I heard that the Oz police raid was done on their own bat. Thinking, police who answer to their own logic, to keep them free from government and political interference, isn't there a vacuum? One body full of self-righteousness and self-granted probity – isn't that like having another government body not answerable to the people. If it looks at a law and interprets it in an unintended way, is it then a rogue body within the polity?
Same with the Army. PM Helen Clark says publicly yes go to war but don't engage. just assist as back-up. And Army says Yeah right – a fibbing Tui moment.
And the police doing their own thing involving virtual manslaughter of naughty poor youngsters joyriding driving like they see on TV reality cop shows – excited and alarmed beyond brain control and killing themselves. Police fishing for drugs, raiding old women's homes to look for drugs which they might have to effectively kill themselves when needed. The drugs not for recreational use or to sell for mindless profit, but treated mindlessly the same by authority obeying a mindless government.
And behind this rather loose and murky entity is the overpowering large government that holds such firm reins on others theoretically sovereign nations that they can request our police to do their bidding. Wikileaks has exposed for real what has been whispered, and they hate the truth, they can't handle it. And everywhere it pops up through journalists releases, they will act and dispute, and delete and redact and punish.
Countries may not have control of their police because of some fine-thinking decree, but in the absence of over-arching local authority, another can step in as is apparently the case in Australia over Wikileaks publishing to the public's right to know.
Yeah. Well that is something I think I heard. But things can change fast, so can apparent facts – just take out a letter and you get fats and fast. Minute difference and such a big effect. Probably got it wrong.
You heard that trusting statement from one Craig McMurtrie, who was interviewed this morning on RNZ National by Corin Dann. McMurtrie is the ABC's "editorial director", which means, of course, that he will have been heavily involved in shaping the ABC's demeaning, misleading, Government-friendly coverage of Assange's persecution over the last few years.
It will be interesting to see if the likes of McMurtrie have the integrity and the courage to defend the ABC's few decent journalists who are being targeted by the Government via its publicly funded goon squad.
McMurtrie and Dann this morning both used phrases like "chilling effect on journalism" and talked of the need to protect "whistle-blowers". McMurtrie several times expressed surprise that such state intimidation of journalists could occur "in a liberal democracy like Australia."
Not once did either McMurtrie or Dann mention the most famed Australian whistle-blower and journalist, Julian Assange.
Yes, that was a stunning exercise in wonderment. Assange has figuratively been slow-boiled alive since since 2010. Now those two goons have suddenly found that the pot they are in is starting to boil as well.
Between Trump's label of 'fake news' for any report he doesn't like, and the increasing state oppression of investigative journalists, whistle blowers, and leakers, it has never be more plain that certain actors are trying to shut the media down.
Of course, where the USA goes Australia follows and the article "Shooting the messengers" on the Inside Story blog outlines how far down the track that track the ALP has wandered over the ditch. That article, by the way, also seems to studiously avoid mention Assange.
That sounds as I would imagine. Watch and wait for the next exciting episode. Who needs fiction when you find so much interesting faction around. Nightly shows will be held with erudite, ironic and fluent thinkers where they guess the amount of truth in current news. Could be something like the one with Stephen Fry in UK.
More Police Raids As War On Journalism Escalates Worldwide
June 05, 2019 "Information Clearing House" –The Australian Federal Police have conducted two raids on journalists and seized documents in purportedly unrelated incidents in the span of just two days.
Yesterday the AFP raided the home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst, seeking information related to her investigative report last year which exposed the fact that the Australian government has been discussing the possibility of giving itself unprecedented powers to spy on its own citizens. Today they raided the Sydney headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp, seizing information related to a 2017 investigative report on possible war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan.
Subterranean Fire documents historically how the capitalist class have nefariously accumulated wealth and power for selfish purposes by depriving working people of dignity and rights.
Subterranean Fire details at the outset how strike actions and popular revolts were put down by corporations through their cronies, including police, private detectives, vigilantes, and even the National Guard. In the Homestead strike of 1892, after workers had defeated the Pinkerton agency’s private army, the National Guard was brought out.
U.S. Congressman Admits His Marine Unit ‘Killed Probably Hundreds of Civilians’ in Iraq June 05, 2019 "Information Clearing House" – Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) has come under fire after admitting during a podcast interview that his Marine Corps unit "killed probably hundreds of civilians" during the atrocity-laden First Battle of Fallujah in 2004.
When will our Min of Education be honest regarding pay rates?
From June 2018 until June 2022 teachers pay increase 9.3%, inflation 8%, BUT it will not be until the 2021/2022 that teachers pay will be higher in real terms than it was in June 2018. And he thinks that is satisfactory for teacher pay to go backwards for all 3 years of this govts. term and that strike action is not warranted ?
Teachers should count themselves lucky. There are very large numbers of workers in this country who have had no meaningful wage rise in the past 10 years.
Kevin You represent backward-looking, yokel NZrs – making sure that the country never advances in any way by bringing up some negative statistic that undermines a case that somebody is making for improvements.
There is always somebody worse off than someone else near the bottom, but one advancing can result in others getting a trickle down effect. If wealthy there isn't the same, but teachers are not wealthy just rising a little in the pay scale to middle income and yet require great skills, and their work is getting more difficult. If you can't say anything helpful try not to say anything at all. I don't notice much from you except heaps of cold sludge.
"Radio New Zealand provides in depth, quality, impartial programmes that might otherwise not be available on commercial radio, or without public funding ."
What an untruth !
This is to say that Simon Bridges, The Head of the Undemocratic Wealthy Party in New Zealand gets to speak his incoherent nonsense on Radio New Zealand each week day. He has the run of the Studio. ! Bias upon Bias upon Bias.
He uses a segment called "Morning Report". Radio NZ's many reporters fawn over him – for they are members of his Undemocratic Wealthy Party in New Zealand.
They, the Reporters, have helped The Wealthy Party to bring about a horrendous attack on the normal citizens of New Zealand. Hundreds of Thousands of whom have no Housing, or who are paying rents to the amount of $500 weekly on very low wages.
Radio New Zealand is an Utter Scandal.
It is the plaything of very very Rich. It tramples over the poor day in day out.
We normal New Zealanders must take the Wealthy Undemocratic Party To the Highest Court in the Land.
With the Charge that they Have denied Food, to the Citizens of this Country; they Have denied Housing; They have charged outrageous Rents; they have paid very low wages. Let us take their Banks – to the same Courts.
Let us Get the Undemocratic filthy Wealthy National Mob – out of our Nation. ! Get Rid of Bias and inequality.
