Only discrepancy is the guy tweeted 60+2US, the Venezuelans have 21 including the yanks. So maybe some got away. But I'm not sure there would be more yanks – a guy I'm reading a bit at the moment consistenly gives the figure of 2 SF advising a company/120pax of Cambodians during Vietnam, so 2:60 seems consistent with that.
Indeed amusing. Folks will assume Pompeo is behind it but I favour Balsonaro. Anyway there will be a fervent ferment of conspiracy theories (probably happening already on the twit site)…
Having spent a year working in Latin America, I'm aware of just how little most of us are informed about the region. I'm absolutely not pretending to be any kind of authority, but it's worth pointing out that it's a complex region in it's own right and that reflexively blaming the US for everything that goes wrong is tedious. There are many other actors in the region just as capable as the Americans for this ugly little fuck up.
Blaming oil is pretty silly. No-one want Vene oil at the moment and certainly not the US who have plenty of their own.
Where Venezuela got it badly wrong was the same mistake the Cuban's made; inviting Russia and China to gain a platform in the Western hemisphere. The Americans don't mind who you trade with, they don't even really mind if you run a socialist economy. But you have to be on their side against communism. Like it or not that was the deal, and most Latin American countries worked out where the trip wire was out decades ago.
And in an time when oil prices are heading negative, US sanctions or not, Venezuela is in deep trouble. Anyone with money has left, along with anyone with a marketable skill. Hell anyone who could walk has left. What remains is going to be a humanitarian catastrophe. Insisting the glorious socialist experiment must be carried forward, regardless of the human cost, has Stalinist undertones reminiscent of the Ukraine disaster.
“The Americans don’t really mind if you have a “socialist economy”
Yeah sure, they forced regime change in over 80 countries because they “didn’t really mind”.
The USA "squeezing their economy until it bleeds" Britain embargoing State bank accounts, and all the other economic warfare against Venezuela, had nothing to do with it?
Because, Socialism!
Chavez Government, had a State share of the economy, less than New Zealand's, by the way.
And turning to other countries for help, was, after, the USA, fucked them, not before. Just like Vietnam.
And. Why mention Venezuela. There are a plethora of examples of right wing, extreme capitalist dictatorships, imposed by the USA, which are a lot worse off.
There are a plethora of examples of right wing, extreme capitalist dictatorships, imposed by the USA, which are a lot worse off.
I'd be interested to know exactly which Latin American countries you have in mind. No problem finding examples from the 80's, but anything current?
Venezuala has plummeted from the richest Latin American nation to collapse in less than a decade. That kind of incompetence is barely distinguishable from malice.
Does this mean the US is always reasonable, that business interests don't play some part in their foreign policy? Of course not, every nation runs policy to suit their interests, and none are above criticism. Just as for instance NZ doesn't like aspects of Australian policy around deportations.
There is plenty of blame game to go around, but it has to be the worst kind of incompetence and folly that allowed policy disagreements to escalate to the kind of dread consequences the Venezuelans have visited upon themselves.
Even the most competent Government, which I don't think Venezuela's is, would have struggled to cope with the deliberate economic destruction, visited on Venezuela from the outside.
Imagine if it had been Bridges, mob. Or the barely capable back benchers in Labour.
Yes I suppose they could have just bit the bullet and accepted something like Colombia or Honduras. Interesting tbat even after a successful coup against Chavez the people took to the streets and succesfully got him released. Funny thing to do if you really don't like the guy. And of course the embargo on Venezuela has nothing to do with their poverty? To the extent that the US navy is now parked off shore? I guess we're all free to believe what we want to…
The same is true of a very long list of countries. The kind of liberal freedom of speech you are accustomed to here in NZ is largely confined to a relatively short list of about 30 nations.
the same mistake the Cuban's made; inviting Russia and China to gain a platform in the Western hemisphere. The Americans don't mind who you trade with, they don't even really mind if you run a socialist economy.
What utter nonsense. Castro aligned with the Soviet Union out of necessity. He was not even a Communist at the start of the revolution. At first the US was not overly concerned about the revolution but when Castro nationalised US owned assets this quickly changed with the CIA backed Bay of Pigs attempted invasion (April 1961) .
Cuba had of course been invaded by the US during the Spanish-American war. At first the Cubans had hoped that the US would support them to independence by joining with them in their fight to free themselves from the Spanish. What resulted though was the seizing of key assets by US interests. Hello new boss same as the old boss.
Faced with inevitable further aggression from the US Castro had no choice but to turn to the Soviet Union for protection. This led to the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) when the Soviet Union attempted to put nuclear missiles in Cuba but were met with a naval blockade from the US. While the Soviets had the good sense to not start WW3 and turn back, this action made it clear to the US that the Soviet Union would not tolerate an invasion of Cuba. And so the Revolution endured.
I know a bit about this through the best paper i took at Waikato, a stage 3 paper Sociology of Revolution. It covered the revolutions of France, Russia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua and Peru. It was fascinating.
None of them exactly a fine endorsement for revolution. All of them have history fraught with betrayal of their principles, conflict both internal and external, and economic stagnation.
Sure revolution must look theoretically attractive sitting in a nice warm, comfortable university classroom (all made possible by an evil capitalist system) … but they rarely turn out quite so sweet for the poor bastards cursed to live through them.
Of those four, three are relative success stories, they tell us how socialism can become successfully embedded in a productive, prosperous economy. But it's not an automatic given.
Why Venezuela failed so dismally is not just a story of US perfidy; it's also a story of a democratic govt that wanted to be a revolution, and in doing so became an object lesson in over-reach.
Yes the Western hemisphere is the US's sphere of influence. For better or worse it's how great powers always behave. There are no exceptions to this rule, demanding the USA be different is a fools errand.
That looks like a flying start to the same path Venezuela headed down. Then there is the cocaine issue that of course parks a fucking great bus up the nose of US drugs policy.
