know how to avoid gaps, overlap, duplicity, unintended consequences, clashes with other existing and/or new policies, compliance issues with the Law, budget blowouts, etc. You know how to get these policies pushed through the political system and Parliament, if any bills or amendments are required. You know all these things and yet you don’t tell us or anybody in Government. All you do is criticise in an unconstructive manner. Your concerns lack credibility IMO.
Again, nobody is expecting them to deliver it tomorrow, but as the report highlights, it requires urgent attention and Labour are not acting with urgency, hence the uproar.
This failure to act with urgency will lead to a lot of avoidable social ills and cost the lives of a number of those struggling. It's shameful.
I see, you want Labour to run around like headless chickens giving the impression of urgency and immediate action while serious policy professionals burn the midnight oil to draft policy. What exactly do you want Labour to do urgently, Mr Policy Analyst? Should they call a National Emergency, cancel all rugby matches and flights in and out of Wellington until all recommendations of the report have been fully tested and implemented? Or should they continue to govern this country whilst absorbing the report and putting a coherent plan together? I hear you roar and bark but very little of substance seems to emanate from you.
I said act with urgency (not headless chickens) as the report recommended. So you do understand this isn't just coming from me a single voice in the crowd? Seems you missed my little tutorial on Labour trolls.
Lifting benefits (and all interrelated criteria) must be done first and foremost.
Again, you offer nothing constructive and of substance. You act like an impatient petulant child chanting “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”. Ad infinitum. You feel bolstered because of other ignorant children chanting the same tune. You understand that repeating your own lines it does not make it happen? You understand that your ‘tutorials’ are simply rants? You understand that engaging Government is a little more nuanced than simply stating demands and ‘huffing & puffing’ when they don’t respond immediately?
For the record, benefits need to be lifted and brought into line with wages and CoL. You see, I even agree with you …
There wasn't any mandate for asset sales either. Didn't seem to trouble the pollies.
That is untrue Stuart, and you know it.
National listed the assets they proposed to sell if they were re-elected in 2011. They did it prior to the election. Well they were elected and they did sell the assets. Your mates in the current Government claimed they were going to buy them back, didn't they?
Well how is that going?
First of all, there had been plenty of polling which show in excess of 75% of people opposed asset sales. And then there was the 2013 referendum which also indicated asset sales lacked a popular mandate, 67% being opposed. A referendum the corrupt Key Kleptocracy naturally ignored.
"That is untrue Stuart, and you know it."
What I know Alwyn, is that you don't have a leg to stand on and as usual you have resorted to making shit up.
Good luck with that Chairman.”encourage Labour to act with urgency?”
No Labour is being run by the treasuy surely you can see that.
So where to for the left from here, cleangreen?
If Labour’s response to the Welfare Report results in a big slide in their polling, do you think that will encourage them to change?
To think, not long ago I was on the verge of rejoining the Labour Party.
Two things made me hold off, despite the promises of transformational change and the grand plans – most of which I am/was in agreement with, and which 'resonated' with coalition partners. I'll probably still have to continue with Labour/left (maybe) because, as always it's becoming evident it might be the least worst option
But, the first thing was when being unintentionally stuck half/quarter way up a himalaya unintentionally doing a Ben Fogle for a few months and receiving a sibling/Jacinda Adern's "selfie' at a gorgeous post-election Martinborough Conference. All around me, and half a world away, people and families had been adversely affected in some way by all the "best practice" of NZ (and OZ, UK, and to a lesser extent, Canadian Immigration policy) – i.e. truly ripped off as a result of false promises, outright lying, lack of basic government oversight, and what amounts to the same sort of 19thCentury colonial thinking. In many cases, those "best practice" policies had been just as devastating as the large international corporate impact on farming and subsistence living right throughout families beneath central and north western Himalyan areas – indebtedness, desperation (leading to) suicides, the works! In fact, quite obviously under the previous gNat junta, it had all been not just enabled, but also encouraged. The bizzniss of shitty immigration, shoddy tertiary education, exploitative work practices, ticket clipping – in some cases worse than one expects from 3rd World places.
Yes! I L-G is a nice guy; J A is a nice compassionate lady; I L-G had himself been exploited and knows what's going on; the gNats have left such a shambles that needs to be fixed, and Rome wasn't built in a day.