They start by training their little girls in wealth. Then their little snobby Boys. Then they tell them not to mix with nasty poor children.
Then in a short time they don't even know how to spell Poverty. And they get taken away to get their Tits reshaped. Then Daddy has a chat with the Cops and his boy doesn't get shoved into prison – where he should be.
NZTA's maps of their suggested "safe and appropriate speed" strongly suggests they have no fucking idea. Seriously, they suggest 100km/h as a safe and appropriate speeds for dangerous twisty high crash rate bits of road like the Desert Road from the Waihohonu Bridge through the Three Sisters through to the top of the long straight hill just south of Turangi, or SH1 beside Lake Taupo where there's the tight corners going around the bluffs, but suggest reducing parts of the Taupo bypass to 80km/h where it's limited access separate dual carriageways with median barriers.
That map seems to bear no relation to reality whatsoever. Either that or they got it round the wrong way and the slider reveals the roads that aren't safe to drive at 100kph.
They're certainly correct that the risk of being killed in a crash would be much lower if people drove the highways at 60 – 70kph, but that's the same as it being correct that your risk of electrocution would be much lower if you turned off the mains switch in your house: it's true, but no-one in their right mind would do it.
I'm somewhat amused by their treatment of the Waterview Tunnels. When they were opened, there was a massive song and dance about why the speed limit through them had to be 80km/h, and there's speed cameras at the entrance and exit both directions. Yet their suggested "safe and appropriate speed" is 100.
I hope this government gets nine years just so they can keep putting much-needed infrastructure spending into railways, but it's freight movements that will benefit. Passenger rail is never going to a popular means of inter-city travel as long as we have narrow-gauge rail, single-tracked. Fixing that will never be viable.
But you are allowed your e-bikes on trains for free. So you jump on the train and have personal transport at the other end. Personally, I love this concept.
It'll take some time for sure, we used to have an extensive rail network they were shutting lines down in the 70's and probably ever since.
It's what I was doing in the South Is in the 70's. Only my bike didn't have an 'e'. I have many fond memories of the NZR crews, more often than not they'd let me ride on top of the mail bags in the now vanished guard wagons for free. I think it was because I was too grubby to have anywhere near proper passengers!
And I'd get a cup of steaming hot tomato soup if I got dead lucky 🙂
We are repeating a similar gerfuffle to how it was when computers came in. Computers were known to be right so anything that came out of them must be genuflected to. Now it is alghorithms deciding and screening people from getting ACC treatment, and having to go at 80 on a perfect 120 km stretch of road because some bits of metal and wires in a container say so.
What about robot police eh. That'll be the next move, the police will enjoy running robots like Military Forces are sitting on swivel-chairs running armed forces doing maneouvres against real people and their homes.
This is serious, it is important that we don't all end up standing outside doors waiting for them to automatically open for us. And the frostbite when the electricity is down will be awful. The buzz before we collapse – if only our systems at home had informed us of this dangerous double tragedy, blizzards and non-opening doors. Oh what shall we do now, we can't phone home because the blizzards have knocked out the cellphones?
My birthday today. Fitting time to apologise to the people I've been aggressively arguing with over the past couple of days.
Tony, Peter, sorry. Gosman… lol.
And thank you to those commenters who talked me down rather than piled on.
Right or wrong I'm coming across angry a lot and it bothers me. It is amazing when mental health slips how emotions can take hold and your thinking ignores answers it has known for some time.
So I'm thinking I'm angry because x said this, and y thinks I'm that….
But anger is a secondary emotion. So what's going on?
I am profoundly sad. I am a clever bastard and I solve problems. With climate change I just feel utterly helpless and hopeless.
Acknowledging that I actually feel a bit better. Time for a birthday celebration of chest x rays and stool samples.
Good on ya Bleeple, keep rolling… and don't worry I suffer the same at times, getting all pissed off and writing aggro things, the style of which is later regretted…
Life's a roller-coaster – you just gotta buckle up properly and hold on for the ride…
Happy Birthday, WeTheBeeple. Being sad is ok – coming to terms with what is happening to our world is very hard, especially when it has to be acknowledged that we, as the 'little people' can't do much to change it. Be kind to yourself and try to find something to do on your special day that you enjoy in the midst of your medical dramas. Kia kaha
I've been wondering about ya, WTB. When someone's an exemplar, as you are in the realm of earth-care, it must be difficult to maintain high standards when venturing "off-site" into more mundane political fields where squabbling's the norm.
In any case, have a delightful birthday and regarding the stool sample; give 'em all you've got
With regards feeling sad; enjoy it while you can; sadness, especially when it's profound, is the gateway to Resolution and Growth. The alchemists said that deep darkness, charred and ruinous, is the prerequisite to the true growth that results in the state of whiteness and pure clarity; sounds like you're on your way
Thanks everyone I really appreciate the support. Got to venture off into this rainy day and I'm delaying, sitting here with the cat purring in my lap, all toasty and warm.
While I agree (Robert) that this process is part of healing/transformation, I do get overly frustrated with the three-steps forward, two-steps back pattern. But that's all typical human stuff?
As I get back on the road and my world broadens again the claustrophobic crowding of fears and anxiety will subside. Too much time in this chair.
Trying to work out a sustainable touring company. Tricky! Anyone got a spare 100K so I can get an EV with decent range.
Nissan Leaf currently has a 40Kw van model that will do 250-300 km depending on terrain. My partner's work vehicle is the older 24Kw that does around 112-130km and is upgrading soon.
There is a 7 seater on TradeMe for $37,850 but I suspect it is the low range version. My partner's boss is importing his directly from the UK. Sorry, can’t offer anything more substantive, especially since it is your birthday.
I appreciate the feedback! I got lucky. Last week(s) I took friends out to see comedy and a friend of a friend came too (new friend). So, ever the great host I filled him up with Jamiesons and introduced him to several 'stars'. Turns out his job is the importation and selling of EV's and he thinks I'm the bees knees.
My mate mentioned my situation and I just heard he might be keen on a sponsorship deal – which would work out great for him as I'd talk up the EV in every town.
We shall see, what a great twist of fate that that is who he was.
Always pays to be nice, I find it much easier in theory…
By temperament I have the same challenge. When I was younger I confronted it tramping, climbing and generally getting off my arse and doing things that provoked anxiety but in a controlled fashion. That was transformational, I went from being a useless 14 yr old to a functioning adult at 24 yrs. Took a while but it worked.