Yeah I can see this working out just fine. /sarc
Because by my reckoning, by any historic comparison the USA has been a relatively benign great power compared to virtually all that proceeded it. Sure there is no objection to being critical of US foreign policy, but to avoid becoming obsessively paranoid about it, I find it helpful to ask "compared to what?"
Now that is my pragmatic hat talking. My idealist sees the same story and takes this to the next level, pointing out that the problem is not the USA in itself, but the paradigm of unlimited national sovereignty all nations are operating to.
If by hypothetical accident of history it was any other nation that happened to be the global superpower at this time, China, Russia, India, Saudi, France … does anyone imagine we would not have the same litany of complaints? Of course not. The problem is not so much that that USA stands for 'Unlimited Supply of Arseholes', it's that the nature of unconstrained sovereignty combined with superior wealth and military strength turns out to be a bad combination for everyone else. Always.
At least the Colombians pretend quite strenuously to oppose the drug cartels and make quite a good show of it.
But you keep missing the point; this is how all great powers act, not just the USA. I note that you never bring up any examples of how the Russians or the CCP have acted in their spheres of influence. (Wanna talk about Chechnya?) Or the British … or any other empire of the damned in history.
Sure feel free to indulge in your anti-US bigotry here at length. You've done so for years, and while I've taken the time to point this out, I doubt you will move from your emotional investment in this.
But it's a dead-end argument that goes nowhere. Imagine if you were to get your fondest wish and the entire USA was wiped off the map tomorrow. The day after some other super-power would be in business and nothing would have changed.
Why can't you ever reply to what i have said about what you have said? Why can't you concede that you might just be wrong?
But no rather you have to throw up a straw man so that you can carry on with your game of wack-a-lefty:
Sure revolution must look theoretically attractive sitting in a nice warm, comfortable university classroom (all made possible by an evil capitalist system) … but they rarely turn out quite so sweet for the poor bastards cursed to live through them.
All i said was that i had studied a number of revolutions and found them fascinating. I also find Nazi Germany fascinating but that does not mean that i fantasise about fascist overthrow of democracy and the rule of law.
What is fascinating is both the successes and the disasters. And the mangling of Marxist theory as each group (not French) adjusts this to fit their context and own ideas. I read Lenin's State and Revolution, for example, and thought it was the most cherry picked load of Cartesian bullshit i was ever likely to find. He was rushing to finish this manual for the revolution as the revolution had already started. On his deathbed he apparently said that every Marxist for the past 30 years had totally misunderstood Marx (including and in particular himself) and to go back and read Hegel, and beware of Stalin. This is not to be taken though that i would think Marx's ideas unproblematic. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was always a fraught idea. Likewise the Anarchist ideas of his rival Bakunin who argued that the State needed to be smashed from the outset rather than being seized and utilised until it "withered away". Both men though were writing in a time and place where they could not conceive of working people gaining power by any other means. British working class men only got the vote at the end of WW1 when battle hardened troops were returning with fresh knowledge of the success of the Russian revolution.
In Cuba Castro tried the democratic road but Batista seized power in a military coup and cancelled the elections. Things went from bad to worse, to even worse. Sure revolution might look theoretically unattractive sitting in a nice modern stable western democracy with a proportionally representative voting system and the rule of law.
OK that's a lot more nuanced and makes more sense.
Castro aligned with the Soviet Union out of necessity.
And that may well have been his biggest mistake. The US would have been irritated with his nationalising of US assets, but they would have gotten over that. They would have tolerated his socialist ambitions even, but when Castro made an alliance with the Soviets that was the trip wire that was never going to be tolerated. They even have a name for it.
That's the point I'm making here; the one thing the US will not tolerate is a Latin American nation providing a platform for the Soviets (and now the CCP) in the Western hemisphere. Like it or not that is how they define their interests and everyone in the region knows this.
That Chavez and now Maduro have chosen to deliberately, and quite unnecessarily confront the US on this policy was only ever going to end in tears. For their people.
That's some pretty impressive victim-blaming right there, well into the "why do you make me hit you" territory.
Based on the assumption that if you only try for a little bit of independence, the yanks won't hit you. They don't work that way, sorry to break it to you.
The State Department might do half measures unless superpower influence comes into play. CIA does not, and Wall Street does not. Or has Central and South America (not to mention Hawaii) spent the last ~150 years bringing their fates upon themselves?
ps They tried "liberating" Canada, it didn't work out for them.
You have the cart before the horse. The US had backed and armed Batista in the first place. They were responsible for the loss of democracy in Cuba. As Castro overthrew Batista the US held back hoping that this would just be a nationalist revolution but quickly changed tack when US owned assets were nationalised.
Rather than getting over this they then funded and trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba. This included giving them bomber aircraft which they used to bomb Cuba. The Bay of Pigs invasion also included some US personnel. The US was already not tolerating Cuban independence. It was only rational for Castro to assume they were not at the end of things and that his only option was to align militarily with the Soviet Union.
Clearly there were mistakes and miscalculations on all sides. But remember this was pretty much the height of the Cold War, and any hint of Russian involvement in a nationalist revolution on their own doorstep was always going to be treated with extreme suspicion by the Americans. After all this is all happening just 15 years after the end on WW2 and Stalin himself had only just died five years earlier.
But you have to be on their side against communism
The problem is the the USA have redefined communism to include any government that tries to put the interests of it's own people before the interests of the corporate might of the USA.
For the most part the US viewed 'free trade' as a tool to develop secure middle classes, remove the social drivers of communist revolution, and develop democracy. The underlying idea was they could essential build global security based on the observation that developed, open and liberal democracies didn't go to war with each other. It was driven as much by a security motivation as the opportunity to make money.
Unfortunately what worked in places like post war Germany and Japan, failed dismally in other places and US policy never adapted to this reality. But to blame this failure entirely on an aversion to socialism isn't supported on the evidence.
There are plenty of developed nations, Canada for example, who run far more socialist policies than the USA does without incurring sanctions. You just have to be moderately smart about it.
Heh. Occasional White House spokesgargoyle Kellyalien Conway's hubby Moonface has upset the tinyfingers twittertwat again. The ad his group released is at the end of the piece, it's worth watching, and fuck me it's brutal.
