Establishment political analysts, posturing as anti-establishment, become the victims of their innate perceptual inadequacies. Poor old Chomsky, seemingly incapable of figuring out what's going on…
Chomsky’s approach has the effect of relativizing the regime’s crimes, which account for 90% of the victims and destruction. It seems that if the U.S. cannot be blamed for these crimes, then they are not very important.
Just goes to show how one's mental frame, often formed in an earlier era of history, continues to be deployed despite the world changing and making it distort one's view.
He observes that "Media systems have no answer for toxic polarisation." The key point is in the sub-text: public media is holistic by definition, private media is dualistic by definition. Media creates a triad. It functions as a medial conduit between the whole (body politic) and the parts (citizens). This three-in-one framing is metaphysics. You'll recall a similar triad that shaped the course of western civilisation: the christian trinity. Aristotle defined metaphysics as being beyond physics but it helps to interpret beyond as deeper.
Overall, it is fair to say that the digital revolution has helped make media more plural, participatory and protest-friendly. But its contribution to tolerant, diverse publics appears negligible or even negative. This is contrary to hopes two decades ago that the internet would help form a “digital public sphere” far more democratic and inclusive than pre-digital society. The 15 minutes of fame that digital media dishes out to people previously known as the audience does not necessarily add up to a national, let alone global, conversation that cuts across social and ideological divides. This is a problem because democracy is a highly demanding way to organise public life, requiring not only the freedom to speak but also a commitment to listen and to respect others’ equal rights even when consensus is elusive. But instead of enlarging common spaces for democratic deliberation, the global trend is towards political polarisation, according to the newly released annual report of the Sweden-based Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project.
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This is a co-design challenge. Media co-design is rarely evident – most people assume someone else will do it. Few become pro-active, but when they do, they must practise consensus politics to find common ground and collaborate effectively.
I’ve snipped two of your overlong copypasta. Generally short quotes to support your points or show what piece is about are good but not really long quotes. People can click through for whole article. Long quotes are occasionally useful but they cause problems for scrollers esp on phones when done a lot and there’s been an outbreak of them by a number of commenters lately.
The prof explains how social media corporatisation has perverted the original intent of the internet:
[overlong quote deleted]
So that establishes the basis for a leftist critique of corporatised social media, and any consequent collective project to re-engineer it into more of a commons…
We need a more fundamental overhaul, of the kind envisioned by a group of communication scholars and practitioners in their manifesto to create a Public Service internet. Released last June and signed by more than 1,200 scholars since, it calls for a publicly funded “Internet of the public, by the public, and for the public; an Internet that advances instead of threatens democracy and the public sphere, and an Internet that provides a new and dynamic shared space for connection, exchange and collaboration”. The manifesto also called for investments in public-service media.
Yet while the left & right maintain neoliberalism in western countries, activists will need to transcend democracy in their organising to make this happen!
What don’t you understand of weka’s note @ 2.1 to you?
Instead of being more succinct you’ve simply split one very large quote into a number of smaller but still sizeable ones.
As a rule of thumb I consider comments >200 words as being too long, depending on clarity of text and information content, of course. Most readers will switch off or not even bother reading such comment at all, which is an opportunity missed and possibly also a source of frustration, not the least because of the scrolling required to get past it.
I also like to see less pasted quoted text and more opinion and (political) points by commenters that can be debated here. I was taught at school to write things in my own words, first and foremost, and later on I was taught to quote and cite, but sparingly, as not to distract from the main text and message by me as the writer.
It seems to me that quite a few commenters here see TS as some sort of notice board or dumping ground for their little discoveries in mainstream and social media (especially Twitter and YouTube and less so of Facebook). This is not good for strong and high-quality debate! [206 words]
I think social media encourages it. People post their fav thing they found instead of writing their own thoughts and SM rewards this because it's just more clicks for them.
And it's easier to copy and paste than use our own words (same for me too, although I tend to paste tweets and let people click through if they want to read something).
Re Denis' last comment, it might just be a shorter version of what I deleted (which would be fine, I haven't looked).
With Minister Little forming a nationwide surgery waiting list, which includes a complete reassessment of every person on a waiting list that will be completed in November, health is going to turn into a massive media sink-hole for Labour.
And the hospital staff who have endured through COVID as well as the massive restructure also have to deal with perpetual daily abuse for doing their work.
My wife who worked at a hospital was told by her manager that she should come to work expecting to get hit and apparently destroyed all the incident reports that staff had been filling out for years. Serious incidents such as a staff member being knocked unconscious and suffering brain damage were never reported to OSH. We only found that out when we were helping her fight ACC.
Wife stopped working there as was too dangerous at her age / injuries. They lost a really good staff member as a result.
Fund the system all you like but if these types of issues cannot be resolved then we will always struggle to staff the service…..who in their right mind would want to place themselves in such a position.
Yes – imagining that National could, or would want to, solve this problem is mistaken. Their goal is to raise private sector profitability by lowering tax, labour costs, and regulatory burdens – with the resulting wealth windfall allowing their supporters to escape the public health system and go private.
But money alone won't really solve it either.
Medical specialists are effectively a cartel. They use the existence of health insurance to open private clinics with highly and uniformly extractive prices. This in turn adds to waiting lists in the public sector and forces the public sector to contract work out to those same private clinics. Meanwhile the medical schools and specialist colleges act as gatekeepers restricting the number of locally trained specialists.
The burden of ill health in the community is much higher than it needs to be and horribly extensive to treat medically. Proper prevention would attempt to deal with the food environment, low incomes and the mental stress of financial and housing insecurity. But any action on these is also resisted by business – and ultimately made difficult by our free trade agreements if we (say) wanted Coca Cola to eff off because of their contribution to diabetes and tooth decay.
Did you think people at the bottom wouldn't get angry? It is utterly wrong to take it out on staff, but the public health system has been a disgrace for years and years and while those who matter could afford private, whether through insurance or private means and seldom had to depend on it, we could just concentrate finance on critical care, (which is used by the wealthy), and let it rip apart. The poor died, and were disabled by its inadequacy and I can attest personally to people dying because of letting it just deteriorate and deteriorate. But hey, we didn't have the money, right?
But, we just spent billions that was never there – not until the 'middle class' felt concerned for their safety. And magically the money was available. Lock the whole country down, work from home and be serviced by couriers and supermarket staff. Money is no object, not when wealthy people feel threatened. The little people who have to depend on the public health system that we could never afford to fix.
It's impossible to communicate the frustration and despair of those this nation chose to throw under the bus, in so many ways, for so long.
This is not to denigrate the many hard-working and compassionate health workers, within a decrepit, underfunded, understaffed system.
Agree tc.
Ad has ignored the underlying cause of the current situation with our hospitals.
That is, the ideologically driven underfunding of public service entities by a former National government throughout the 1990s followed by the last National government allowing the flow of immigrants to rise dramatically without moving on the corresponding infrastructure to cope with them.
Instead, it is left for for the reader to assume that the current government is at fault and must take a beating despite the fact they are addressing the issue as fast as they can while at the same time grappling with a world-wide pandemic that has created huge delays and massive supply issues.
Top marks to Minister of Health, Andrew Little for tackling the problem head-on despite push back by opponents with vested interest in seeing his efforts fail. Eg. Matthew Hooton of DP fame.
And we’re starting to hear the familiar refrain: Labour have been government for 4/5 years – why haven’t they sorted out the health system.
Well, it took years of Natz governments to wreck it, it’ll take a few years of Labour governments to fix it!
In both housing and health National took the view that if it wasn't going to happen soon you would be taken off the waiting list. They then booted people off the waiting lists.
While at one level that is a pragmatic and sensible approach – why give people hope when there is none (it suits a target driven KPI mindset) it hides the actual need that exists and then it becomes very difficult to understand or assess unmet need.
The same as shifting costs from one department to another such as dental treatment – becomes part of the welfare costs and demand rather than health and health now has no idea what either the demand or unmet need is.
Then there is the real issue of fudging to meet targets – changing dates, ways of counting, rejecting new people, creating barriers for them to jump through etc.
Then there is the flood of growth as the government changes with people conflating previously hidden unmet demand with new demand. It isn't new demand it was always there.
Is this fiddle a reason house waiting lists have risen from ~7000 to ~25000 with Labour in office? I have been wondering about the change and why it has not been advertised that the demand was always there if surpressed.