Next big mistake was not being responsible for my own naivety and stupid mistakes. You WILL get fucked around with and people WILL do things that are unfair and malicious; I spent far too much of my life expecting them to be better and the world to be a fairer place, when the problem was my own weakness.
The next piece of the puzzle is one crucial word … competence. Don't mistake this for being smart. People like you and me have relied on our IQ to get us through life, but by itself this is never sufficient. It leaves us feeling like we never quite fulfilled our potential. Or to put it bluntly … the world is full of smart people who're losers.
Smart is a trap, it fills the mind with useless chatter, it paralyses action and it means we never reach the point where we become truly, innately competent. IQ is merely a constraining factor in success, not the root cause of it. Competence is knowledge turned into skill, they're related but not the same thing. Worst of all the mere knowledge of this is useless to you. Without volition, without purpose and will, it fails to become action. This is the secret to never giving up, it rewires the brain, it reveals the unsuspected folded within you. In this you have to be really tough on yourself.
I empathise with the angst, but remind myself that after all those tests and x-rays, amongst all the chaff, you seem to be surrounded by good people and green and growing things. I'll try and do the same.
Your posts often elevate and inform, and your propensity to being just human after all, is reassuring for me at least.
We the Bleeple….Happy birthday! We are birthday twins. So hope you have a great day too!
I was really moved by what you wrote a few days back about your life. I was unab to comment at the time due to technical problems that sometimes happen for me on this site.
WtB Hope your birthday turns out nice. And remember there are 364 unbirthdays out there when good things and good wishes can turn up – nice surprises can abound not recognisably wrapped with bows on. Quote for the day: Life is a see-saw – up push, down fall, ready for the next day of …action, reflection, disappointment, recovery, completion, wonder, laughter, meeting of minds sweet, hopeful and ironic.
I guess I am one of the people who argued with you over the last few days, but nothing personal. We all have different viewpoints but I am sure we all want the best result. And a little robust and challenging discussion can help us all in the end.
Have a great day and best of wishes for a positive outcome all round and for the year ahead!
Don't forget you said yourself a day or so ago (I think it was you) that after some days of feeling bad you have days of feeling fine and dandy. I know when feeling bad I think I will never not feel bad. But it's not true. Brains can be such dicks some times.
A shrink I know says to remind oneself to tell the brain some thoughts are simply not helpful.
Are you coming across angry, or are you actually angry? Reading other people's comments is all about projection. If someone habitually uses the F word like punctuation rather than any real invective, others can infer anger when it was just a simple sentence 😉
The thing I worked out – some time back – is that each of us is unique. Which is a helluva beaut thing! We are not a clone. We do things our way WTP. Which is what Nature wants. Variety; penetration, Wonder. Our way is best. Hang on to that. Good man.
Thanks again everyone. Today I went to the wrong Hospital. Senility creeping in.
The editing software here is a nightmare to drop poetry into. It's godawful. Perhaps a selling point…
Five O + GST
The hairdresser couldn't make me any younger but she banished the neck fluff and beat the brows back into submission
Trimmed now I haul my aging frame out to a bench and strike conversation with Stan the homeless man
An amputee pigeon hobbles across the walkway in front of Prada "Kinda poetic" I point 'Meryl Steep wears that shit' says Stan "You mean the Devil?" We laugh "If the Devil turns up for a dress I'm'a kick him in the nuts" I say We laugh some more
I shake hands with Stan dropping a tenner in his palm then I walk the road
Twenty, forty, fifty dollars Smiling gap toothed faces
I've cheered myself up but I go all out Off to Lush for a perfumed bath bomb To Farmers for some pure wool socks and finally
A mince and cheese pie
Life is good.
(that was me attempting to get a format without large gaps in each line. Not worth the bother aye).
No, nay, never, No never no more, Will I play the wild rover, No, never, no more. Just keep on presenting poetry just like the above, or how it turns out WtB. You are wild and free, and great. Loved it all. Mince and cheese yeah. Who could ask for more.
Hi WTB. Have you ever had a look at Old Norse poetry. It's difficult because they used a circumlocutory device called kenning which takes some getting used to, but it can be very powerful. My favourite is one by Egil Skalla-Grimmsson called Sonnatorrek (loss of sons) It's a thousand years old. Probably not your thing but here it is: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/sonatorrek-loss-sons.html
I like it. It could almost have been written by some Celt today. Long, but.. no telly then.
By the format required, some of this (Skald work) might be considered 'viking doggerel' where the form relays events of the day.
Th English Dept at Uni did my head in they spent so much time discussing things that were not there and fawning over Jane Austen, no conjoint for me… Science all the way 😀
I'm getting to feel very sorry for Mr Makhlouf – National have managed to screw him up. I hope not over. Vicious little buggers in National. I am told that 2,000 hits does not meet the usual status of denial-of-service. But it is certainly way out from normal. Who actually explained the case to him? Have Treasury been hoist on their own petard in looking for well-priced contracts for maintaining their IT needs, and got what they paid for?
The sorry saga of hack-gate began about 6pm last Monday when a National Party staffer discovered parts of the government's Budget had been uploaded to the Treasury website.By 10am on Tuesday the Opposition had started drip-feeding details of the Wellbeing Budget – due to be released by the Finance Minister Grant Robertson on Thursday – to the media.,,, The National Party has for a week been calling for both Mr Makhlouf's and Mr Robertson's heads and has also demanded Mr Makhlouf at the least be stood down while the investigation is carried out.
How he's not been put on leave yet is quite baffling.
(I find it baffling how the local media can make judgments about someone being 'put on leave' over making a mistake like this very puzzling. A political journalist on a public body as Radionz calling for something that would have a destabilising effect of the government, unreasonably enhancing the minor mistake to a large misdemeanour is unsatisfactory.
Also Radionz have a number of times referred to the event as arising from simple searching. This also shows incorrect reporting. 2000 hits is not simple searching. It was using a public search option to a degree that normal public would be unaware of; a back-door way to manipulate the option to draw out more information than was intended to be available. It was a fault in the program and either known or found by manipulation then used to the full by working overtime to get the 2,000 hits.)
It would have been a long weary task but a sneaky and malign Opposition found it valuable and to its taste.
A denial of service attack just shuts websites down, it doesn't extract data.
The problem was with the search engine and the little samples of documents you get in the search results: you see a bit in front and a bit behind the search terms. So if you then search for those bits behind the original search, you can find the bits that come after them, and piece the whole document together that way. Those were the 2000 hits.