Credit where credits due, good work from that old Labour warhorse Ruth Dyson. On Morning Report this morning, Bridges is being forced to defend the lack of Māori submitters (2 groups in 6 weeks) appearing before his Pandemic Committee, rather than extolling the virtues of his rescue package for small business. Yet another sub par media performance from the Opp Leader.
Don't write National off yet. We need to do our utmost to ensure that Labour gets another term. Simon Bridges, Mark Mitchell, Crusher and Goldsmith will ensure that the future will be that of low wages, bare bones public services, homelessness and high rents, permanent insecurity and US style health care, as well as poisoned rivers and air.
People who have a big issue with the way the government is handling the COVID issue need to ask themselves if they really want a society where there is no welfare, no pensions and healthcare/housing is unaffordable.
I think Labour needs to help itself too. According to the No right turn feeds they are
– ignoring electoral reform. We need to stop the influence of excess money in elections. It favours the rich.
– cutting out the ability for the public to have a say (even if limited ) in the RMA. That's red meat to the right. They turned ECAN into a non democratic outfit and that's defato encouragement to do more than that in the future.
Principles matter and not selling them matters even more
[You are prone to hyperbole, which is great for starting an exercise in futility but otherwise on par with trolling. Please try lifting the quality of your comments, thanks – Incognito]
"…(Rick) Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies, warned: “They may end up making the situation so bad with a second wave in the summer and a third wave in the fall that we end up with a much worse set of economic challenges than if we’d taken our bitter medicine and stayed shut down until we were through the early part of this crisis…"
Someone should show that to that to the National Party.
Hoskings knew the way to go, should have done same as Ausse, last 6 days infected NZ 2-3-6-1-0-0 Ausse 4-11-14-18-24-24 1ncluding 1 large cluster no way will we have a bubble with them for many months
36 months until some kind of normality and at least 2 or 3 waves of infection. Her only surprise at how it’s panned out? That the US has been the country that’s failed so badly to deal with it.
Krugman's latest piece in the NYT (via Kos) lays the blame squarely on the Trump govt and its science denial and inability to ever admit making a mistake.
Trump and company didn’t make a one-time mistake. They grossly minimized the pandemic and its dangers every step of the way, week after week over a period of months. And they’re still doing it. […]
Trump’s narcissism and solipsism are especially blatant, even flamboyant. But he isn’t an outlier; he’s more a culmination of the American right’s long-term trend toward intellectual degradation. And that degradation, more than Trump’s character, is what is leading to vast numbers of unnecessary deaths.
Check out the Hopkins covid tracker: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html If you eyeball that lower rhs graph, you can see the linear global increase looking inexorable – note the mid-March inflection point when it kicked in. Then select the daily cases tag to get a more current view of the trend.
Now, if you click on the individual countries (left-hand window) you can compare the trajectories in different countries. Note how NZ is one of those levelling-off. Note how the USA is not! Nor the UK. But then check out the daily cases window via the tag on that graph and you see that it stabilised a month ago. I bet Trump just looks at that one!
Interesting how Russia & India seemed fairly immune for a while but no longer. I reckon Putin will be consternated by the late dramatic upswing.
Stunted Mullet Transmission Gully is built on a major Fault line.The Contractor will fix these areas of weakness at no cost to the taxpayer.The economic downturn will cut the amount of traffic for at least 2 years.
Not carried out by National …the whole project was not fully scoped before being handed over to a private consortium who would design, build and finance and MAINTAIN for around 25 years with a fixed yearly fee from NZTA.
If the contract isnt carried out properly , it all falls back on the consortium. Unlike the Peka Peka hwy , they have to pay for any light or heavy maintenance.
Well thats how this private finance project Should work.
The mistake appeared to be in the laying of the road.
There are multiple layers underneath the asphalt you drive on, and if not correctly done the road will fail the necessary tests to get the sign off and has no chance of standing the test of time.
Below the asphalt, layers of rock are mixed together with smaller sand-like bits and a small amount of cement, which then gets compacted.
If the mix is too wet or gets moved around too much the small bits of fine rock and sand fall to the bottom making it hard to compact down properly, and problems arise if if asphalt gets laid on top of that.
What with this project and the recent PekaPeka and Waikato expressways, how has our roadbuilding industry forgotten how to do their basic job so thoroughly?
"Below the asphalt, layers of rock are mixed together with smaller sand-like bits and a small amount of cement, which then gets compacted." I wonder if Charlotte Cook just made this up or if it is actually why the roads are failing.
If a person has ever noticed how roads are constructed they'll know this is not how.
Considerable work goes into forming the base course before fines are added. New Zealand soils, where the soil is compressive clay, poses considerable problems for the roading contractor as the subsoil is prone to contraction and expansion. Hydrated Lime, not cement, is spread once the substrate is laid and compacted to stabilise the road bed.
Please read what you link – This appears to faults in methodology and implementation.
Hard to blame Nat in this case, they don't lay down subgrade, subbase etc. perhaps pull off the eye patch just once 🙈🙉🙊
"Process errors have occurred at isolated locations on Transmission Gully"
""A quality control process is in place to identify such errors, and a set construction method is used to remove and replace the material, which is recycled for use elsewhere on the project.""
So that is an excuse for roads to fail ??? Don’t think so. So if a govt accepted low tenders for Kiwibuild ?? Never 😉 it may surprise you what was involved in those tenders and guess what ?? Many business were cut out due to not being able to be competitive with the low tenders. So it’s not JUST under a National govt.
Nobody else has been building shitty roads which require remedial work in the last decade, just National. Waikato expressway, Kapiti expressway, and now Transmission Gully.
Feel free to comment again under the post, but this time provide some actual content eg cite the history of hospitality sector working groups. Don’t sound bite and stop trolling. Putting you back in premod so I can see the comments as they come through.
I have added another 6 months to your ban so it’s rapidly becoming semi-permanent. It always amazes me how those who are banned continue to shoot themselves in the foot.