They were quite open about it both in housing and health. Some of the increase is also due to the feeling by the public that Labour is more compassionate. Don’t know if any media look at the C&D numbers – i.e. have people just moved up the priority list.
"Changes to the way Housing New Zealand delivers state housing will make the system fairer for everyone, says Housing Minister Phil Heatley.
From 1 July, Housing New Zealand will start using an improved system to decide who gets a state house. The new system will mean that only those in the greatest need (A and B priority applicants) will be eligible for state housing, and will be placed on Housing New Zealand’s waiting list.
Those with lower housing needs (C & D priority applicants) will no longer be eligible for a state house, and instead will be helped in to other types of housing through Housing New Zealand’s Options and Advice Service."
"In 1998 there were 8,691 applicants on the State Housing Waiting List.
After the exclusion of lower priority applicants in 2011, the waiting list did not return to this level until June 2018 (8,704).
Housing New Zealand identified in 2011 that: “As at 30 September 2008 there were 3,166 applicants (excluding transfers) on the waiting list with a priority (‘A’ or ‘B’) housing need. By 30 September 2011 this had fallen to 1,971.
The decline in the waiting list appears to be linked to the introduction of the Corporation’s Options and Advice service, which was implemented nationally in June 2010. In the 12 months before implementation, around 56 percent of customers seeking housing assistance from the Corporation had a housing needs assessment. In the 12 months following implementation, this had decreased to 32 percent”.
The recent blow out of the State house waiting list is almost entirely due to the exponential increase in rental costs. People who 10 years ago could afford to rent in the 'open market' now can't do so, and are waiting for state housing (while in temp accommodation or crowding in with family).
The hospital waiting list increase is largely (but not entirely) attributable to the lockdowns from Covid, and the consequent delay of routine (and not so routine) surgery and treatment. One of the reasons that it's so bad in the Auckland Region, is that Auckland had more and longer lockdowns than anywhere else.
TBH I really doubt that the newly announced nationalization of the waiting lists is going to achieve much. It's shifting deckchairs on the Titanic. No hospital has operating theatres and surgical teams sitting twiddling their thumbs waiting for customers. And it has the potential to be massively unpopular (e.g. if you were on a 6-month waiting list for knee surgery, and it's now 18 months as people from the rest of NZ are flown in to fill up the spaces ahead of you). People waiting for treatment tend (rather naturally) to focus on themselves and their needs, not on what is 'fair' across NZ.
The proposal to issue ongoing contracts for routine surgery to private hospitals – may make a difference – but it certainly sounds … odd … coming from a Labour Government.
What is really needed is massive investment at the grass-roots level in public health. Still not seeing this (or any signs of it) from the Government. Where are the training incentives (fees-free for nurses, & radiologists), or the student loan forgiveness schemes for hard-to-staff areas, or the immigration fast-track for nurses and allied professionals, or the instruction to health boards to hire to the maximum cap, rather than depending on bureau staff for cover, or the mandate to crack open the medical guilds and actually start training as many doctors, dentists, and psychologists as we need as a country (not the number which will protect the high salaries of the current professionals).
It's all very well to blame National for '9-years of neglect' – but after 5 years we should see plans in place to remedy the deficit. And re-organizing the DHB administration is not the most urgent need in the health system.
The bulldozing of state houses has had an enormous impact in those areas where it happened. Often in areas where there is little capacity to rebuild.
This in turn increased demand which put up rents.
The pushing of the poor into the private sector was only ever going to push up rents. Whether this was done through kicking people off waiting lists, selling their state house or bull doxing their state house did not matter. Add immigration into the mix and you push demand even higher.
Decrease the supply while increasing the demand was only ever going to create one thing – an escalating viscous circle of unaffordable rents leading to higher state house waiting lists. Done by design by capitalist pigs.
You can't easily physically replace those bulldozed houses in some areas.
However, the exponential rise in the numbers on the State house waiting list – has come over the last 5 years – and ties in very closely with the similar increase in market rents (tied to the house price rise).
Labour haven't been (by and large) bulldozing state houses (though there has been some clearance in preparation for more intensive housing).
Nor has there been substantial immigration in the last 2 years.
This can only be down to people being priced out of open market rentals – which is pretty much an inevitable consequence of the frankly unsustainable housing market increases. They were bad under National, but have been even worse under Labour.
I'm not disagreeing with you I'm just pointing out that that situation exists because of a deliberate supply/demand equation back then that created a viscous circle that short of increasing supply can't be fixed. It was always going to escalate.
Reorganising the DHB administration is not the most urgent..
The pay and salary of Administrators and Managers is way too much (timed by each DHB) and is top heavy.
The practice of trickle down does not work in Health or anywhere.
Having been through 2 different local body amalgamations and re-organizations, and one commercial one, I can confirm that the salary budget won't be greatly reduced after the amalgamation. All of those managers retained/reappointed/hired are now supervising more staff, and responsible for more budget – so their salaries go up.
Usually there's a new layer of middle management added – since you can only have about 10-15 direct reports.
So, to take IT as an example. Yes, you'll only have one IT director after amalgamation. Their salary will be substantially greater than any of the incumbents (more staff/budget/responsibility); and there will be a new tier of middle managers instituted between that director and the people doing the actual work (since there would be too many for one person to supervise) – those people are unlikely to be paid as much as the previous individual IT heads – but will be a hefty proportion of that salary – or they won't retain them (see below for why that might be an issue). The combination is likely to match or even exceed the original combined IT salary budget.
And, that's setting aside any 'grandfathering' clauses – where existing staff retain their current salary when they are transferred to the new structure.
And any redundancy payouts and/or outsourcing/contracting arrangements. It's really, really common for a key person to miss out on a senior role and take redundancy, only for the organization to realize that they have critical knowledge, and need to be hired back in at a contractor salary to train their replacement. I've seen that happen multiple times. [Not just in local government, in corporate organizations as well].
Or for the organization to realize that that one key staff member had knowledge in 2 separate spheres – which aren't a common cross-over – so they need to hire 2 people to replace that key staff member…. Seen that happen, too.
Of course, it's also common in the commercial world for recruiters to be eyeing up companies going through restructure (which is a highly stressful time for the people working there), and offering the cream of the staff bonus contracts to jump ship to competitors.
I used IT as a deliberate example there – as those skills are readily transferrable and in short supply; AND one of the first actions of the new Health Board will apparently be to combine the different IT systems (I feel a frisson of horror – as I know just how complex this is going to be) – so local knowledge of the current individual systems will be absolutely critical. Novopay has nothing on just how badly this could go wrong….
In short, It takes time for waiting lists etc. to build up when you have a government that underfunds and undermines the public services and hospitals based on ideological claptrap as National did in the 90s and again from 2008 through to 2017. The hit started to become apparent after they lost the treasury benches.
Conversely, when a government increases funding and takes other practical measures to assist public services and hospitals, it takes equal time for the corresponding improvements to become apparent.
By the time this current term of office had ended, the improvements will be widespread and noticeable – provided Covid does not rear its uglier head again and send us back into lockdown mode. Fingers crossed.
Labour is definitely to blame for any problems with the Northland DHB and Whangarei Base Hospital. How do I know that? Because that's the perspective that Shane Reti has cultivated and fed. And in recent times he has been flavour of the month. Months. So apparently what he portrays has weight and veracity.
Reality? From 1975 until 2020 the Whangarei electorate (under whichever name) had National MPs. For three terms – 9 years Shane Reti was a member of that Health Board.
I know it's part of the game politicians play but I see his efforts in rousing the ignorant to do with health provisions in Northland as totally scummy.
Northland, besides having Labour MPs in its Maori seat and Vern Cracknell's three year term in the 1960s, has been lumbered itself with National MPs for just about forever. Their legacy is evident, not just in health provisions.
I dispute your claim that National had waiting lists under control. National's policies were to purge the waiting lists to make them look smaller so they could brag about it. That is not control, that is cynical manipulation.
National is equally responsible for the mess. They were government for nine years and they were repeatedly told that the population increases and immigration that were predicted for the next few decades would need significant investment – in facilities and people – but only put as little as they thought they could get away with.
National are always more interested in building multi billion dollar new roads and by-passes.