Debating whether that's a "hack" (conjuring images of spotty teens keyboard-mashing in basements to cool industrial soundtracks) is a distraction from the absolute fact that the people who extracted that data knew they should not be authorised to access the contents of budget documents in that way, yet still did so.
That's why the nats are pushing so hard on Makhlouf. Distract people from realising that what they did was illegal, and therefore that a police referral was appropriate.
To my mind it was a 'hack' alright. That is was a very easy hack technically is irrelevant. ALL hacks exploit some form of public domain vulnerability in a manner the owner of the site does not intend.
is a distraction from the absolute fact that the people who extracted that data knew they should not be authorised to access the contents of budget documents in that way, yet still did so
That is the critical and obvious point that most of the media seem determined to ignore. Totally agree with you on this one 🙂
You are obviously not well versed in IT based on your comments above. 2000 hits on the public search feature of an organisation in the time specified is not a lot at all.
From three different computers, often referring to the outputs of previous searches from those machines? When was the last time you searched a government site in that manner?
Yeah he knows, just parroting the same point over and over, but 2000 searches from 2-3 machines is a bit different than 2000 searches from 2000 machines, mmk?
It doesn't matter if it was 2 hits or 20 billion, whoever was doing this knew damn well they were not allowed to access the Budget documents before it was released.
… a National Party staffer discovered parts of the government's Budget had been uploaded to the Treasury website.
For fuck's sake, parts of the budget were not uploaded to the Treasury's web site, and that has been explained multiple times in various forums by people who know what they're talking about. Journalists should know better by now. The budget documents were indexed by the web site's search engine, which is not the same thing at all.
The mistake was somebody missing a config change they needed to make to a search engine. How that gets parlayed into something Gabriel Makhlouf and Grant Robertson should resign or be stood down for is beyond me. I notice Simon Bridges hasn't offered to resign for carrying out a data breach on a government agency, which sounds much more like a resignation offence to me.
"Broken promises" and "lies" are the words Ms Johnstone uses to describe her disappointment with the Labour government she's previously campaigned for after it failed to meaningfully boost funding to Pharmac in its latest budget.
"I was devastated," said Ms Johnstone, whose eight-year-old daughter Lucy featured on a Labour campaign advertisement during the last elections.
"David Clarke and Jacinda Ardern had all said they were going to improve cancer care and we believed it."
"I'd had friends who had never voted before who said, 'that's it, I'm enrolling and I'm going to vote' and who messaged me on the day 'I went and voted for you Claudine, I want to give you a chance.' So I feel like I've lied to them too, I've let them down."
"Those who were lied to by the current government will not necessarily vote National…they just won’t vote at all"
..indeed, it will be interesting to see turn out next election. Certainly I can see, at best, large disaffected/disillusioned groups dragging their feet reluctantly to the voting booths…though I get the feeling Labours 'trump card*' is hoping that National stick with Bridges.
*Both a figurative and Literal pun at this time. And a strategy that didn't help the Democrats last election.
There is deep disillusionment out here in formerly Hopeful Land. The wounds from National's hard arsed years are still raw, and the Wellbeing Balm is not being spread evenly across all those who have done it tough for well over a decade.
Making the most vulnerable on benefits wait years for any appreciable relief is cruel and unforgivable and will hurt children and those who are unable to work through health and disability issues most.
On these pages there appears to be little appetite for supporting those calling for an increase in Pharmac's budget so New Zealanders are not looking enviously at their Aussie cousins while their lives slip way.
I read the comment then went to check an article in Ingenio which just arrived 'Fighting Cancer: Our Research Revolution'
It's mostly to do with immune therapy, and how they believe they may have cancer beat – eventually. Apparently our survival rate was 24% in 1972, and 57% today. Still not great but definitely better.
All this research they're doing is rather brilliant and so is the team. But at the end of the day it's still a pipeline to make new drugs that pharmaceutical companies get hold of. Then, all that taxpayer money and philanthropy given to them is converted to dollars for billionaires and screw you.
As I see it.
I only lasted a few months in medical (micro) biology as I realised they were after new drugs, and I was after eliminating the need for them.
The whole Big Pharma drug business model is self-perpetuating and monopolising in the sense that it is the only existing pipeline, i.e. they are the only game in town. Therefore, it is inevitable that sooner or later a new drug or treatment ends up with and in the hands of Big Pharma. They will recoup costs plus a healthy [pardon the pun] profit margin so that they keep their shareholders happy and can keep investing in the next blockbuster. They need to do this to stay in business or become the target of a hostile take-over or a ‘friendly’ merger or acquisition.
If this pattern can be broken, or bypassed rather, and I think it can, and much of the irrelevant ‘development costs’ be removed then overall costs will drop and more smaller (niche) players can enter the game.
Instead of bringing new drugs to market, it will be bringing new drugs to patients. A fundamental shift in thinking AKA a paradigm shift.
An example of a different model is the money the Government spends on combatting Kauri disease. It is not profit-driven but needs-driven. I’d like to to think that it can be done in other settings too!
In the meantime, it is the system we are stuck with..with Pharmac acting as gatekeeper.
While we await this fundamental paradigm shift what do we say (as taxpayers) to those who are having the funding cut for the drugs that work for their condition or cannot get funding for drugs that are working for others overseas with their condition?
It's a pleasure, marty. I love seeing these fools melt down in public. Sugar's simply a gross and disgusting creature—a repulsive mixture of two other elderly racists, Donald Trump and our own "Sir" Bob Jones—-and his performance was nothing more or less than you would expect.
Less edifying, of course, is to see Keith Olberman, who used to be a thoughtful and intelligent commentator, allow himself to degenerate into a deranged conspiracy theorist, barking madly about "Russian SCUM!!!!"…..
SkyCity convention centre faces further six-month delay…. the Auckland-based company told the Macquarie Investor Conference in Sydney today.
When Fletcher won the contract in October 2015, construction was predicted to start in late December that year and be finished in February 2019. However after *Fletcher ran into problems with cost blowouts, SkyCity said last year that the deadline had been pushed out to mid-2019.
SkyCity said today that its investment in the projects is expected to be in line with the original budget of about $703m, and it remains comfortable with the contractual arrangements. The construction contracts provide for liquidated damages, which should mitigate losses through delay, the company said….
The company said it has secured three major convention bookings since March, in addition to the six previously announced, and continues to work on numerous leads and opportunities. The 33,000sq m facility will be the largest purpose-built convention centre [Auckland NZ International Convention Centre] in the country.