Bridges is a thoroughly nasty character. Doesn’t have any redeeming qualities at all. Dr Bloomfield on the other hand is a thoroughly decent and well qualified person who most reasonable people would take notice of. Hence the nationwide admiration for him. People know it when they see it.
“In the end, NZ’s response has been quintessentially democratic. Not because the pandemic emergency response committee is chaired, at the government’s behest, by the Leader of the Opposition. Not because it has allowed for full throated criticism of its actions and used its emergency (coercive) powers very selectively and discretely. Not because it put science above partisanship and politics when addressing the threat. Mostly, because its balancing approach encapsulates the essence of democracy as a social contract: it is not about everyone getting everything they want all of the time, but about everyone getting some of what they want some of the time. In other words, it is about settling for mutual second-best options.
That may not be always the case in NZ and democracies elsewhere. But it is what has been done in this instance. Beyond the positive statistics of the policy response itself, this is the most significant and enduring achievement to come out of this crisis.”
…On the organics front, an almost 40-year ongoing study by Rodale Institute has shown that organic farms produce 40% more yields during times of drought as compared to conventional farms, in part due to higher levels of organic soil matter.
Similarly to soil carbon, there is little peer-reviewed science from NZ on the drought resilience of organics, or the suggestion that regen ag reduces nutrient run-off from farms. I came across plenty of anecdotal examples during the process of researching this article, of farmers saying that their pastures retain more water and are more resilient to drought, after they transitioned to regen ag. A partnership between data analytics platform Takiwā and Australian company EcoDetection hopes to provide better insight into levels of nutrient runoff from individual regeneratively managed farms, using state-of-the-art nitrate and nitrite sensors. Read more about that initiative in our story featuring Mike Taitoko….
Something useful will come out of that nz-oz connection. Can we have some discrete ones and by-pass the heavies in Canberra? Go for individual states that try to establish their own zeitgeist.
this would be high in my list of reasons to get substantially more Green MPs in government. Shifting a big chunk of govt support for farming to regenag, including research.
btw, not sure why your italics tags didn't work, might have been the . . . . , but I changed them to quotes.
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I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
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Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
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This has got to be he best use of A-wim-a-weh in a long, long time – and it's both funny and politically effective:
Yes nice one. And in the deeply riven landscape that is US politics it treads the narrow path skillfully.
Not a single black face in that Trump take-down…all a bit odd.
I think that's very smart targeting.
So, this is pretty funny. US business as usual, a couple of ex-sf with a few dozen Venezuelans got caught trying to sneak into Venezuela to start a revolution. How is that funny? The G Gordon Liddy wannabe in the US who ran the op tweeted it. Then nuked any slim chance of his guys not being done for it to the max by claiming them as his personnel. So much for maybe being smugglers driving the boats or something less than active participants in a coup.
Even the Bay of Pigs was better run than that.
Only discrepancy is the guy tweeted 60+2US, the Venezuelans have 21 including the yanks. So maybe some got away. But I'm not sure there would be more yanks – a guy I'm reading a bit at the moment consistenly gives the figure of 2 SF advising a company/120pax of Cambodians during Vietnam, so 2:60 seems consistent with that.
Indeed amusing. Folks will assume Pompeo is behind it but I favour Balsonaro. Anyway there will be a fervent ferment of conspiracy theories (probably happening already on the twit site)…
Having spent a year working in Latin America, I'm aware of just how little most of us are informed about the region. I'm absolutely not pretending to be any kind of authority, but it's worth pointing out that it's a complex region in it's own right and that reflexively blaming the US for everything that goes wrong is tedious. There are many other actors in the region just as capable as the Americans for this ugly little fuck up.
Blaming oil is pretty silly. No-one want Vene oil at the moment and certainly not the US who have plenty of their own.
Where Venezuela got it badly wrong was the same mistake the Cuban's made; inviting Russia and China to gain a platform in the Western hemisphere. The Americans don't mind who you trade with, they don't even really mind if you run a socialist economy. But you have to be on their side against communism. Like it or not that was the deal, and most Latin American countries worked out where the trip wire was out decades ago.
And in an time when oil prices are heading negative, US sanctions or not, Venezuela is in deep trouble. Anyone with money has left, along with anyone with a marketable skill. Hell anyone who could walk has left. What remains is going to be a humanitarian catastrophe. Insisting the glorious socialist experiment must be carried forward, regardless of the human cost, has Stalinist undertones reminiscent of the Ukraine disaster.
“The Americans don’t really mind if you have a “socialist economy”
Yeah sure, they forced regime change in over 80 countries because they “didn’t really mind”.
The USA "squeezing their economy until it bleeds" Britain embargoing State bank accounts, and all the other economic warfare against Venezuela, had nothing to do with it?
Because, Socialism!
Chavez Government, had a State share of the economy, less than New Zealand's, by the way.
And turning to other countries for help, was, after, the USA, fucked them, not before. Just like Vietnam.
And. Why mention Venezuela. There are a plethora of examples of right wing, extreme capitalist dictatorships, imposed by the USA, which are a lot worse off.
You are right. You don't have a clue.
There are a plethora of examples of right wing, extreme capitalist dictatorships, imposed by the USA, which are a lot worse off.
I'd be interested to know exactly which Latin American countries you have in mind. No problem finding examples from the 80's, but anything current?
Venezuala has plummeted from the richest Latin American nation to collapse in less than a decade. That kind of incompetence is barely distinguishable from malice.
Even a broad outline of the whole story is quite complex, but in a nutshell Chavez went out of his way to buy a fight he was never going to win. The large majority of the 200 nations on earth manage to find a way to live with the US without incurring total economic sanctions, so it's clearly not an impossible ask. Moreover it's not only the US which has sanctions; quite a few other nations have been persuaded to introduce them as well. Hell even Saint Obama got in the act.
Does this mean the US is always reasonable, that business interests don't play some part in their foreign policy? Of course not, every nation runs policy to suit their interests, and none are above criticism. Just as for instance NZ doesn't like aspects of Australian policy around deportations.