And then all that leading to the second. Given all the above, and the apparent awareness among Labour politicians of all the problems left by a decade or more of bullshit, of under-funding and under-resourcing, an apparent lack of awareness of those complicit and encouraging the dysfunction.
I think I've given enough time for sufficient 'conversations' out of which there have been a number of 'learnings' (and as I think I heard JA say on RNZ MR last Thursday or Friday ), some 'resonations' – which presumably means agreements.
The Natives are getting restless, and it'd be a big bloody shame for Labour to piss their political capital (which is well on the credit side of the ledger) up against the wall, on the trivial – especially when there are some really easy things that they could be doing that don't require legislative change that'd earn a few brownie points. Perhaps the problem might be that JA and cohorts are too nice – alternatively that they're a little bit naive.
Meantime, in the absence of anything else, it'll be a case of the least worst option, but it's all a bit reminiscent of a staunch Labour father-in-law abandoning the party when it embraced the neo-liberal religion.
, despite
It will no doubt be the position of a number on the left.
Well that, AND simply more and more becoming disengaged and staying away from the polling booth.
The worst part of it all is that it's not as though Labour and its partners don't have a few quite smart cookies within their ranks. Especially when you contrast it all with the current gNat crop on the front bench.
Like I said, from what I can see, the natives are becoming quite restless whilst the bubblistas continue to sup.
In fact, despite Winnie's fatherly oversight and willingness to protect the current star (who deservedly does have all that star status), I would'nt be surprised if there are a few in NZ1 who're beginning to worry about a bit of the namby pamby-ism. After all, NZ1 have made a few 'compromises' as well when they signed up to it all.
We'll see I 'spose. We get the politicians (and the bullshit artists) we deserve……and apparently, we don't know how lucky we are
Charman, where did you get that load of crap. Hosking or Hooton ?
From left leaning mouthpieces and social advocates on NZ social media.
The Governments inaction over the Welfare Report is going down like a cup of cold sick.
Moreover, their failure to address more of the reports recommendations looks fiscally irresponsible as the savings it produced going forward would outweigh the cost of investing more now.
" their failure to address more of the reports recommendations looks fiscally irresponsible as the savings it produced going forward would outweigh the cost of investing more now."
Absolutely.
Labour and the Greens made all this song and dance about their BRR and being fiscally responsible to avoid attacks from the right, only to now act fiscally irresponsible, gifting National more ammo to shoot them down with. Go figure?
Seems they'd rather risk their fiscal reputation than act fiscally responsible and help the poor.
yes WTB
"Penny wise pound foolish"
So who are these left leaning mouthpieces chairman, speak up we are waiting.
Sue Bradford
Max Rashbrooke
Susan St John
Martyn Bradbury
Bryan Bruce
The Salvation Army
God, You are Pathetic.
A post on TDB on hate speech, George Orwell, Phil Quin, Stuff and Golriz Ghahraman by Chris Trotter in April 2019. I think Trotter makes good points. (For those who didn't see it earlier.) https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/04/15/recognising-hate-speech-when-you-see-it/
In an alternative universe, only slightly different to this one, Ghahraman would be leading the charge against kneejerk demands for blanket curbs on hate speech. She would be reminding New Zealanders of what it actually involves: radio stations broadcasting instructions to “kill the cockroaches” (i.e. the Tutsis). She would explain how these incitements to genocide were preceded by many months of unrestrained racial vilification across all media.
n that universe, Ghahraman would be calming down her more zealous followers: warning them that unreasoning zealotry is always the problem – never the solution. She would also be reassuring them that New Zealand’s statute books already contain plenty of legal remedies against dangerously hateful expression.
The reason why the Green Party leadership should pay heed to Quin’s biting criticism of Ghahraman’s failure to supply much-needed guidance on this issue, is because he is very far from the only person expressing misgivings about the Greens’ justice spokesperson.
(I like the quote that Trotter picked:
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” ― George Orwell (goodreads)
So the Trotsker reckons hate speech is the truth? Lovely.
Super-cynicism there Gabby, but maybe he is saying that Hate Speech is linked to fear or dislike of the truth? Usually it is linked to a false truth, to my mind.
So now we have Fake Truth. ?