*Remember that Fletcher shares are now owned by many overseas retirement trusts etc. So they have come to NZ grabbed all the contracts and spoiled the flow of our business to our companies, and then FU and don't keep to contract. Also Fletchers seem to be majorly building casinos, and convention centres round the country. So is that where the building resources and foreign investment (so good for NZ economy) is going?
"There is not doubt in my mind that local industry could deliver the required amount of steel and the required quality as well," said David Moore, Grayson Engineering chief executive. "We'd just like to say we're here, we're capable, we have the skill set."
While the steel companies accept international competition, they say it's ultimately workers here who are being let down.
The union Etu has slammed the steel contract decision.
"I think it's a national disgrace that we are not supporting our local manufacturers who employ local people on big local jobs," said Joe Gallagher of the union.
Our government also fails to recognise the assistance China gives her steel mills in financial terms as "subsidies", and so no tariffs or penalties are applied to imports.
Therefore any domestic steel manufacturers are often unable to compete or even match on product price.
Cinderella is sweet often but rather simple. She keeps hoping for a Prince with good heart and bags of money. Meantime she whiles away her days dreaming of pumpkins turning into carriages, but that only happens in fairy stories. That is about the summation of our intellectual expertise and likely outcome I fear.
Its good that the gun person face supprisson order been lifted people will see Hes a puppet .
scottmo is suppressing the media in Australia is it accommodation ?????????
Eco Maori says the Obamas keeping a public profile is awesome we need good people to show the Papatuanuku how good whanau behave there spotafi deal will help keep that Phenomenon going congratulations on the book.
Alcohol causes a lot of harm to our society it's the usual everything in moderation 2 to 3 in the evening not getting stuffed up by the stuff.
It's good that the teachers strike next week has been called off. Why get rid of Kiwibuild there are people under the bridge judy can't get that logic.
It cool that Aotearoa scientists are pioneering ruamoko earthquake monertying technology to save lives.
That's why he didn't sign the social media clauses set up in one way its good to see Rugby.
Tall people have a advantage in society us average height tangata are ok my sons give me stick because they are taller than me.
The weight problem is dietary we consume way too much sugar it should be only put in the petrol tanks when the price of carbon goes up it will force the price of sugar up and it will all be diverted to fuel hopefully.
Here you go Whanau this proves that the wealthy make OUR laws to suit their ideals .
I have heard a old saying you have to have poverty to keep the system going to keep wages low to keep the economy humming along YEA RIGHT what's wrong with everyone having enough money to have a happy healthy life now and in the future.
You see Whanau it's the 99.9 % tangata who make the system if we all champion equalty for all it will happen.
The Wealthy could gift half of their money to the poor and still have plenty to play with .
Inequality is unlikely to fall much in the future unless our attitudes turn unequivocally against it. Among other things, we will need to accept that how much people earn in the market is often not what they deserve, and that the tax they pay is not taking from what is rightfully theirs.
One crucial reason why we have done so little to reduce inequality in recent years is that we downplay the role of luck in achieving success. Parents teach their children that almost all goals are attainable if you try hard enough. This is a lie, but there is a good excuse for it: unless you try your best, many goals will definitely remain unreachable Inequality begets further inequality. As the top 1% grow richer, they have more incentive and more ability to enrich themselves further. They exert more and more influence on politics, from election-campaign funding to lobbying over particular rules and regulations. The result is a stream of policies that help them but are inefficient and wasteful. Leftwing critics have called it “socialism for the rich”. Even the billionaire investor Warren Buffett seems to agree: “There’s been class warfare going on for the last 20 years and my class has won,
It gives Eco Maori a sore face to see that our rangitahi are raising the awareness of climate changes being a huge threat to our future society's.
Public concern about the environment has soared to record levels in the UK since the visit of Greta Thunberg to parliament and the Extinction Rebellion protests in April.
The environment is now cited by people as the third most pressing issue facing the nation in tracking data from the polling company YouGov that began in 2010. Environment was ranked after Brexit and health, but is ahead of the economy, crime and immigration
The Whole Papatuanuku need to follow in the footsteps of these good intellectuals whom can see that recycling everything we can so as not to over exploit mother earth's capacity
The smell in Natural Weigh, a zero-waste shop that opened a year ago in Crickhowell in mid-Wales, is lovely. The shop – filled with pasta, grains, seeds and dried fruit served from hoppers to avoid plastic packaging; washing-up liquid and laundry products that customers pump into their battered old squeezy bottles; fair-trade coffee and chocolate, plus an array of environmentally friendly products, such as bamboo toothbrush holders, plastic-free dental floss and vegan leather snack pouches – looks lovely. The little town itself, which prides itself on having the best high street in Britain, is lovely, too. I am captivated ka kite ano link below.
Congratulations for your win Lisa I agree we can not let the disruptors win they use racial issues any issues to stirs up the people emotions and lie next minute when they are in power the people are let down because everything farge promises is just lies to pull in the votes .I think that there should be a huge fine for Bullshiting pollies who are caught losing.
Peterborough byelection result: Labour scrapes past Brexit party to hold seat
Labour’s Lisa Forbes says result shows ‘the politics of division will never win’
Labour has held on to the marginal seat of Peterborough, defeating predictions that the contest could deliver a first byelection victory to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party.
Addressing her supporters early on Friday following the count, Labour candidate Lisa Forbes said: “Tonight’s result is significant because it shows that the politics of division will never win
The tramper missing in the Tararua rangers hope he is found a live sounds like he is onto it fingers crossed.
It would be good to have cameras on all fishing boats to keep the fishermen honest and make them be extremely careful in areas where our endangered Maui dolphins resides.
A month rain in 24 hours the bad weather making havoc in America at the minute———–.
That is good luck the British motorbike rider who was impailed on a branch of the tree he crashed into on his bike.
The plastic fantastic roads being made using recycled plastic is awesome that is the correct attitude never giving in on your quest to recycle our waste . This is just the start in our recycle reuse SOCIETY.
Ka pai to te ao Maori news and Mr Black for championing the need for science room for the tamariki at that kurakopapa.
Mr Dews I agree we need to come up with new fishing techniques to stop the damage being dune to our endangered Maui dolphins.
Its is that Vanuatu got that hurricane last year it wreaked havoc on there coffee crop and plants 5 million from Aotearoa to help their Agricultural sector is very good.
It would be nice to see whare around all Marae I say we should structure mahi cottage industry around our Marae as well as houses we need to create our own mahi and money with the Marae mana the whanau won't let it fail.
Eco Maori is a fan of Ardijah and Pukuhohe Maori TV comedy series.