There is plenty of blame game to go around, but it has to be the worst kind of incompetence and folly that allowed policy disagreements to escalate to the kind of dread consequences the Venezuelans have visited upon themselves.
Even the most competent Government, which I don't think Venezuela's is, would have struggled to cope with the deliberate economic destruction, visited on Venezuela from the outside.
Imagine if it had been Bridges, mob. Or the barely capable back benchers in Labour.
Yes I suppose they could have just bit the bullet and accepted something like Colombia or Honduras. Interesting tbat even after a successful coup against Chavez the people took to the streets and succesfully got him released. Funny thing to do if you really don't like the guy. And of course the embargo on Venezuela has nothing to do with their poverty? To the extent that the US navy is now parked off shore? I guess we're all free to believe what we want to…
Oh great. So Colombia and Honduras are now great places to live. Sure. If you say the right things. But if not your death is not a pretty affair..
And Haiti.
The same is true of a very long list of countries. The kind of liberal freedom of speech you are accustomed to here in NZ is largely confined to a relatively short list of about 30 nations.
Watch. Bolivia.
The presence of US PMCs in the group ups the odds that someone in the US knew of it and gave tacit approval, at the very least.
the same mistake the Cuban's made; inviting Russia and China to gain a platform in the Western hemisphere. The Americans don't mind who you trade with, they don't even really mind if you run a socialist economy.
What utter nonsense. Castro aligned with the Soviet Union out of necessity. He was not even a Communist at the start of the revolution. At first the US was not overly concerned about the revolution but when Castro nationalised US owned assets this quickly changed with the CIA backed Bay of Pigs attempted invasion (April 1961) .
Cuba had of course been invaded by the US during the Spanish-American war. At first the Cubans had hoped that the US would support them to independence by joining with them in their fight to free themselves from the Spanish. What resulted though was the seizing of key assets by US interests. Hello new boss same as the old boss.
Faced with inevitable further aggression from the US Castro had no choice but to turn to the Soviet Union for protection. This led to the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) when the Soviet Union attempted to put nuclear missiles in Cuba but were met with a naval blockade from the US. While the Soviets had the good sense to not start WW3 and turn back, this action made it clear to the US that the Soviet Union would not tolerate an invasion of Cuba. And so the Revolution endured.
I know a bit about this through the best paper i took at Waikato, a stage 3 paper Sociology of Revolution. It covered the revolutions of France, Russia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua and Peru. It was fascinating.
France. The Terror
Russia. The Gulags
China. The Great Leap Backwards
Cuba. Decay and stagnation
Nicaragua. Violence and refugees
Peru. A century of conflict and the Shining Path
None of them exactly a fine endorsement for revolution. All of them have history fraught with betrayal of their principles, conflict both internal and external, and economic stagnation.
Sure revolution must look theoretically attractive sitting in a nice warm, comfortable university classroom (all made possible by an evil capitalist system) … but they rarely turn out quite so sweet for the poor bastards cursed to live through them.
Venezuela. Democratically elected Government. Not revolution.
New Zealand. First Labour Government. Democratically elected.
Roosevelts New Deal. Democratically elected.
Norway. "Taking their country back. Democratic.
It is not "Socialism" that requires, revolution!
Of those four, three are relative success stories, they tell us how socialism can become successfully embedded in a productive, prosperous economy. But it's not an automatic given.
Why Venezuela failed so dismally is not just a story of US perfidy; it's also a story of a democratic govt that wanted to be a revolution, and in doing so became an object lesson in over-reach.
Wrong.
The USA regards Latin America as their toys.
Bolivia, is the latest example.
Yes the Western hemisphere is the US's sphere of influence. For better or worse it's how great powers always behave. There are no exceptions to this rule, demanding the USA be different is a fools errand.
Let's see what wikipedia has to say:
That looks like a flying start to the same path Venezuela headed down. Then there is the cocaine issue that of course parks a fucking great bus up the nose of US drugs policy.
Yeah I can see this working out just fine. /sarc
Because by my reckoning, by any historic comparison the USA has been a relatively benign great power compared to virtually all that proceeded it. Sure there is no objection to being critical of US foreign policy, but to avoid becoming obsessively paranoid about it, I find it helpful to ask "compared to what?"
Now that is my pragmatic hat talking. My idealist sees the same story and takes this to the next level, pointing out that the problem is not the USA in itself, but the paradigm of unlimited national sovereignty all nations are operating to.
If by hypothetical accident of history it was any other nation that happened to be the global superpower at this time, China, Russia, India, Saudi, France … does anyone imagine we would not have the same litany of complaints? Of course not. The problem is not so much that that USA stands for 'Unlimited Supply of Arseholes', it's that the nature of unconstrained sovereignty combined with superior wealth and military strength turns out to be a bad combination for everyone else. Always.
Then there is Brazil, of course.
An even better example of US fuckery starting.
"Cocaine issue".
Like Columbia? But the USA likes that Government.
At least the Colombians pretend quite strenuously to oppose the drug cartels and make quite a good show of it.
But you keep missing the point; this is how all great powers act, not just the USA. I note that you never bring up any examples of how the Russians or the CCP have acted in their spheres of influence. (Wanna talk about Chechnya?) Or the British … or any other empire of the damned in history.
Sure feel free to indulge in your anti-US bigotry here at length. You've done so for years, and while I've taken the time to point this out, I doubt you will move from your emotional investment in this.
But it's a dead-end argument that goes nowhere. Imagine if you were to get your fondest wish and the entire USA was wiped off the map tomorrow. The day after some other super-power would be in business and nothing would have changed.
Strawman. Much.
The three are examples of how, Socialism, makes for a productive, successful, economy, not, the other way around.
Why can't you ever reply to what i have said about what you have said? Why can't you concede that you might just be wrong?
But no rather you have to throw up a straw man so that you can carry on with your game of wack-a-lefty:
Sure revolution must look theoretically attractive sitting in a nice warm, comfortable university classroom (all made possible by an evil capitalist system) … but they rarely turn out quite so sweet for the poor bastards cursed to live through them.