Hmmmm, despotic leader, implementation of sharia based law, shit loads of oil…
Anyone told John Bolton?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/05/brunei-says-it-will-not-enforce-lgbt-gay-sex-death-penalty-after-backlash?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Appreciate your point, Kevin, but let's be clear about this: Bolton is in no way a morally superior or more responsible person than the Sultan of Brunei or anyone else.
Hell, even Prince Jeffie is a saint compared to Bolton.
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/brunei-sultans-salacious-family-secret/news-story/8ba6a2827705c8a699f01335487b2649
To morrissey. Bolton is a 'industry armament agent' initiating more war,
The sooner we find an alternative to oil, the better. Not just for environmental reasons, but political as well.
Where would all these evil dictatorships be without the oil to prop up their insanity?
Agreed peter,
Behind big oil is the road freight industry and the truck building industry, so they are layered interest groups all pushing to use more oil so their profit rises.
They all hate rail as it uses far less oil and use no tyres that are produced using oil as well, so that is why rail is given the heave ho by these criminals sadly.
It’s World Press Freedom Day
https://newmatilda.com/2019/05/05/where-is-julian-assange-on-world-press-freedom-day-and-whats-torture-got-to-do-with-it/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork
The public cheated of building use because of inadequate design allowing for robust and practical use in a coastal position which has led to toxicity and now likely demolishment 20 years later after years of deterioration.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/110570207/at-least-16-years-of-leaks-revealed-for-kapiti-library-now-closed-due-to-mould (February 2019)
and
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/112427024/its-a-writeoff-kpiti-coast-council-reveals-yet-another-leaky-mouldy-building (May 2019)
Councillor Scott serves up the indigestible facts on the Paraparaumu library.
""They're proposing to spend $1.2m on a building worth $1.2m. The only money we should be spending is to run a bulldozer over it.""
This is the second Kapiti Coast council building to be affected. Who were the prime movers involved in enabling the building of these with new unproved systems?
In February, it was revealed 16 years of known leaks led to last year's closure of the Waikanae library due to toxic mould. About 27,000 books were decontaminated but its reopening date remains unclear.
The background to the building of the Paraparaumu Library.
In 1998 the Council agreed to site a new library to the northwest of the Rimu Road council building. This decision reopened questions about a vision for a town centre – and plans for the new library were temporarily put on hold. In April 2001, councillors voted unanimously for the new library concept plan – with a focus for community pride and awareness.
Fletcher Construction received the contract to build the new library designed by Warren and Mahoney Architects. The new Paraparaumu Public Library opened in November 2002. https://www.kapiticoast.govt.nz/libraries/my-library/about-the-library/history-mission-statement/
Ironically in April this year there was a meeting there to discuss the problems and hazards of 5g EMF. So while the public are trying to deal with degraded building standards for structures we have been building for centuries, now with perverted methods, they are confronted with new and dangerous future-changing and very likely toxic technology looming over them. Coping with all this, trying to comprehend; how hard, how difficult!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_homes_crisis
https://www.prendos.co.nz/leaky-buildings-hide-their-secrets/
Harry [Harry Dillon, Property consultant with Prendos] questions whether untreated timber framing and various cladding systems should ever have been permissible under New Zealand construction law (use of untreated timber framing in houses has been largely banned since July 2011). The problem was already known in Canada, where it is called “leaky condo syndrome”, he says, and Canadians are now going back to fix what they thought they had already fixed years ago as we are now doing in New Zealand too….
What causes leaky buildings? (See panel.) Harry puts it down to people opting for the cheapest price, and being willing to accept cheaper untreated wood from dominant timber companies. It was also poor design coupled with a drive to maximise the house size on its footprint, typically using Tuscan-styled architecture. Couple these to a general lack of knowledge and skill and a 1991 performance-based building code that permitted “fit-for-purpose” product to be used, and you can have leaky buildings.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=2847786 Lessons our Builders should have learned. September 2002
The [Canadian] Barrett commission [1998 and 2000] estimated there were serious leaks in about 25 per cent of British Columbia's condominiums (multi-unit apartments or developments) built from 1980-99. Experts later estimated that more than half leaked, and one report put the problem rate as high as 90 per cent….