There are some farmers not being compliant on the environment laws for their property the few make the many look bad .
I agree we need to have more horticultural farming having policies and money to make that happen is cool
Its the old saying don't have to marry eggs in one basket we need to all Farm Organically also have to much exposure to China and dariy prices at the minute.
Alcohol needs to be restricted alcohol is a problem that has caused a lot of damage to tangata whenua Eco Maori say it's a gateway drug to harder DRUGS.
It should not be sold in food outlets supermarket keep the stuff out of sight of our Mokopuna.
I don't think that alcohol companies should be in school education tamariki about alcohol bad effects that's what the media job is .
Its hard for people with disabilities in our society's culture at the minute we need to value and respect our disadvantage tangata.
I agree the state making the disabled to keep producing duplicates of forms to apply for state funding when in most cases the person circumstance doesn't change how ridiculous.
Eco Maori thinks that junk food is definitely causing food allergies I think that is what was wrong with my mokopuna a last year all the chemicals that are put into that stuff is amazing that the food companies can get away with it commercialism 1
A ballooning diet of junk food might be one of the factors fuelling a rise in food allergies, researchers have suggested.
Experts say they have seen a rise in food allergies in western countries, including the UK. While true prevalence can be tricky to determine, data published by NHS Digital shows episodes of anaphylactic shock in England due to adverse food reactions rose steadily from 1,362 in 2011-12 to 1,922 in 2016-17.
The culprit, some scientists have suggested, could be substances known as advanced glycation endproducts, or AGEs.
AGEs occur naturally in the body, but they are found in high levels in highly processed foods, as well as other sources such as cooked meats. They form when sugars react with proteins or lipids. High levels of AGEs in the body, which it has been suggested can result from consuming AGE-rich foods, have previously been linked to a number of conditions including diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
Now a small study by researchers in Italy has shown that children with food allergies have higher levels of AGEs in their bodies than healthy children without allergies. Children with respiratory allergies showed no such differences. The team also found that children with higher levels of AGEs consumed more food containing such substances la kite ano link below.
“Canani said the team’s research using cells suggested AGEs might directly interact with with immune cells, and they also seemed to have a detrimental effect on the gut barrier.”
That (gut epithelial deterioration) aligns with other studies into various conditions associated with dietary problems including Coeliac’s and IBS.
The housing shortage is dire it's bad that those people in Edgecome liveing in a tent 2 working but there are no suitable houses thanks shonky.
I say its very cool the walking tracks being closed so they can be up graded with board walls to minimize the spread of the Kauri die back disease in Auckland.
That's awesome NASA selling fairs to the space station that we're we have to go in the future. Its cool world health is it or highlighting all the plastic waste being washed into Tangaroa and our Awa
The skilled teachers shortage is another symptom of the last ten years of a government that ran the country cut budgets for core government services and gave the wealthy tax cuts.
The extra work for the people of Kai kohi planting trees is cool mahi is great for the wairua.
The sky tower challenge its cool that the aim is to tau toko mental health
Good short film made about Wahine monthly periods and Kuia menopause being short listed for a award.
Congratulations and good luck with your new song and single Pere
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 ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
One of the strongest narratives about "our" spy agencies is that they are basically institutional traitors, working for foreign powers (or just themselves), without any control or oversight by the elected government. And today, we have yet another report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security which explicitly confirms this. ...
“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 to meet the Prime Minister’s ...
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 ...
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, ...
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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A lengthy response to the recently released draft Government policy statement on transport will soon be delivered from Auckland Council to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. A submission raising concerns about funding distribution and the plan’s treatment of Auckland passed through the council’s transport committee on Wednesday, despite some councillors ...
The unidentified foreign intelligence operation discussed in a scathing report by New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) last week appears to be a controversial United States intelligence system. The IGIS report said the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was “improper” ...
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 ...
As a young gymnast, Aimee Didierjean was always conscious of making sure her underwear wasn’t showing on the competition floor. A peek of a bra strap, or briefs if a leotard rode up, would cost a gymnast points in her routines. “When I was growing and going through puberty, it ...
Jubi/West Papua Daily Repeated cases of Indonesian military (TNI) soldiers torturing civilians in Papua have been evident, as seen in the viral video depicting the torture of civilians in the Puncak Regency allegedly done by soldiers of Raider 300/Brajawijaya Infantry Battalion. There is a pressing need for stringent law enforcement ...
The media are complicit in Assange's torture and incarceration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXzNj9CdjJI
Here is a very good piece on the subject of media accountability…
'Corporate Media Have Second Thoughts About Exiling Julian Assange From Journalism'
https://fair.org/home/corporate-media-have-second-thoughts-about-exiling-julian-assange-from-journalism/?awt_l=CnT3e&awt_m=hfxuQdFbXIR._TQ
It's getting worse for journalist's – the new Aussie govt is now in on the game of oppression.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-06/scott-morrison-questioned-on-press-freedom-after-afp-raids/11184058
I heard that the Oz police raid was done on their own bat. Thinking, police who answer to their own logic, to keep them free from government and political interference, isn't there a vacuum? One body full of self-righteousness and self-granted probity – isn't that like having another government body not answerable to the people. If it looks at a law and interprets it in an unintended way, is it then a rogue body within the polity?
Same with the Army. PM Helen Clark says publicly yes go to war but don't engage. just assist as back-up. And Army says Yeah right – a fibbing Tui moment.
And the police doing their own thing involving virtual manslaughter of naughty poor youngsters joyriding driving like they see on TV reality cop shows – excited and alarmed beyond brain control and killing themselves. Police fishing for drugs, raiding old women's homes to look for drugs which they might have to effectively kill themselves when needed. The drugs not for recreational use or to sell for mindless profit, but treated mindlessly the same by authority obeying a mindless government.
And behind this rather loose and murky entity is the overpowering large government that holds such firm reins on others theoretically sovereign nations that they can request our police to do their bidding. Wikileaks has exposed for real what has been whispered, and they hate the truth, they can't handle it. And everywhere it pops up through journalists releases, they will act and dispute, and delete and redact and punish.
Countries may not have control of their police because of some fine-thinking decree, but in the absence of over-arching local authority, another can step in as is apparently the case in Australia over Wikileaks publishing to the public's right to know.
I don't believe for a second the cops acted on their own initiative.
Yeah. Well that is something I think I heard. But things can change fast, so can apparent facts – just take out a letter and you get fats and fast. Minute difference and such a big effect. Probably got it wrong.