To build up the medical work force takes a decade and more but National were content to bring in overseas medics to make up any shortage. Now we struggle to get overseas medics because they are needed in other countries as well.
Internationally there is a shortage of doctors, nurses and support staff. They can't be magicked out of thin air and they naturally want to earn as much as they can so they gravitate to large economy countries where the pay is better.
All governments for the last 40 years are culpable. It started with Rogernomics and then continued with the 90s Bolger government when the first thing you saw when you approached a CHE (renamed public hospital) was the word "cashier".
“And the hospital staff who have endured through COVID as well as the massive restructure also have to deal with perpetual daily abuse for doing their work”
Ad, it may surprise you to here this coming from someone from a right wing perspective, but I think we need to bite the bullet and pay our medical staff a lot more.
Even looking from a right-wing, market driven perspective, and consistent with the principles I have explained previously about price controls causing shortages, it is clear we are in an international market for our medical people. Therefore if we want to retain them, we need to pay the going rate.
By trying to keep the wage rate for our medical staff significantly lower than what they can get in the likes of Australia, a price control has effectively been applied. The result of this will be an exodus of medical people overseas with resulting shortages.
Funding the health system properly could come about if we got rid of wasteful bureaucracy who make no or very little difference to what happens on the ground.
But no Labour sets up a Cancer Agency, is spending good health money on a health restructure, possibly a Mental Health Commission.
It all rises and falls on what the good Drs and Nurses do and whether they have the necessary equipment and drugs. Pay nurses and Dr more. Now. A lot more.
Of course Drs are going to work privately where they have better conditions and more controllable work loads. Who can blame them? And that's not even mentioning the pay.
well maybe, but the re structure is going to cost to establish.
why not concentrate on the real work force getting numbers and pay right, then cut bureacracy. And please for god's sake get rid of the cancer agency and don't re-establish the mental health commission………please. BTW what a waste of time and money the commission of enquiry in to mental health was. ……..
Thats bullshit Dukell, the waiting lists were manipulated under National and I know because I was one of the "waiting forevers ", the qualifying points kept getting raised for a hip operation. For the other hip as a solo farmer the wait was so long I would have had to pay for a replacement worker for me for 8 months, it was cheaper to pay for it privately. Got it done in 3 weeks and back working in another 3.
35 years ago TS my wife worked in Auckland A&E and assaults and arseholes were just as common then. She still works in A&E and Emergency care so she should know. It never recieved the drama-laden media coverage it does now.
“Anyone needing an operation should go private.” Really Ad?
Why? You will get the same surgeons!!
DHB's fudged their figures for years, did not supply security to protect staff, and underfunding of public services worsened the situation.
Many small private hospitals moved difficult cases back to the major local public hospital when an operation ceased to be straight forward. So the public system paid for major equipment while the private system took the cream of the easy cases.
Andrew can prove the need for more targetted funding through the waiting List.
I'm picking he went private because he could afford it, and he wanted to prevent someone, who could not afford to go private, the opportunity to take his place in the queue.
The idea that govts be allowed to govern seems questionable to some folk:
statements about the Crown’s obligations to Māori under the Treaty are about to be challenged in court in a case brought by the Water Users Group and led by prominent QCs Gary Judd and Grant Illingworth.
Their claim will test the correctness in law of Mahuta’s central claim, that partnership and active protection of Māori rights must lead to co-governance and in the form she proposes it.
At the core of the case is Mahuta’s contention that “iwi/Māori have rights and interests in Three Waters under the Treaty … and the structure and mechanisms [proposed] would give effective recognition to [these rights]… and would fulfil the Crown’s duty to comply with the principles of the Treaty”.
The Water Users Group is asking for the Crown Law advice to be released, so it can be examined and its reasoning tested in court. Mahuta has refused, which only raises questions about what the advice actually says, and about how robust that advice actually is. https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/128548570/three-waters-is-still-a-shameless-asset-grab
Yeah but the minister must act in accord with Labour's principle of non-transparent governance – otherwise she's likely to get replaced by her leader doing a reshuffle.
The WUG is in the running for the ugliest acronym of the year award (unless you'd rather go with TWUG). It's an incorporated society, so if you're a born stirrer you can stir the waters here: https://www.waterusers.org.nz/
It is legally contentious, says the WUG, that the Treaty requires the Crown to seize and share assets which did not exist when the Treaty was signed.
It'll be interesting to see the legal contending from both sides. The Crown was big on seizing assets throughout British history, but fairly small on sharing them – so precedent could be a bit of a problem. Whether the court will decide that the Treaty is binding on settler & current govts is a biggie. They could do a Mallard & duck for cover. Bishop senior ought to be commended for restraining himself from going feral (or perhaps the Stuff editor sent the diatribe back redlined with rewrite suggestions).
Not that comparable really pat. As a unionist with the Northern Store Workers Union I participated in a number of successful strikes that broke Muldoon’s wage freeze at Union Carbide, SuperLiquor, and various South Auckland manufacturing sites.
Multi Nationals took the piss with Muldoon, such as the oil industry and their transfer pricing methods that they used to circumvent the freeze.
Supermarkets have had “loss leader” promotions for years to get them in the doors.
Duopoly means just that. Even the low end Pak’n’Saves have been hammering the prices on basics during the last year.
When the private sector "do it"? Comparing a private company not raising its prices hardly bears the tiniest smidgen of comparison to a government dictating a wage freeze and a price freeze across a country.
Do you think the suppliers will see any difference?….or will the result be any different when the freeze is ended?
The criticisms that were applied to the comprehensive state imposed price freeze are as valid for this….the comparison is close enough to be worth considering.
The most curious feature (to me at least) is the abdication of policy to the corporations.
Just marketing stunt by Woolworths Australia. Go in to Countdown and buy a 1kg block of cheese that they will freeze the price on, then go to Pak n Save and buy same product as it will be cheaper
Yes, it is a marketing stunt (and it will be interesting to see what the other supermarkets do)….but it is wort remembering that the suppliers will not be protected from increased costs, and I expect the profit of Countdown will be unimpacted, and any loses incurred within the chain will be regained later.
Price is a function of only 2 inputs, labour and profit….which do you think will ultimately support this?
Both supermarket chains have very 'robust' negotiations with suppliers and you will probably find that it is actually their suppliers who would have been told by Countdown to freeze their price.
I very much expect the suppliers are expected to carry a portion of the risk…and the consumer will pick up the rest through cross subsidy….as stated I dont expect Countdowns profit to reduce.
"The problem is simple; given the fossil energy left, we need to ascertain what living on, say, 50% less energy in a post-growth world, would look like for New Zealand. We need to ascertain what infrastructure is worth pursuing (to Onslow or not to Onslow?) – and what would be a waste of the remaining time, energy and resources.
As it is energy and resources per capita, which is the valid measure (true poverty being a lack of both), a smaller population will be wealthier individually than a large one (another point those inside-the-box economists got totally wrong). So we need to have a discussion about maximum desirable population; a reasonable assumption being that it will be less than current, due to the reduction of energy/resource inputs. Better we go there proactively, than waiting for the natural overshoot/collapse sequence.
It is obviously better that we retain some form of social cohesion during the period ahead. The reduction of surplus energy, coupled with the ever-more of it required to maintain what we’ve already built, will threaten such cohesion. This too, has to be clearly understood; promise folk the undeliverable and they just get angry; at best they end up on your Parliament grounds in tents. At worst? But promise them ‘Blood, toil, tears and sweat’, being brutally honest about it, and they might just come with you. "
Not if we twist facts. Those who were on the parliamentary lawn were not there because they were sold lies. Rather they did not accept the message or the messenger. They wanted "their truth"
'Winter' is coming – time to 'rug up' and break out the Thermette.
The Copper Thermette is unfortunately on backorder until further notice. However, you are still welcome to place an order for a deferred payment and delivery. https://wilsonco.co.nz/product/copper-thermette/
BAU is incompatible with the IPCC scenario for a low carbon future,essentially growth needs to stop to constrain the population at 6.2b at 2100,or around the same as now at 2050.
Do they?….6 billion by 2100….that flies in the face of world bank and various other official projections…where , why and what is the basis of that claim?
Humans are around 34% of the worlds land based mammalian biomass,we respire around 3.5 t of co2 per person (which is the energy transformation of consumption and excretion) in its most simplistic form.There needs to be a significant decrease in gdp pp as we move to a global first step of around 28bbl of ff equivalents by 2050,which allows a reduction of population by 2100.