All i said was that i had studied a number of revolutions and found them fascinating. I also find Nazi Germany fascinating but that does not mean that i fantasise about fascist overthrow of democracy and the rule of law.
What is fascinating is both the successes and the disasters. And the mangling of Marxist theory as each group (not French) adjusts this to fit their context and own ideas. I read Lenin's State and Revolution, for example, and thought it was the most cherry picked load of Cartesian bullshit i was ever likely to find. He was rushing to finish this manual for the revolution as the revolution had already started. On his deathbed he apparently said that every Marxist for the past 30 years had totally misunderstood Marx (including and in particular himself) and to go back and read Hegel, and beware of Stalin. This is not to be taken though that i would think Marx's ideas unproblematic. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was always a fraught idea. Likewise the Anarchist ideas of his rival Bakunin who argued that the State needed to be smashed from the outset rather than being seized and utilised until it "withered away". Both men though were writing in a time and place where they could not conceive of working people gaining power by any other means. British working class men only got the vote at the end of WW1 when battle hardened troops were returning with fresh knowledge of the success of the Russian revolution.
In Cuba Castro tried the democratic road but Batista seized power in a military coup and cancelled the elections. Things went from bad to worse, to even worse. Sure revolution might look theoretically unattractive sitting in a nice modern stable western democracy with a proportionally representative voting system and the rule of law.
OK that's a lot more nuanced and makes more sense.
Castro aligned with the Soviet Union out of necessity.
And that may well have been his biggest mistake. The US would have been irritated with his nationalising of US assets, but they would have gotten over that. They would have tolerated his socialist ambitions even, but when Castro made an alliance with the Soviets that was the trip wire that was never going to be tolerated. They even have a name for it.
That's the point I'm making here; the one thing the US will not tolerate is a Latin American nation providing a platform for the Soviets (and now the CCP) in the Western hemisphere. Like it or not that is how they define their interests and everyone in the region knows this.
That Chavez and now Maduro have chosen to deliberately, and quite unnecessarily confront the US on this policy was only ever going to end in tears. For their people.
That's some pretty impressive victim-blaming right there, well into the "why do you make me hit you" territory.
Based on the assumption that if you only try for a little bit of independence, the yanks won't hit you. They don't work that way, sorry to break it to you.
The State Department might do half measures unless superpower influence comes into play. CIA does not, and Wall Street does not. Or has Central and South America (not to mention Hawaii) spent the last ~150 years bringing their fates upon themselves?
ps They tried "liberating" Canada, it didn't work out for them.
You have the cart before the horse. The US had backed and armed Batista in the first place. They were responsible for the loss of democracy in Cuba. As Castro overthrew Batista the US held back hoping that this would just be a nationalist revolution but quickly changed tack when US owned assets were nationalised.
Rather than getting over this they then funded and trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba. This included giving them bomber aircraft which they used to bomb Cuba. The Bay of Pigs invasion also included some US personnel. The US was already not tolerating Cuban independence. It was only rational for Castro to assume they were not at the end of things and that his only option was to align militarily with the Soviet Union.
Not much different in Vietnam.
Initially they appealed to the USA. "Land of the Free", to support their independence from France.
As always the whole story is more complex than one comment can do justice to.
The bottom line for the US was the involvement of the Soviets in Cuba right from WW2 onward.
Clearly there were mistakes and miscalculations on all sides. But remember this was pretty much the height of the Cold War, and any hint of Russian involvement in a nationalist revolution on their own doorstep was always going to be treated with extreme suspicion by the Americans. After all this is all happening just 15 years after the end on WW2 and Stalin himself had only just died five years earlier.
The whole story is quite sad really.
The problem is the the USA have redefined communism to include any government that tries to put the interests of it's own people before the interests of the corporate might of the USA.
The corporate might of the USA is greatly overestimated. Their exports are a smaller fraction of their GDP than any other developed nation, and big business faces more hurdles in buying political influence than ever before. It is one lens to view US foreign policy through, but it's not the only one.
For the most part the US viewed 'free trade' as a tool to develop secure middle classes, remove the social drivers of communist revolution, and develop democracy. The underlying idea was they could essential build global security based on the observation that developed, open and liberal democracies didn't go to war with each other. It was driven as much by a security motivation as the opportunity to make money.
Unfortunately what worked in places like post war Germany and Japan, failed dismally in other places and US policy never adapted to this reality. But to blame this failure entirely on an aversion to socialism isn't supported on the evidence.
There are plenty of developed nations, Canada for example, who run far more socialist policies than the USA does without incurring sanctions. You just have to be moderately smart about it.
Sure, they'd never use the military to back a favoured General Foods company.
Just because yankistan has its own oil doesn't mean it doesn't see benefits in controlling who gets other countries' oil.
In Venezuela its that lovely man Abrams who is in charge. Think Oliver North and Contras
lol followup to the tweet:
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXTqz3HWkAA2eLA?format=png&name=900x900)
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXTq4hyXsAEVWyq?format=png&name=900x900)
Heh. Occasional White House spokesgargoyle Kellyalien Conway's hubby Moonface has upset the tinyfingers twittertwat again. The ad his group released is at the end of the piece, it's worth watching, and fuck me it's brutal.
https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/05/trump-lincoln-project-ad/
Yes that is excellent
Lolz, agent orange was up till 1am on a twitter tantrum because of that. Good job.
Lol, what?!
Credit where credits due, good work from that old Labour warhorse Ruth Dyson. On Morning Report this morning, Bridges is being forced to defend the lack of Māori submitters (2 groups in 6 weeks) appearing before his Pandemic Committee, rather than extolling the virtues of his rescue package for small business. Yet another sub par media performance from the Opp Leader.