You heard that trusting statement from one Craig McMurtrie, who was interviewed this morning on RNZ National by Corin Dann. McMurtrie is the ABC's "editorial director", which means, of course, that he will have been heavily involved in shaping the ABC's demeaning, misleading, Government-friendly coverage of Assange's persecution over the last few years.
It will be interesting to see if the likes of McMurtrie have the integrity and the courage to defend the ABC's few decent journalists who are being targeted by the Government via its publicly funded goon squad.
McMurtrie and Dann this morning both used phrases like "chilling effect on journalism" and talked of the need to protect "whistle-blowers". McMurtrie several times expressed surprise that such state intimidation of journalists could occur "in a liberal democracy like Australia."
Not once did either McMurtrie or Dann mention the most famed Australian whistle-blower and journalist, Julian Assange.
Yes, that was a stunning exercise in wonderment. Assange has figuratively been slow-boiled alive since since 2010. Now those two goons have suddenly found that the pot they are in is starting to boil as well.
Between Trump's label of 'fake news' for any report he doesn't like, and the increasing state oppression of investigative journalists, whistle blowers, and leakers, it has never be more plain that certain actors are trying to shut the media down.
Of course, where the USA goes Australia follows and the article "Shooting the messengers" on the Inside Story blog outlines how far down the track that track the ALP has wandered over the ditch. That article, by the way, also seems to studiously avoid mention Assange.
That sounds as I would imagine. Watch and wait for the next exciting episode. Who needs fiction when you find so much interesting faction around. Nightly shows will be held with erudite, ironic and fluent thinkers where they guess the amount of truth in current news. Could be something like the one with Stephen Fry in UK.
Good for you gabster however what you believe has no relevance to the facts
Hasn't ever stopped you throwing your 'reckons' around like confetti wildebeest
confetti wildebeest – this blog is getting very colourful and ever more interesting to read, especially when it tells it like it is about b.w.l….d.
More Police Raids As War On Journalism Escalates Worldwide
June 05, 2019 "Information Clearing House" – The Australian Federal Police have conducted two raids on journalists and seized documents in purportedly unrelated incidents in the span of just two days.
Yesterday the AFP raided the home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst, seeking information related to her investigative report last year which exposed the fact that the Australian government has been discussing the possibility of giving itself unprecedented powers to spy on its own citizens. Today they raided the Sydney headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp, seizing information related to a 2017 investigative report on possible war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51724.htm
Police Raids in Australia as the War on Journalism escalates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oadQmNaBmKk
Video: “Plutocracy V: Subterranean Fire”.
Subterranean Fire documents historically how the capitalist class have nefariously accumulated wealth and power for selfish purposes by depriving working people of dignity and rights.
Subterranean Fire details at the outset how strike actions and popular revolts were put down by corporations through their cronies, including police, private detectives, vigilantes, and even the National Guard. In the Homestead strike of 1892, after workers had defeated the Pinkerton agency’s private army, the National Guard was brought out.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51722.htm
https://vimeo.com/334232406
Why they want to silence Assange permanently:
U.S. Congressman Admits His Marine Unit ‘Killed Probably Hundreds of Civilians’ in Iraq
June 05, 2019 "Information Clearing House" – Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) has come under fire after admitting during a podcast interview that his Marine Corps unit "killed probably hundreds of civilians" during the atrocity-laden First Battle of Fallujah in 2004.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51725.htm
Thanks John for yr efforts in regards the assault on journalism.
When will our Min of Education be honest regarding pay rates?
From June 2018 until June 2022 teachers pay increase 9.3%, inflation 8%, BUT it will not be until the 2021/2022 that teachers pay will be higher in real terms than it was in June 2018. And he thinks that is satisfactory for teacher pay to go backwards for all 3 years of this govts. term and that strike action is not warranted ?
Teachers should count themselves lucky. There are very large numbers of workers in this country who have had no meaningful wage rise in the past 10 years.
Kevin You represent backward-looking, yokel NZrs – making sure that the country never advances in any way by bringing up some negative statistic that undermines a case that somebody is making for improvements.
There is always somebody worse off than someone else near the bottom, but one advancing can result in others getting a trickle down effect. If wealthy there isn't the same, but teachers are not wealthy just rising a little in the pay scale to middle income and yet require great skills, and their work is getting more difficult. If you can't say anything helpful try not to say anything at all. I don't notice much from you except heaps of cold sludge.
Greysie shouldn't you now lecture yourself on insulting language in your selfcreated capacity of arbiter of appropriateness?
No. Thanks for doing so for me. What is your favoured term? Yokel, cold sludge? I thought they had a certain quaint ring.
Yesterday I was apparently displaying 'ageism' and 'ruralism'… methinks some doth protest too much.
A hick is a hick.
An old fart is an old fart.
A Yokel is a cross between a BDSM device and a painful Swiss singing style.
Cold sludge is a hospital meal, Tuesdays.
Good WtB. Very funny. I think Gabby was practising a delicate art of passing faux judgment to get a rise.
Such a basis for not supporting their claims, why should anyone get a pay rise. I think it is termed "Race to the Bottom"
I am one of those workers Kevin.
Because my wages have not had meaningful increases is no reason for denying the teacher's their claims.
(I'm not sure if there should be an apostrophe or certain where it should go. I know, not flash in a comment boosting teachers.)
Biased and Untrustworthy
According to "Who Funds Radio NZ"
"Radio New Zealand provides in depth, quality, impartial programmes that might otherwise not be available on commercial radio, or without public funding ."
What an untruth !
This is to say that Simon Bridges, The Head of the Undemocratic Wealthy Party in New Zealand gets to speak his incoherent nonsense on Radio New Zealand each week day. He has the run of the Studio. ! Bias upon Bias upon Bias.
He uses a segment called "Morning Report". Radio NZ's many reporters fawn over him – for they are members of his Undemocratic Wealthy Party in New Zealand.
They, the Reporters, have helped The Wealthy Party to bring about a horrendous attack on the normal citizens of New Zealand. Hundreds of Thousands of whom have no Housing, or who are paying rents to the amount of $500 weekly on very low wages.
Radio New Zealand is an Utter Scandal.
It is the plaything of very very Rich. It tramples over the poor day in day out.
We normal New Zealanders must take the Wealthy Undemocratic Party To the Highest Court in the Land.
With the Charge that they Have denied Food, to the Citizens of this Country; they Have denied Housing; They have charged outrageous Rents; they have paid very low wages. Let us take their Banks – to the same Courts.
Let us Get the Undemocratic filthy Wealthy National Mob – out of our Nation. ! Get Rid of Bias and inequality.