It may allow (havnt bothered to check the calculation) but my question is where in the IPCC scenarios do they assume a world population decrease of 25% by 2100?….you may make assumptions based on CO2 emissions based on population, that dosnt mean the IPCC has made the same assumptions.
The shared socio economic pathways are the models used to constrain GG growth by the IPCC, the SSEP 1 scenario that has 6.96b by 2100 is what is being enacted by the Paris agreement.
Of course the Pliocene was formative in the emergence of man,where Lucy and her daughters descended to the grasslands,becoming upright to reduce their water loss and decrease burn from the high UV regime,fortuitous some may think.
"Interestingly, the population projections in Figure 2-4 are not evenly distributed across the full range. Instead, they are grouped into three clusters. The middle cluster is representative of the central projections, with a range of about 10 to less than 12 billion people by 2100. The other two clusters mark the highest and the lowest population projections available in the literature, with between 15 and 20 billion at the high end and about 6 billion at the low end."
How demographics relates to climate change is very interesting.
There are quite a number of countries that are going to be hugely affected by demographics going forward. China is one of the major ones. Geopolitical scientist, Peter Zeihan has a lot to say about demographic trends in China.
According to Peter, China has one of the fastest aging populations in the world, largely due to the one-child policy that prevailed for a long time there. And, depending on which figures are used, China could halve its population as early as 2050.
That is a huge reduction in population for the largest population in the world. Russia is being affected in a similar way.
The demographic projection is for world population to peak at around 10 billion by 2100. But if Zeihan's most pessimistic projection for China halving by 2050, then the world population could peak a lot earlier and may not get as high as 10 billion.
The problem with just looking at population is that it doesn’t have a direct coupling to greenhouse gas emmissions. The rate of increase in personal affluence in places like China is actually a lot faster than the demographic decline.
Those two are linked. Effectively each person remaining has a greater proportion of the infrastructural wealth as population decreases. And their personal production of greenhouse gases rises accordingly.
Increasing personal affluence is the greatest driver of greenhouse gas production.
That is why a average US citizen currently produces directly and indirectly more greenhouse gas than citizens of almost eveey country in the world. They are also amongst the most affluent on average.
This is like the fallacy that planting trees is good at reducing fossil carbon in the atmosphere and oceans. It is only if you never cut them down or have forest fires for a thousand years or so. If neither of those are true, then all you have done is to produce a transient tiny reduction before the fossil carbon winds up in the oceans – and probably delayed sequestaion. Instead we should grow swamps.
You make some fair points there. But I think there are also some upsides to affluent societies with respect to the environment
I think affluent societies have more economic resource to apply to the problem if so long as they can be motivated to do so.
For instance, an affluent person may be able to purchase a new electric vehicle while someone from a poor country may only be able to afford an old second hand petrol car that isn't very efficient.
Or a more affluent country might be able to afford to invest in more renewable type energy whereas a poorer one might be more likely to use coal generation for instance.
A more affluent country might have the economic capability to find ways to recycle waste plastic whereas in a poorer country the plastic might end up in the river.
The health system has been struggling for many years. If people are uncertain about future changes, who remembers Ruth Richardson putting paying machines in wards in order to get admitted? That nutty idea didn't last long.Who remembers Jenny Shipley wanting to close Hutt Hospital or dramatically downgrade it? Given Wainuiomata, Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt have much increased populations that was utterly an crazy idea. And with only one way to get into Wellington from these places, any emergencies in rush hours would have needed helicopters.
The health system must be an impossible thing to budget for in many ways. That is because whatever is budgeted is never enough.
Most of us who have been around for awhile will have some minor issue that we live with, and because it doesn't inconvenience us, we just live with it.
For instance, I have a little finger that is a bit crooked because I think I broke it in a sporting accident years ago. It doesn't give me much trouble, so I don't bother about it. And, I expect I would still be on the waiting list by the time I died, given it isn't a pressing health issue. But, if there was endless health funding, I might get it sorted.
If that was multiplied across the population, then the health budget would need to be incredibly huge to accomodate all the latent health needs that people could get sorted if there were no limits.
Not surprisingly, Luxon/Seymour/Fed Farmers/groundswell are very muted at praising the scientists/government's success with M.Bovis elimination. Given the multi millions spent to do this, does that come into Luxon's complaint about spend, spend, spend.
If anyone else has grandparents that had to leave the north of Ireland pretty quickly after the Easter Rising, the thought of Sinn Fein actually getting a majority in the Northern Ireland Parliament (as they are now likely to do) is going to provoke a bit of feeling.
"…grandparents that had to leave the north of Ireland pretty quickly after the Easter Rising,…."
Why specifically the north of Ireland when the participants were at the other end of the country? Northern Ireland as a political entity didnt exist until 1920
It was long standing (religious and heritage/lineage based) and all over Ireland at various times.
Catholic/Protestant & various permutations with Catholic/Presbyterian, Catholic/Church of Ireland (Anglican)
Native Irish and 'planted' Irish
(granted land as part of Oliver Cromwell's Army in the south and settlers coming to the north under the auspices of a various large London Guilds in the 1600. The 12 guilds that were given control over Derry~Londonderry and the regions adjacent were the Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Merchant Tailors, Haberdashers, Salters, Ironmongers, Vintners, and Clothworkers. The smaller guilds that joined them included the Cordwainers, Dyers, Scriveners, Upholders, Wax Chandlers, Tallow Chandlers, Broderers, Founders, Pewterers, and Fletchers.
I have a Presbyterian gt grandfather who emigrated to NZ from Co Londonderry in the mid 1880s 'for the good of his health', ostensibly bronchitis. My mother always said it was probably more like his health in a larger context of living or dead.
So they came to Auckland where despite planning by the Auckland City Council the religious Irish marched on each other's days as well as their own (St Patricks day 17/3 and the Apprentice Boys march (second Saturday in August) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprentice_Boys_of_Derry or to remember the the Battle of the Boyne on 12 July.
ACC then designed marching routes several blocks from each other but my grandmother said the groups always 'found' each other for a bit of heckling and roughing each other up.
My mother (Irish/Danish) used to say The Irish, what can you do with people who act as if the Battle of the Boyne happened yesterday' – it happened in 1690.
My Dad came from a proudly NZ-Irish family on the West Coast – 3 generations in NZ when he was born – but still regarded themselves as 'Irish'.
Until he did his great OE in the late 70s (when he was in his 50s) – and visited Ireland. His reaction: "For the first time, I knew I was a New Zealander, and how lucky I was that my grandfather emigrated (according to family legend, one step ahead of the law), to New Zealand"
'One step ahead of the law' is a good saying for my gt grandfather too……too much concern about religion lead to moving for the sake of his 'health'. He was adamant, according to my grandmother, his daughter, and thence to my mother about various family doings, ie he was the only child…..etc etc. I have since found a sister and a brother. My mother called him 'an international man of mystery'…..probably because he needed to leave and was not going to make it easy for anyone to track him.
I went to the place he had lived and the current lessees have left his property uncultivated with the fences still up and maintained as it was beautifully laid out and planted. He and his later family are known as plants people.
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000. Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s ...
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellsford, Onehunga, Westhaven marina – Gavin Strawhan walks the meanish streets of New Zealand in his entertaining debut novel The Call, almost sure to roar into the number 1 position on the Nielsen bestseller chart, its front cover bearing a rave from somebody: “A really good and genuinely ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
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Establishment political analysts, posturing as anti-establishment, become the victims of their innate perceptual inadequacies. Poor old Chomsky, seemingly incapable of figuring out what's going on…
Just goes to show how one's mental frame, often formed in an earlier era of history, continues to be deployed despite the world changing and making it distort one's view.
Professor of Media Studies examines the current state of the media/politics interface:
He observes that "Media systems have no answer for toxic polarisation." The key point is in the sub-text: public media is holistic by definition, private media is dualistic by definition. Media creates a triad. It functions as a medial conduit between the whole (body politic) and the parts (citizens). This three-in-one framing is metaphysics. You'll recall a similar triad that shaped the course of western civilisation: the christian trinity. Aristotle defined metaphysics as being beyond physics but it helps to interpret beyond as deeper.