Canada's experience is effectively the blueprint for New Zealand's leaky building crisis. When the building industry here belatedly woke up to the problem in March, [2002] it called in experts from Vancouver to lead a "weathertightness" conference in Auckland.
So the war on terrorism was started with the death of 3 and a half thousand US citizens lives.
But the US can kill near on 40,000 in Venezuela via sanctions in two year. The real kicker is that media tells us the democratically elected government in Venezuela is evil.
Simply put, which no doubt someone will work out a weaselly way to side track this – the US sanctions would fit the definition of collective punishment of the civilian population as described in both the Geneva and Hague international conventions.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1905/S00001/40000-dead-venezuelans-under-us-sanctions-media-ignores.htm
Simon's scapegoat resigns.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/nationals-emotional-junior-staffer-resigns
NZEI vice president Liam Rutherford says the results send a clear message to the Government, now is the time to do something.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/05/public-overwhelmingly-backs-more-money-for-teachers-poll.html
Conflict with Iran another step closer.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/06/us-deploys-aircraft-carrier-and-bombers-after-troubling-indications-from-iran
Jesus Christ!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12228263
I saw an online interview with a prominent American psychiatrist the other day. He is certain Trump is in the early stages of dementia and regards the Republican Party's refusal to have Trump impeached for this reason alone as bordering on treason.
Sorry, I don't know where I saw it.
Great interview from RT with one of the greatest political cartoonists of any period, Steve Bell…about the only thing with any credibility left on The Guardian.
I enjoy their reporting on the football.
Mondays on Morning Report sounds more like a party political broadcast on behalf of the National Party, who the hell is running RNZ National ? I thought the Silver Fox had gone.
Crap ring Jacinda.
Send him back to the shops.
1.5 e colour, VVS1, or better.
Come on team.
Didn't pick you for a fashionista!
Recycling (a family heirloom) might be preferable to consumerism – walking the talk
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute
https://youtu.be/tgIqecROs5M
This bad weather that went through America was not well published trump suppressing our reality once again the Papatuanukue has to act NOW to save our decendints future. PLEASE PEOPLE.
We’re talking about an event here of historic proportions, circumstances that nobody ever recalls ever happening in their lifetime,” said Steve Wellman, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture director and third-generation.
The “bomb cyclone” – an intense winter storm – that swept through the US in March followed record-breaking cold in January and unprecedented snow in February. Huge blocks of loose ice jammed waterways, and the Missouri river swelled, topping levees in four states, and breaking DAMS Ka kite ano links below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/27/us-farmers-count-cost-of-catastrophic-bomb-cyclone-in-midwest P. S Hope the hard working farmers are given the correct tools to servive this
Ka pai Hohepa I hope your voice can rise above the many others Ki Kaha
Last week, he was announced as the newest member of the the country's highest bench.
He's previously held roles as the Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court and chair of the Waitangi Tribunal – and was appointed as a Judge of the Court of Appeal last year.
"It's a big leap from the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court, to the last court, and of course being the first Māori always creates expectations that will undoubtedly not be met, but I'll do my best," he said.
"I am kind of excited and a little afraid for how the future will play out.
Justice Williams said it was important that Māori in the courts came to see their culture was valued, and it was up to the system to signal that it valued Māori culture.
He wanted to see more tikanga Māori and culture and identity programmes in prisons, and cultural training also needed to be targeted at officials, he said.
"I think it is happening and it needs to happen quickly, not just the prison population but those who create the prison population – the officials, the corrections officers, the probation officers, all the way through to the judges.
"Once people at the bottom of the pile see that they are valued, my experience is that that brings quite an important shift in attitude amongst those people."
He said it could be as simple as pronouncing Māori names and place names correctly, understanding concepts of whanaungatanga, mana, tapu and local whakpapa Ka kite ano links below.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/388649/first-maori-on-the-supreme-court-bench-wants-a-focus-on-his-culture
https://youtu.be/DgGr_n4fgyI
Here's a good story about the sad state OUR Papatuanukue and her creature are in at the minute if we act now we can pull back from the brink of Extinction .
There is no need to make mitigateing climate change to complex KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Stop using carbon plastic and recycle everything . At this point in time the only environmental engineering that is smart and simple is design everything to minimise waste and the waste of energy just getting rid of the inefficiency can save millions of tons of carbon emissions being pumped into OUR atmosphere.