RNZ story
https://twitter.com/teaniwahuri/status/1257075095916277760
Perhaps Simon thought he was the only Maori in this village:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/415943/simon-bridges-ignored-proposals-for-maori-at-epidemic-response-committee-mp-says
Don't write National off yet. We need to do our utmost to ensure that Labour gets another term. Simon Bridges, Mark Mitchell, Crusher and Goldsmith will ensure that the future will be that of low wages, bare bones public services, homelessness and high rents, permanent insecurity and US style health care, as well as poisoned rivers and air.
People who have a big issue with the way the government is handling the COVID issue need to ask themselves if they really want a society where there is no welfare, no pensions and healthcare/housing is unaffordable.
Aye that's why I'll be voting for the greens cause frankly they have a much better welfare plan.
I think Labour needs to help itself too. According to the No right turn feeds they are
– ignoring electoral reform. We need to stop the influence of excess money in elections. It favours the rich.
– cutting out the ability for the public to have a say (even if limited ) in the RMA. That's red meat to the right. They turned ECAN into a non democratic outfit and that's defato encouragement to do more than that in the future.
Principles matter and not selling them matters even more
National in government will mean:
No payrises for 10 years at least
No retirement for low paid workers
No secure housing
User pays education and health
[You are prone to hyperbole, which is great for starting an exercise in futility but otherwise on par with trolling. Please try lifting the quality of your comments, thanks – Incognito]
Millsy Austerity is Nationals Mantra in a time of recession this will compound any recession.
Really have you got a reference for any of those assertions ? They look rather unlikely to me.
Stunted Mullet 2008 till 2017 per head of population spending on health and education fell by more than 10%.
No pay rises over the 9yrs the inflation rate averaged 1.3% wage rises 1.3% a 9% pay cut.
Housing National sold more than they built without the Canterbury rebuild that would have shown an even bigger decline.
More of the health system farmed out to dodgy contractors ie vaccine distribution
Constant increases in education costs no money for leaky schools built under Nationals no regulation building codes.
Doctors visits costing 25% more prescriptions 150% more!
Which country were you in bottom feeader
Inflation should read 2.3%
See my Moderation note @ 8:27 AM.
Actually in line with National's stated, and actual, policies until very recently.
Raising the retirement age.
Stopping minimum wage rises.
Selling off State housing.
Privatising parts of the health sector.
All things they were already doing or have, promised.
Simon also said they would remove 200 regulations.
"Bonfire of regulations" and "tax cuts".
National talks about social issues when in opposition then sells off everything that isn't nailed down when in power
Interesting comment in a piece in the Guardian today: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/05/donald-trump-coronavirus-economic-recovery
"…(Rick) Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies, warned: “They may end up making the situation so bad with a second wave in the summer and a third wave in the fall that we end up with a much worse set of economic challenges than if we’d taken our bitter medicine and stayed shut down until we were through the early part of this crisis…"
Someone should show that to that to the National Party.
Sanctuary 80% of NZers back the tough lockdown.Bridges has changed his tune as the reality of the Polls sink in to the National Party.
Hoskings knew the way to go, should have done same as Ausse, last 6 days infected NZ 2-3-6-1-0-0 Ausse 4-11-14-18-24-24 1ncluding 1 large cluster no way will we have a bubble with them for many months
Yep. We can't let them in if they are not going to take it seriously.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-prediction-laurie-garrett.htm
36 months until some kind of normality and at least 2 or 3 waves of infection. Her only surprise at how it’s panned out? That the US has been the country that’s failed so badly to deal with it.
Krugman's latest piece in the NYT (via Kos) lays the blame squarely on the Trump govt and its science denial and inability to ever admit making a mistake.
(my emphasis)
https://youtu.be/Q5BZ09iNdvo
Check out the Hopkins covid tracker: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html If you eyeball that lower rhs graph, you can see the linear global increase looking inexorable – note the mid-March inflection point when it kicked in. Then select the daily cases tag to get a more current view of the trend.
Now, if you click on the individual countries (left-hand window) you can compare the trajectories in different countries. Note how NZ is one of those levelling-off. Note how the USA is not! Nor the UK. But then check out the daily cases window via the tag on that graph and you see that it stabilised a month ago. I bet Trump just looks at that one!
Interesting how Russia & India seemed fairly immune for a while but no longer. I reckon Putin will be consternated by the late dramatic upswing.
Rapture time.
/
https://twitter.com/dwallacewells/status/1257357311749881862
https://twitter.com/MattPStout/status/1257380246137036801
This was a National Government project, wasn't it?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/415959/transmission-gully-project-a-circus-sections-to-be-re-laid
The party of infrastructure!
Phil Twyford will save us.
Stunted Mullet Transmission Gully is built on a major Fault line.The Contractor will fix these areas of weakness at no cost to the taxpayer.The economic downturn will cut the amount of traffic for at least 2 years.
"The Contractor will fix these areas of weakness at no cost to the taxpayer."
Actually, that remains to be seen.
The TA have their best people on it.
Ha. Yes, Simon Bridges was National’s Transport Minister still insisting in 2017 that it would be finished on time and under budget.
Simon can't build bridges (10 in Northland promised 1 delivered)
Simon should be taken to the employment tribunal for bullying and intimidation.
But he is making a bigger dick of himself than ever.Distracting and attacking the chief medical officer.
Victoria was on par with us in quashing outbreaks then suddenly 35 new cases in one new cluster.
Simple Soimon should stop being a clusterfuck and show he can build bridges .
Suddenly, privileged advice must be made public, unlike Pike River, cos it's umpreesudentud.
Infrastructure designed, planned and carried out by National. But according to the Nats spokesperson a couple of days ago… all Labour's fault!
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/frustration-grows-transmission-gully-project-delayed-again
Not carried out by National …the whole project was not fully scoped before being handed over to a private consortium who would design, build and finance and MAINTAIN for around 25 years with a fixed yearly fee from NZTA.
If the contract isnt carried out properly , it all falls back on the consortium. Unlike the Peka Peka hwy , they have to pay for any light or heavy maintenance.
Well thats how this private finance project Should work.
NZTA dont sign contracts so they can threaten their suppliers.
https://www.employmentcourt.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Decisions/2019-NZEmpC-187-Byrne-v-NZ-Transport-Agency-jud-131219.pdf
peter houba from wsp opus in whangarei,9NZTA witness at the above hearing) testified in court to this.