[deleted]
This is a co-design challenge. Media co-design is rarely evident – most people assume someone else will do it. Few become pro-active, but when they do, they must practise consensus politics to find common ground and collaborate effectively.
I’ve snipped two of your overlong copypasta. Generally short quotes to support your points or show what piece is about are good but not really long quotes. People can click through for whole article. Long quotes are occasionally useful but they cause problems for scrollers esp on phones when done a lot and there’s been an outbreak of them by a number of commenters lately.
The prof explains how social media corporatisation has perverted the original intent of the internet:
[overlong quote deleted]
So that establishes the basis for a leftist critique of corporatised social media, and any consequent collective project to re-engineer it into more of a commons…
The prof also mentions a non-market solution:
Yet while the left & right maintain neoliberalism in western countries, activists will need to transcend democracy in their organising to make this happen!
What don’t you understand of weka’s note @ 2.1 to you?
Instead of being more succinct you’ve simply split one very large quote into a number of smaller but still sizeable ones.
As a rule of thumb I consider comments >200 words as being too long, depending on clarity of text and information content, of course. Most readers will switch off or not even bother reading such comment at all, which is an opportunity missed and possibly also a source of frustration, not the least because of the scrolling required to get past it.
I also like to see less pasted quoted text and more opinion and (political) points by commenters that can be debated here. I was taught at school to write things in my own words, first and foremost, and later on I was taught to quote and cite, but sparingly, as not to distract from the main text and message by me as the writer.
It seems to me that quite a few commenters here see TS as some sort of notice board or dumping ground for their little discoveries in mainstream and social media (especially Twitter and YouTube and less so of Facebook). This is not good for strong and high-quality debate! [206 words]
I think social media encourages it. People post their fav thing they found instead of writing their own thoughts and SM rewards this because it's just more clicks for them.
And it's easier to copy and paste than use our own words (same for me too, although I tend to paste tweets and let people click through if they want to read something).
Re Denis' last comment, it might just be a shorter version of what I deleted (which would be fine, I haven't looked).
With Minister Little forming a nationwide surgery waiting list, which includes a complete reassessment of every person on a waiting list that will be completed in November, health is going to turn into a massive media sink-hole for Labour.
Hospital waiting lists: Painful wait for surgery pre-dates Covid-19, sufferers say | RNZ News
This story will bleed and lead forever.
And the hospital staff who have endured through COVID as well as the massive restructure also have to deal with perpetual daily abuse for doing their work.
Christchurch Hospital staff punched, spat on, sworn at and sexually harassed | RNZ News
Anyone who needs an operation and can afford it should go private.
Whatever was fixed about our hospital system now, is going to look more and more broken very rapidly.
Christchurch Hospital staff punched, spat on, sworn at and sexually harassed | RNZ News
WTF is wrong with people?
My wife who worked at a hospital was told by her manager that she should come to work expecting to get hit and apparently destroyed all the incident reports that staff had been filling out for years. Serious incidents such as a staff member being knocked unconscious and suffering brain damage were never reported to OSH. We only found that out when we were helping her fight ACC.
Wife stopped working there as was too dangerous at her age / injuries. They lost a really good staff member as a result.
Fund the system all you like but if these types of issues cannot be resolved then we will always struggle to staff the service…..who in their right mind would want to place themselves in such a position.
Absolutely, it's not just about the money.
How many times was her manager hit? None, of course. Only the front line staff in our hospitals take the knocks.
Doubtless the manager had an MBA too (Master of B—– all)
Agree Ad. Folks need reminding which governments slashed and burned our health system through the 90's.
Then that other govt who oversaw a 12% or so population rise yet allowed health to be 30% underfunded.
You get what you pay for in health and successive national govts have wilfully underfunded it so here we are.
Yes – imagining that National could, or would want to, solve this problem is mistaken. Their goal is to raise private sector profitability by lowering tax, labour costs, and regulatory burdens – with the resulting wealth windfall allowing their supporters to escape the public health system and go private.
But money alone won't really solve it either.
Medical specialists are effectively a cartel. They use the existence of health insurance to open private clinics with highly and uniformly extractive prices. This in turn adds to waiting lists in the public sector and forces the public sector to contract work out to those same private clinics. Meanwhile the medical schools and specialist colleges act as gatekeepers restricting the number of locally trained specialists.
The burden of ill health in the community is much higher than it needs to be and horribly extensive to treat medically. Proper prevention would attempt to deal with the food environment, low incomes and the mental stress of financial and housing insecurity. But any action on these is also resisted by business – and ultimately made difficult by our free trade agreements if we (say) wanted Coca Cola to eff off because of their contribution to diabetes and tooth decay.
Did you think people at the bottom wouldn't get angry? It is utterly wrong to take it out on staff, but the public health system has been a disgrace for years and years and while those who matter could afford private, whether through insurance or private means and seldom had to depend on it, we could just concentrate finance on critical care, (which is used by the wealthy), and let it rip apart. The poor died, and were disabled by its inadequacy and I can attest personally to people dying because of letting it just deteriorate and deteriorate. But hey, we didn't have the money, right?
But, we just spent billions that was never there – not until the 'middle class' felt concerned for their safety. And magically the money was available. Lock the whole country down, work from home and be serviced by couriers and supermarket staff. Money is no object, not when wealthy people feel threatened. The little people who have to depend on the public health system that we could never afford to fix.
It's impossible to communicate the frustration and despair of those this nation chose to throw under the bus, in so many ways, for so long.
This is not to denigrate the many hard-working and compassionate health workers, within a decrepit, underfunded, understaffed system.
We paid to shut the whole country down, Ad. What is the difference?
Agree tc.
Ad has ignored the underlying cause of the current situation with our hospitals.
That is, the ideologically driven underfunding of public service entities by a former National government throughout the 1990s followed by the last National government allowing the flow of immigrants to rise dramatically without moving on the corresponding infrastructure to cope with them.
Instead, it is left for for the reader to assume that the current government is at fault and must take a beating despite the fact they are addressing the issue as fast as they can while at the same time grappling with a world-wide pandemic that has created huge delays and massive supply issues.
Top marks to Minister of Health, Andrew Little for tackling the problem head-on despite push back by opponents with vested interest in seeing his efforts fail. Eg. Matthew Hooton of DP fame.
And we’re starting to hear the familiar refrain: Labour have been government for 4/5 years – why haven’t they sorted out the health system.
Well, it took years of Natz governments to wreck it, it’ll take a few years of Labour governments to fix it!
Except nobody votes on what happened in the 90s.
People vote on what is going to happen in the 20s. Who has the answers for the future?
How is it that waiting lists were completely under control under the last government and targets were being hit, despite apparently being underfunded.
Now it's apparently properly funded and everything is blowing out.
Can't really see how you can blame national for this hot mess
In both housing and health National took the view that if it wasn't going to happen soon you would be taken off the waiting list. They then booted people off the waiting lists.
While at one level that is a pragmatic and sensible approach – why give people hope when there is none (it suits a target driven KPI mindset) it hides the actual need that exists and then it becomes very difficult to understand or assess unmet need.
The same as shifting costs from one department to another such as dental treatment – becomes part of the welfare costs and demand rather than health and health now has no idea what either the demand or unmet need is.
Then there is the real issue of fudging to meet targets – changing dates, ways of counting, rejecting new people, creating barriers for them to jump through etc.
Then there is the flood of growth as the government changes with people conflating previously hidden unmet demand with new demand. It isn't new demand it was always there.
Is this fiddle a reason house waiting lists have risen from ~7000 to ~25000 with Labour in office? I have been wondering about the change and why it has not been advertised that the demand was always there if surpressed.
They were quite open about it both in housing and health. Some of the increase is also due to the feeling by the public that Labour is more compassionate. Don’t know if any media look at the C&D numbers – i.e. have people just moved up the priority list.
"Changes to the way Housing New Zealand delivers state housing will make the system fairer for everyone, says Housing Minister Phil Heatley.
From 1 July, Housing New Zealand will start using an improved system to decide who gets a state house. The new system will mean that only those in the greatest need (A and B priority applicants) will be eligible for state housing, and will be placed on Housing New Zealand’s waiting list.
Those with lower housing needs (C & D priority applicants) will no longer be eligible for a state house, and instead will be helped in to other types of housing through Housing New Zealand’s Options and Advice Service."