May be paint our roofs white but major geo engineering project are only going to pump more carbon into our atmosphere they are just a blind from the carbon barron designed to make us think that we can carry on burning carbon and geo engineering is going to save us but know we have to make sacrifices in our way of living to combat climate changes small price to pay to protect our Mokopuna futures.
The Guardian picture essay
'The future of life on Earth lies in the balance' – a picture essay
Almost 600 conservation experts have signed a letter by the wildlife charity WWF, published to coincide with UN report into loss of biodiversity
Overfishing
“We are overfishing our oceans at an alarming rate and choking them with plastic and other pollutants. If we want to see healthy seas that will continue to provide us with food, we need to stop this over-exploitation, protect our incredible marine environments and make sustainable fishing the norm, as we see here. Ka kite ano link below
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/07/the-future-of-life-on-Earth-lies-in-the-balance-a-picture-essay P.S we need to invest heavily into combating climate change
https://youtu.be/gOsM-DYAEhY
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute
https://youtu.be/IuwxZSIS__4
They are saving carbon now Whanau
Kia ora Newshub.
Congratulat on the new pepi tama.
I think that it's good sacking the health board of Waikato hospital it been a bit of a mess there lately.
HUMANS have disrespected our wildlife and environmental for long enough it time for a change in our attitudes and the ways in how we live its a couple of decades out because of oil barron suppression of the truth about human caused climate change.
We all know that trump cannot resist grabbing good publicity from Rakau Ka pai it's good for multicultural tangata all around te Papatuanukue Kia kaha Rakau.
Ka kite ano
Kia ora Te ao Maori News
Condolences to the Whanau of the Maori leader who's has pasted his tangi was in Rotorua sorry I miss his name my te reo and Mokopuna are at fault Kia ora .
Just so long as Maori stop being turned into jailbird because weed a medicine is illegal at the minute what a stupid law.
I support the people protesting about tangata not getting the correct treatment for their cancers at the Beehive.
Tangata whenua O tairawhiti the ones that know the correct history are still greaveing so is Eco Maori about the stuff that was served up to us by the Crown if they want Cooks statue removed and put in a museum so be it Kia kaha Ka kite ano
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/5Yj4j_lZMBo
It gives me a sore face when I see all the tangata whenua teeth Kia kaha
Kia ora The AM Show.
Cameron it cool that you are checking out your whakpapa.
I think you idea about the youth serving one year in the army no. But one year in civil training and the army teaching trades would be awesome for OUR youths Wairua.
I say that teaching the youth about respect in school is a must the early the better 9 yeas old would be good .
A lot of children with behaviour problems get the imbalances of their chemicals make up from birth when the mother is a drug addict pharmaceutical drugs pee ect its stuffs up the children now everyone's wondering why we have heaps of lost wayward children .
I agree with Verity our new government has made changes for the better it ain't perfect but people's lives are getting better slowly. Ka kite ano
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute
https://youtu.be/CFwm3Vi66A4
Thanks to all the tangata that Tau toko Eco Maori from here and around the Papatuanukue
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/IPfJnp1guPc
Whanau everythings cool just fixing the Waka
Kia ora Newshub .
There you go Whanau simon and national useing the housing short they created to damage our new government Mana go figure
Farmers have to be included in our climate change mitigatetion as they are big greenhouse gas emitters if we don't get our farmers emissions down we will have a hard time meeting our Paris agreements..
Mike some people have no care of others people wellbeing ripping those poor foreign workers off is unethical respect is need .
I wonder if trumps m8 sold up their shares yesterday .
That ausse bloke who flooded the hotel in Australia it shows me how the hard drugs stuff you up don't touch the shit whanau .
Ka kite ano
Kia ora Te ao Maori News
Its a sad day when tangata whenua lose a leader he was a te reo tohunga .
Its gives Eco Maori a sore face seeing our government committing to combat climate change and setting targets for our fast reduction of green House gas emissions I it's about te Mokopuna.
I agree a few small changes can make a whare dry and warm thermal drapes ruggs and blocking drafts I most times end up having to do that mahi to my whare shut all windows at 5 pm to
Ka pai Turanga health checking the Whanau vehicles to make sure they have the pepi car seats installed correctly.
Ka kite ano