I/S concisely from the sidebar: http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2020/05/a-death-knell-for-ppps.html
From the RNZ story:
What with this project and the recent PekaPeka and Waikato expressways, how has our roadbuilding industry forgotten how to do their basic job so thoroughly?
"Below the asphalt, layers of rock are mixed together with smaller sand-like bits and a small amount of cement, which then gets compacted." I wonder if Charlotte Cook just made this up or if it is actually why the roads are failing.
If a person has ever noticed how roads are constructed they'll know this is not how.
Considerable work goes into forming the base course before fines are added. New Zealand soils, where the soil is compressive clay, poses considerable problems for the roading contractor as the subsoil is prone to contraction and expansion. Hydrated Lime, not cement, is spread once the substrate is laid and compacted to stabilise the road bed.
Please read what you link – This appears to faults in methodology and implementation.
Hard to blame Nat in this case, they don't lay down subgrade, subbase etc. perhaps pull off the eye patch just once 🙈🙉🙊
"Process errors have occurred at isolated locations on Transmission Gully"
""A quality control process is in place to identify such errors, and a set construction method is used to remove and replace the material, which is recycled for use elsewhere on the project.""
after failing a "compaction and moisture test"
We know they loved to direct government agencies to accept the lowest tender.
So that is an excuse for roads to fail ??? Don’t think so. So if a govt accepted low tenders for Kiwibuild ?? Never 😉 it may surprise you what was involved in those tenders and guess what ?? Many business were cut out due to not being able to be competitive with the low tenders. So it’s not JUST under a National govt.
Nobody else has been building shitty roads which require remedial work in the last decade, just National. Waikato expressway, Kapiti expressway, and now Transmission Gully.
"Do it on the cheap" is their motto.
NZTA dont give a rats arse mate.
this is their priorities.
https://www.employmentcourt.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Decisions/2019-NZEmpC-187-Byrne-v-NZ-Transport-Agency-jud-131219.pdf
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/employment/news/article.cfm?c_id=11&objectid=12296643
over 200 grand taxpayers money to try and ruin my wifes career because our neighbour who works for nzta doesnt like us.
go nzta go you are real troopers
A hospitality sector working group – yeah that will be helpful to have another talkfest.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Feel free to comment again under the post, but this time provide some actual content eg cite the history of hospitality sector working groups. Don’t sound bite and stop trolling. Putting you back in premod so I can see the comments as they come through.
Bridges performance with Bloomfield at the epidemic committee won't have won many votes today. Back to his worst.
Bloomfield's self-control is super-human. I don't know how he does it.
At the 1 pm press conference a journo starts with "can you guarantee … ?"
My answer, shouting at TV: "Of course he can't guarantee because it's human life you f***ing idiot with zero grasp of basic medical science!"
His answer was rather more restrained. As always.
Yes, appalling from Bridges. Good on Michael Wood for calling him out on it. There would have been some frosty exchanges after the cameras went out.
+100 serve that was totally deserved. And should have made the news. To infer that Bloomfield was a government shill was disgusting.
Weka reminds me of Te Ururoa Flavel when he was trying to get rid of Hone Harawira from the Māori party. So passionate yet so wrong.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
as far as I can tell, you’ve got a permanent ban.
ah not permanent, just until April next year.
I have added another 6 months to your ban so it’s rapidly becoming semi-permanent. It always amazes me how those who are banned continue to shoot themselves in the foot.
Bridges is a thoroughly nasty character. Doesn’t have any redeeming qualities at all. Dr Bloomfield on the other hand is a thoroughly decent and well qualified person who most reasonable people would take notice of. Hence the nationwide admiration for him. People know it when they see it.
Pablo on point again.
“In the end, NZ’s response has been quintessentially democratic. Not because the pandemic emergency response committee is chaired, at the government’s behest, by the Leader of the Opposition. Not because it has allowed for full throated criticism of its actions and used its emergency (coercive) powers very selectively and discretely. Not because it put science above partisanship and politics when addressing the threat. Mostly, because its balancing approach encapsulates the essence of democracy as a social contract: it is not about everyone getting everything they want all of the time, but about everyone getting some of what they want some of the time. In other words, it is about settling for mutual second-best options.
That may not be always the case in NZ and democracies elsewhere. But it is what has been done in this instance. Beyond the positive statistics of the policy response itself, this is the most significant and enduring achievement to come out of this crisis.”
Full article here: http://www.kiwipolitico.com/2020/05/between-push-and-shove/
Regenerative agriculture is perhaps showing us a formula for regenerative democracy.
https://thedig.nz/apocaloptimism/insight-into-regenerative-agriculture-in-new-zealand-the-good-the-bad-and-the-opportunity/
Something useful will come out of that nz-oz connection. Can we have some discrete ones and by-pass the heavies in Canberra? Go for individual states that try to establish their own zeitgeist.
this would be high in my list of reasons to get substantially more Green MPs in government. Shifting a big chunk of govt support for farming to regenag, including research.
btw, not sure why your italics tags didn't work, might have been the . . . . , but I changed them to quotes.
Is he unwell ?
Simon Bridges is a massive embarrassment. Does he really need to scream in Parliament, dragging his tiresome Babel behind him?
Kia Ora Newshub.
Let's hope that it will work out OK.
The dryest summer on record for Tamiki Makaru that was pridicted by our scientists.
Maybe there should be A online template for A virus health and safety plan for small businesses.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Well I say that our government has done a good job leading Aotearoa and Tangata Whenua through the virus issues.???????????.
Te Marama is shining bright tonight
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora The Am Show.
We do need to plant billions of trees.
The new Auckland water restrictions time to get tanks and catch rain water many positive effects from doing that.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Newshub.
Banks are just using this situation to fleece people.
Making the safe moves down the levels is better than taking big risk.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Its great to see all the Aohai and koha of Kai in Aotearoa during these hard times.
Ka kite Ano