More info here.
https://planning.org.nz/Attachment?Action=Download&Attachment_id=5492
The recent blow out of the State house waiting list is almost entirely due to the exponential increase in rental costs. People who 10 years ago could afford to rent in the 'open market' now can't do so, and are waiting for state housing (while in temp accommodation or crowding in with family).
The hospital waiting list increase is largely (but not entirely) attributable to the lockdowns from Covid, and the consequent delay of routine (and not so routine) surgery and treatment. One of the reasons that it's so bad in the Auckland Region, is that Auckland had more and longer lockdowns than anywhere else.
TBH I really doubt that the newly announced nationalization of the waiting lists is going to achieve much. It's shifting deckchairs on the Titanic. No hospital has operating theatres and surgical teams sitting twiddling their thumbs waiting for customers. And it has the potential to be massively unpopular (e.g. if you were on a 6-month waiting list for knee surgery, and it's now 18 months as people from the rest of NZ are flown in to fill up the spaces ahead of you). People waiting for treatment tend (rather naturally) to focus on themselves and their needs, not on what is 'fair' across NZ.
The proposal to issue ongoing contracts for routine surgery to private hospitals – may make a difference – but it certainly sounds … odd … coming from a Labour Government.
What is really needed is massive investment at the grass-roots level in public health. Still not seeing this (or any signs of it) from the Government. Where are the training incentives (fees-free for nurses, & radiologists), or the student loan forgiveness schemes for hard-to-staff areas, or the immigration fast-track for nurses and allied professionals, or the instruction to health boards to hire to the maximum cap, rather than depending on bureau staff for cover, or the mandate to crack open the medical guilds and actually start training as many doctors, dentists, and psychologists as we need as a country (not the number which will protect the high salaries of the current professionals).
It's all very well to blame National for '9-years of neglect' – but after 5 years we should see plans in place to remedy the deficit. And re-organizing the DHB administration is not the most urgent need in the health system.
The bulldozing of state houses has had an enormous impact in those areas where it happened. Often in areas where there is little capacity to rebuild.
This in turn increased demand which put up rents.
The pushing of the poor into the private sector was only ever going to push up rents. Whether this was done through kicking people off waiting lists, selling their state house or bull doxing their state house did not matter. Add immigration into the mix and you push demand even higher.
Decrease the supply while increasing the demand was only ever going to create one thing – an escalating viscous circle of unaffordable rents leading to higher state house waiting lists. Done by design by capitalist pigs.
You can't easily physically replace those bulldozed houses in some areas.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/82009360/housing-new-zealands-biggest-loser
However, the exponential rise in the numbers on the State house waiting list – has come over the last 5 years – and ties in very closely with the similar increase in market rents (tied to the house price rise).
In the last year alone it's gone up by over 13%
https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/housing/housing-register.html
Labour haven't been (by and large) bulldozing state houses (though there has been some clearance in preparation for more intensive housing).
Nor has there been substantial immigration in the last 2 years.
This can only be down to people being priced out of open market rentals – which is pretty much an inevitable consequence of the frankly unsustainable housing market increases. They were bad under National, but have been even worse under Labour.
I'm not disagreeing with you I'm just pointing out that that situation exists because of a deliberate supply/demand equation back then that created a viscous circle that short of increasing supply can't be fixed. It was always going to escalate.
Having been through 2 different local body amalgamations and re-organizations, and one commercial one, I can confirm that the salary budget won't be greatly reduced after the amalgamation. All of those managers retained/reappointed/hired are now supervising more staff, and responsible for more budget – so their salaries go up.
Usually there's a new layer of middle management added – since you can only have about 10-15 direct reports.
So, to take IT as an example. Yes, you'll only have one IT director after amalgamation. Their salary will be substantially greater than any of the incumbents (more staff/budget/responsibility); and there will be a new tier of middle managers instituted between that director and the people doing the actual work (since there would be too many for one person to supervise) – those people are unlikely to be paid as much as the previous individual IT heads – but will be a hefty proportion of that salary – or they won't retain them (see below for why that might be an issue). The combination is likely to match or even exceed the original combined IT salary budget.
And, that's setting aside any 'grandfathering' clauses – where existing staff retain their current salary when they are transferred to the new structure.
And any redundancy payouts and/or outsourcing/contracting arrangements. It's really, really common for a key person to miss out on a senior role and take redundancy, only for the organization to realize that they have critical knowledge, and need to be hired back in at a contractor salary to train their replacement. I've seen that happen multiple times. [Not just in local government, in corporate organizations as well].
Or for the organization to realize that that one key staff member had knowledge in 2 separate spheres – which aren't a common cross-over – so they need to hire 2 people to replace that key staff member…. Seen that happen, too.
Of course, it's also common in the commercial world for recruiters to be eyeing up companies going through restructure (which is a highly stressful time for the people working there), and offering the cream of the staff bonus contracts to jump ship to competitors.
I used IT as a deliberate example there – as those skills are readily transferrable and in short supply; AND one of the first actions of the new Health Board will apparently be to combine the different IT systems (I feel a frisson of horror – as I know just how complex this is going to be) – so local knowledge of the current individual systems will be absolutely critical. Novopay has nothing on just how badly this could go wrong….
In short, It takes time for waiting lists etc. to build up when you have a government that underfunds and undermines the public services and hospitals based on ideological claptrap as National did in the 90s and again from 2008 through to 2017. The hit started to become apparent after they lost the treasury benches.
Conversely, when a government increases funding and takes other practical measures to assist public services and hospitals, it takes equal time for the corresponding improvements to become apparent.
By the time this current term of office had ended, the improvements will be widespread and noticeable – provided Covid does not rear its uglier head again and send us back into lockdown mode. Fingers crossed.
Labour is definitely to blame for any problems with the Northland DHB and Whangarei Base Hospital. How do I know that? Because that's the perspective that Shane Reti has cultivated and fed. And in recent times he has been flavour of the month. Months. So apparently what he portrays has weight and veracity.
Reality? From 1975 until 2020 the Whangarei electorate (under whichever name) had National MPs. For three terms – 9 years Shane Reti was a member of that Health Board.
I know it's part of the game politicians play but I see his efforts in rousing the ignorant to do with health provisions in Northland as totally scummy.
Northland, besides having Labour MPs in its Maori seat and Vern Cracknell's three year term in the 1960s, has been lumbered itself with National MPs for just about forever. Their legacy is evident, not just in health provisions.
I dispute your claim that National had waiting lists under control. National's policies were to purge the waiting lists to make them look smaller so they could brag about it. That is not control, that is cynical manipulation.
National is equally responsible for the mess. They were government for nine years and they were repeatedly told that the population increases and immigration that were predicted for the next few decades would need significant investment – in facilities and people – but only put as little as they thought they could get away with.
National are always more interested in building multi billion dollar new roads and by-passes.
To build up the medical work force takes a decade and more but National were content to bring in overseas medics to make up any shortage. Now we struggle to get overseas medics because they are needed in other countries as well.
Internationally there is a shortage of doctors, nurses and support staff. They can't be magicked out of thin air and they naturally want to earn as much as they can so they gravitate to large economy countries where the pay is better.
All governments for the last 40 years are culpable. It started with Rogernomics and then continued with the 90s Bolger government when the first thing you saw when you approached a CHE (renamed public hospital) was the word "cashier".
“And the hospital staff who have endured through COVID as well as the massive restructure also have to deal with perpetual daily abuse for doing their work”
Ad, it may surprise you to here this coming from someone from a right wing perspective, but I think we need to bite the bullet and pay our medical staff a lot more.
Even looking from a right-wing, market driven perspective, and consistent with the principles I have explained previously about price controls causing shortages, it is clear we are in an international market for our medical people. Therefore if we want to retain them, we need to pay the going rate.
By trying to keep the wage rate for our medical staff significantly lower than what they can get in the likes of Australia, a price control has effectively been applied. The result of this will be an exodus of medical people overseas with resulting shortages.
We're not going to get nice things unless the rich pay more tax.
Neither Labour nor National are requiring the rich to pay more tax.
So we are not going to get nice things.
remove the 'nice' and I'd broadly agree.
Funding the health system properly could come about if we got rid of wasteful bureaucracy who make no or very little difference to what happens on the ground.
But no Labour sets up a Cancer Agency, is spending good health money on a health restructure, possibly a Mental Health Commission.
It all rises and falls on what the good Drs and Nurses do and whether they have the necessary equipment and drugs. Pay nurses and Dr more. Now. A lot more.
Of course Drs are going to work privately where they have better conditions and more controllable work loads. Who can blame them? And that's not even mentioning the pay.
Funding the health system properly could come about if we got rid of wasteful bureaucracy
I'm pretty sure that is what the restructuring is for. I expect lots of duplication in each DHB to be removed.
well maybe, but the re structure is going to cost to establish.
why not concentrate on the real work force getting numbers and pay right, then cut bureacracy. And please for god's sake get rid of the cancer agency and don't re-establish the mental health commission………please. BTW what a waste of time and money the commission of enquiry in to mental health was. ……..
I think we need to work out what it will cost, and then work out how to fund it. so far as health goes.
It may also include reprioritising existing expenditure. Or a combination of the two. But I think it needs to happen.
Thats bullshit Dukell, the waiting lists were manipulated under National and I know because I was one of the "waiting forevers ", the qualifying points kept getting raised for a hip operation. For the other hip as a solo farmer the wait was so long I would have had to pay for a replacement worker for me for 8 months, it was cheaper to pay for it privately. Got it done in 3 weeks and back working in another 3.
35 years ago TS my wife worked in Auckland A&E and assaults and arseholes were just as common then. She still works in A&E and Emergency care so she should know. It never recieved the drama-laden media coverage it does now.
“Anyone needing an operation should go private.” Really Ad?
Why? You will get the same surgeons!!
DHB's fudged their figures for years, did not supply security to protect staff, and underfunding of public services worsened the situation.
Many small private hospitals moved difficult cases back to the major local public hospital when an operation ceased to be straight forward. So the public system paid for major equipment while the private system took the cream of the easy cases.
Andrew can prove the need for more targetted funding through the waiting List.
[deleted while we have a korero about this in the back end]
I'm picking he went private because he could afford it, and he wanted to prevent someone, who could not afford to go private, the opportunity to take his place in the queue.
Indeed it was his enormous ministerial magnanimity.
The idea that govts be allowed to govern seems questionable to some folk:
Yeah but the minister must act in accord with Labour's principle of non-transparent governance – otherwise she's likely to get replaced by her leader doing a reshuffle.
The WUG is in the running for the ugliest acronym of the year award (unless you'd rather go with TWUG). It's an incorporated society, so if you're a born stirrer you can stir the waters here: https://www.waterusers.org.nz/
It'll be interesting to see the legal contending from both sides. The Crown was big on seizing assets throughout British history, but fairly small on sharing them – so precedent could be a bit of a problem. Whether the court will decide that the Treaty is binding on settler & current govts is a biggie. They could do a Mallard & duck for cover. Bishop senior ought to be commended for restraining himself from going feral (or perhaps the Stuff editor sent the diatribe back redlined with rewrite suggestions).
Muldoon's wage/price freeze has been ridiculed by commentators for years.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/05/06/countdown-to-freeze-price-of-over-500-essentials-for-winter/
Maybe it becomes desirable when the private sector do it?
Not that comparable really pat. As a unionist with the Northern Store Workers Union I participated in a number of successful strikes that broke Muldoon’s wage freeze at Union Carbide, SuperLiquor, and various South Auckland manufacturing sites.
Multi Nationals took the piss with Muldoon, such as the oil industry and their transfer pricing methods that they used to circumvent the freeze.
Supermarkets have had “loss leader” promotions for years to get them in the doors.
Duopoly means just that. Even the low end Pak’n’Saves have been hammering the prices on basics during the last year.
So even unionists see it as desirable when the private sector do it… thats illuminating.
When the private sector "do it"? Comparing a private company not raising its prices hardly bears the tiniest smidgen of comparison to a government dictating a wage freeze and a price freeze across a country.
Do you think the suppliers will see any difference?….or will the result be any different when the freeze is ended?
The criticisms that were applied to the comprehensive state imposed price freeze are as valid for this….the comparison is close enough to be worth considering.
The most curious feature (to me at least) is the abdication of policy to the corporations.
Do you buy this? What they give with one hand they will take with the other.
Just marketing stunt by Woolworths Australia. Go in to Countdown and buy a 1kg block of cheese that they will freeze the price on, then go to Pak n Save and buy same product as it will be cheaper
Yes, it is a marketing stunt (and it will be interesting to see what the other supermarkets do)….but it is wort remembering that the suppliers will not be protected from increased costs, and I expect the profit of Countdown will be unimpacted, and any loses incurred within the chain will be regained later.
Price is a function of only 2 inputs, labour and profit….which do you think will ultimately support this?
Both supermarket chains have very 'robust' negotiations with suppliers and you will probably find that it is actually their suppliers who would have been told by Countdown to freeze their price.
I very much expect the suppliers are expected to carry a portion of the risk…and the consumer will pick up the rest through cross subsidy….as stated I dont expect Countdowns profit to reduce.
"The problem is simple; given the fossil energy left, we need to ascertain what living on, say, 50% less energy in a post-growth world, would look like for New Zealand. We need to ascertain what infrastructure is worth pursuing (to Onslow or not to Onslow?) – and what would be a waste of the remaining time, energy and resources.
As it is energy and resources per capita, which is the valid measure (true poverty being a lack of both), a smaller population will be wealthier individually than a large one (another point those inside-the-box economists got totally wrong). So we need to have a discussion about maximum desirable population; a reasonable assumption being that it will be less than current, due to the reduction of energy/resource inputs. Better we go there proactively, than waiting for the natural overshoot/collapse sequence.
It is obviously better that we retain some form of social cohesion during the period ahead. The reduction of surplus energy, coupled with the ever-more of it required to maintain what we’ve already built, will threaten such cohesion. This too, has to be clearly understood; promise folk the undeliverable and they just get angry; at best they end up on your Parliament grounds in tents. At worst? But promise them ‘Blood, toil, tears and sweat’, being brutally honest about it, and they might just come with you. "
https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/115678/murray-grimwood-outlines-why-and-how-be-believes-our-relationship-and
Can we handle the truth?
And took hook,line,sinker….and rod. That'll smart in the future….
'Winter' is coming – time to 'rug up' and break out the Thermette.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Hen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gigantic_Turnip
Indeed. We could also wish for a Giant Peach. Classic "Childrens" tale by Roald Dahl. Life in a Peach. (some macabre elements. Dahl…)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_and_the_Giant_Peach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_and_the_Giant_Peach_(film)
Was not quite as Peachy for some…who banned it. And a Disney film at that : )
BAU is incompatible with the IPCC scenario for a low carbon future,essentially growth needs to stop to constrain the population at 6.2b at 2100,or around the same as now at 2050.
https://twitter.com/OurWorldInData/status/1520347034812923904?cxt=HHwWgIC-ldbkrZkqAAAA
Unfortunately all the IPCC scenarios involve unproven and ENERGY INTENSIVE carbon extraction ….the time since Limits to Growth has been wasted.
The scenarios involve the stabilization of the worlds population as it is now eg around 8 b by 2050,and a reduction in population to 6b by 2100.
Do they?….6 billion by 2100….that flies in the face of world bank and various other official projections…where , why and what is the basis of that claim?
Humans are around 34% of the worlds land based mammalian biomass,we respire around 3.5 t of co2 per person (which is the energy transformation of consumption and excretion) in its most simplistic form.There needs to be a significant decrease in gdp pp as we move to a global first step of around 28bbl of ff equivalents by 2050,which allows a reduction of population by 2100.
It may allow (havnt bothered to check the calculation) but my question is where in the IPCC scenarios do they assume a world population decrease of 25% by 2100?….you may make assumptions based on CO2 emissions based on population, that dosnt mean the IPCC has made the same assumptions.
The shared socio economic pathways are the models used to constrain GG growth by the IPCC, the SSEP 1 scenario that has 6.96b by 2100 is what is being enacted by the Paris agreement.
https://t.co/KXOzXw4hkd
Bugger me …though it assumes an awful lot….much of it not unreasonable.
https://archive.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg2/index.php?idp=56#:~:text=According%20to%20all%20of%20the,than%20it%20was%20in%201990.
more reading needed
Of course the Pliocene was formative in the emergence of man,where Lucy and her daughters descended to the grasslands,becoming upright to reduce their water loss and decrease burn from the high UV regime,fortuitous some may think.
"Interestingly, the population projections in Figure 2-4 are not evenly distributed across the full range. Instead, they are grouped into three clusters. The middle cluster is representative of the central projections, with a range of about 10 to less than 12 billion people by 2100. The other two clusters mark the highest and the lowest population projections available in the literature, with between 15 and 20 billion at the high end and about 6 billion at the low end."
https://archive.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/emission/index.php?idp=42
We are all Africans…..perhaps Lucy's real name was Eve.
i think we can disregard the high ends,which leaves a spread of 6-10,the latter would have a temperature regime of > 6 c,the former around 3c.
The Pliocene was where we had similar co2 (400-420ppm),temps 2to 3c above now,and no UV screen due to Supernova activity,let their be light.
And sea level was 25m higher….but that takes time, as may population decline (though also not) …indeed 6 billion may be generous, time will tell.
How demographics relates to climate change is very interesting.
There are quite a number of countries that are going to be hugely affected by demographics going forward. China is one of the major ones. Geopolitical scientist, Peter Zeihan has a lot to say about demographic trends in China.
According to Peter, China has one of the fastest aging populations in the world, largely due to the one-child policy that prevailed for a long time there. And, depending on which figures are used, China could halve its population as early as 2050.
That is a huge reduction in population for the largest population in the world. Russia is being affected in a similar way.
The demographic projection is for world population to peak at around 10 billion by 2100. But if Zeihan's most pessimistic projection for China halving by 2050, then the world population could peak a lot earlier and may not get as high as 10 billion.
The problem with just looking at population is that it doesn’t have a direct coupling to greenhouse gas emmissions. The rate of increase in personal affluence in places like China is actually a lot faster than the demographic decline.
Those two are linked. Effectively each person remaining has a greater proportion of the infrastructural wealth as population decreases. And their personal production of greenhouse gases rises accordingly.
Increasing personal affluence is the greatest driver of greenhouse gas production.
That is why a average US citizen currently produces directly and indirectly more greenhouse gas than citizens of almost eveey country in the world. They are also amongst the most affluent on average.
This is like the fallacy that planting trees is good at reducing fossil carbon in the atmosphere and oceans. It is only if you never cut them down or have forest fires for a thousand years or so. If neither of those are true, then all you have done is to produce a transient tiny reduction before the fossil carbon winds up in the oceans – and probably delayed sequestaion. Instead we should grow swamps.
This is why I wrote a series on the Kaya Identity.
You make some fair points there. But I think there are also some upsides to affluent societies with respect to the environment
I think affluent societies have more economic resource to apply to the problem if so long as they can be motivated to do so.
For instance, an affluent person may be able to purchase a new electric vehicle while someone from a poor country may only be able to afford an old second hand petrol car that isn't very efficient.
Or a more affluent country might be able to afford to invest in more renewable type energy whereas a poorer one might be more likely to use coal generation for instance.
A more affluent country might have the economic capability to find ways to recycle waste plastic whereas in a poorer country the plastic might end up in the river.
The health system has been struggling for many years. If people are uncertain about future changes, who remembers Ruth Richardson putting paying machines in wards in order to get admitted? That nutty idea didn't last long.Who remembers Jenny Shipley wanting to close Hutt Hospital or dramatically downgrade it? Given Wainuiomata, Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt have much increased populations that was utterly an crazy idea. And with only one way to get into Wellington from these places, any emergencies in rush hours would have needed helicopters.
The health system must be an impossible thing to budget for in many ways. That is because whatever is budgeted is never enough.
Most of us who have been around for awhile will have some minor issue that we live with, and because it doesn't inconvenience us, we just live with it.
For instance, I have a little finger that is a bit crooked because I think I broke it in a sporting accident years ago. It doesn't give me much trouble, so I don't bother about it. And, I expect I would still be on the waiting list by the time I died, given it isn't a pressing health issue. But, if there was endless health funding, I might get it sorted.
If that was multiplied across the population, then the health budget would need to be incredibly huge to accomodate all the latent health needs that people could get sorted if there were no limits.
Not surprisingly, Luxon/Seymour/Fed Farmers/groundswell are very muted at praising the scientists/government's success with M.Bovis elimination. Given the multi millions spent to do this, does that come into Luxon's complaint about spend, spend, spend.
If anyone else has grandparents that had to leave the north of Ireland pretty quickly after the Easter Rising, the thought of Sinn Fein actually getting a majority in the Northern Ireland Parliament (as they are now likely to do) is going to provoke a bit of feeling.
Sinn Fein eyes watershed win as polls close in N.Ireland | Reuters
The Easter Rising was in Dublin
It had impact everywhere.
You'll possibly be aware of about 6 decades of uprisings since.
"…grandparents that had to leave the north of Ireland pretty quickly after the Easter Rising,…."
Why specifically the north of Ireland when the participants were at the other end of the country? Northern Ireland as a political entity didnt exist until 1920
OMG Pat. It affected all Republicans simultaneously. The County militancy shifted sure but the political activism popped out all over the place.
If you say so.
It was long standing (religious and heritage/lineage based) and all over Ireland at various times.
Catholic/Protestant & various permutations with Catholic/Presbyterian, Catholic/Church of Ireland (Anglican)
Native Irish and 'planted' Irish
(granted land as part of Oliver Cromwell's Army in the south and settlers coming to the north under the auspices of a various large London Guilds in the 1600. The 12 guilds that were given control over Derry~Londonderry and the regions adjacent were the Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Merchant Tailors, Haberdashers, Salters, Ironmongers, Vintners, and Clothworkers. The smaller guilds that joined them included the Cordwainers, Dyers, Scriveners, Upholders, Wax Chandlers, Tallow Chandlers, Broderers, Founders, Pewterers, and Fletchers.
I have a Presbyterian gt grandfather who emigrated to NZ from Co Londonderry in the mid 1880s 'for the good of his health', ostensibly bronchitis. My mother always said it was probably more like his health in a larger context of living or dead.
So they came to Auckland where despite planning by the Auckland City Council the religious Irish marched on each other's days as well as their own (St Patricks day 17/3 and the Apprentice Boys march (second Saturday in August) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprentice_Boys_of_Derry or to remember the the Battle of the Boyne on 12 July.
ACC then designed marching routes several blocks from each other but my grandmother said the groups always 'found' each other for a bit of heckling and roughing each other up.
My mother (Irish/Danish) used to say The Irish, what can you do with people who act as if the Battle of the Boyne happened yesterday' – it happened in 1690.
https://www.historyhit.com/facts-about-the-battle-of-the-boyne/
My Dad came from a proudly NZ-Irish family on the West Coast – 3 generations in NZ when he was born – but still regarded themselves as 'Irish'.
Until he did his great OE in the late 70s (when he was in his 50s) – and visited Ireland. His reaction: "For the first time, I knew I was a New Zealander, and how lucky I was that my grandfather emigrated (according to family legend, one step ahead of the law), to New Zealand"
Our West Coast had the clearest Irish cultural presence for many decades and I fully get what you say.
My maternal grandfather's people were Irish miners on the West Coast. They lived in Blackball and their names are on memorials and tombstones.
'One step ahead of the law' is a good saying for my gt grandfather too……too much concern about religion lead to moving for the sake of his 'health'. He was adamant, according to my grandmother, his daughter, and thence to my mother about various family doings, ie he was the only child…..etc etc. I have since found a sister and a brother. My mother called him 'an international man of mystery'…..probably because he needed to leave and was not going to make it easy for anyone to track him.
I went to the place he had lived and the current lessees have left his property uncultivated with the fences still up and maintained as it was beautifully laid out and planted. He and his later family are known as plants people.
there are a couple of interesting scholarly items:
The Irish in Aotearoa
https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10523/10629/Irish%20in%20Aotearoa%20Report%20web%2020.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
and one by Brad Patterson under the auspices of the Stout Research Centre
https://www.nzmuseums.co.nz/collections/3000/objects/1090055/the-irish-in-new-zealand-historical-contexts-and-perspectives
The Economist on Chinese expansion.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/300581878/how-the-west-should-respond-to-chinas-search-for-foreign-outposts
An antidote to some local hysteria.