100% Tokoroa! You tell it as it is. 🙂
Thanks Johnm !
It is the way it is! It is so Cruel ! But Radio New Zealand keeps rubbing their wealthy noses into this Horrendous pain !
Agreed. I find it quite staggering how the Wealth Party ignores the plight of those less fortunate …
but, you know, self-justification is a sight to behold
Yes – Vto
They start by training their little girls in wealth. Then their little snobby Boys. Then they tell them not to mix with nasty poor children.
Then in a short time they don't even know how to spell Poverty. And they get taken away to get their Tits reshaped. Then Daddy has a chat with the Cops and his boy doesn't get shoved into prison – where he should be.
The Plod can't spell poverty.
You need to lay off the weed OT…lol
[Yes, that’s confusing. Can you please use a (slightly) different name (but not “James”)? Thanks – Incognito]
What? Another Jimmy!!!!!!
See my Moderation note @ 11:08 AM.
Well said OT. But it's not known as RNZ NATIONAL for nothing. Keep up the good work OT
NZTA's maps of their suggested "safe and appropriate speed" strongly suggests they have no fucking idea. Seriously, they suggest 100km/h as a safe and appropriate speeds for dangerous twisty high crash rate bits of road like the Desert Road from the Waihohonu Bridge through the Three Sisters through to the top of the long straight hill just south of Turangi, or SH1 beside Lake Taupo where there's the tight corners going around the bluffs, but suggest reducing parts of the Taupo bypass to 80km/h where it's limited access separate dual carriageways with median barriers.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12237693
Scroll down to the interactive map where it toggles between the posted speed limit and suggested safe and appropriate speed.
Lowering speed limits would be a hell of a good way to be a one term government IMHO
That map seems to bear no relation to reality whatsoever. Either that or they got it round the wrong way and the slider reveals the roads that aren't safe to drive at 100kph.
They're certainly correct that the risk of being killed in a crash would be much lower if people drove the highways at 60 – 70kph, but that's the same as it being correct that your risk of electrocution would be much lower if you turned off the mains switch in your house: it's true, but no-one in their right mind would do it.
I'm somewhat amused by their treatment of the Waterview Tunnels. When they were opened, there was a massive song and dance about why the speed limit through them had to be 80km/h, and there's speed cameras at the entrance and exit both directions. Yet their suggested "safe and appropriate speed" is 100.
But!… trip times… production… gdp….
Another reason why we need this rail injection. Less cars on road will mean less car crashes. And it doesn't have to spank the economy.
I hope this government gets nine years just so they can keep putting much-needed infrastructure spending into railways, but it's freight movements that will benefit. Passenger rail is never going to a popular means of inter-city travel as long as we have narrow-gauge rail, single-tracked. Fixing that will never be viable.
But you are allowed your e-bikes on trains for free. So you jump on the train and have personal transport at the other end. Personally, I love this concept.
It'll take some time for sure, we used to have an extensive rail network they were shutting lines down in the 70's and probably ever since.
It's what I was doing in the South Is in the 70's. Only my bike didn't have an 'e'. I have many fond memories of the NZR crews, more often than not they'd let me ride on top of the mail bags in the now vanished guard wagons for free. I think it was because I was too grubby to have anywhere near proper passengers!
And I'd get a cup of steaming hot tomato soup if I got dead lucky 🙂
+1 PM
We are repeating a similar gerfuffle to how it was when computers came in. Computers were known to be right so anything that came out of them must be genuflected to. Now it is alghorithms deciding and screening people from getting ACC treatment, and having to go at 80 on a perfect 120 km stretch of road because some bits of metal and wires in a container say so.
What about robot police eh. That'll be the next move, the police will enjoy running robots like Military Forces are sitting on swivel-chairs running armed forces doing maneouvres against real people and their homes.
This is serious, it is important that we don't all end up standing outside doors waiting for them to automatically open for us. And the frostbite when the electricity is down will be awful. The buzz before we collapse – if only our systems at home had informed us of this dangerous double tragedy, blizzards and non-opening doors. Oh what shall we do now, we can't phone home because the blizzards have knocked out the cellphones?
My birthday today. Fitting time to apologise to the people I've been aggressively arguing with over the past couple of days.
Tony, Peter, sorry. Gosman… lol.
And thank you to those commenters who talked me down rather than piled on.
Right or wrong I'm coming across angry a lot and it bothers me. It is amazing when mental health slips how emotions can take hold and your thinking ignores answers it has known for some time.
So I'm thinking I'm angry because x said this, and y thinks I'm that….
But anger is a secondary emotion. So what's going on?
I am profoundly sad. I am a clever bastard and I solve problems. With climate change I just feel utterly helpless and hopeless.
Acknowledging that I actually feel a bit better. Time for a birthday celebration of chest x rays and stool samples.
(oh yeah, health scare going on too).
Have a good day folks.
Be kind to yourself today mate – you have made it to here and that is a miracle in itself. Kia kaha
You sound like you are doing the best you can and you have good awareness of your emotional state – that is awesome.
Good on ya Bleeple, keep rolling… and don't worry I suffer the same at times, getting all pissed off and writing aggro things, the style of which is later regretted…
Life's a roller-coaster – you just gotta buckle up properly and hold on for the ride…
and Happy Birthday fulla
Have a happy birthday WTB!
Happy Birthday, WeTheBeeple. Being sad is ok – coming to terms with what is happening to our world is very hard, especially when it has to be acknowledged that we, as the 'little people' can't do much to change it. Be kind to yourself and try to find something to do on your special day that you enjoy in the midst of your medical dramas. Kia kaha
I wish you all the best WTB and know that you have the capacity for happiness despite it all
I've been wondering about ya, WTB. When someone's an exemplar, as you are in the realm of earth-care, it must be difficult to maintain high standards when venturing "off-site" into more mundane political fields where squabbling's the norm.
In any case, have a delightful birthday and regarding the stool sample; give 'em all you've got
With regards feeling sad; enjoy it while you can; sadness, especially when it's profound, is the gateway to Resolution and Growth. The alchemists said that deep darkness, charred and ruinous, is the prerequisite to the true growth that results in the state of whiteness and pure clarity; sounds like you're on your way
Happy birthday and all the very best WtB.
I know too, sometimes all the problems of the world just seem to press in and you feel like hitting out.
It's no help but I remember a saying told me by an old and experienced teacher:
"Remember, things are never that bad that they can't get worse!"
LOL – that was meant to make me feel better!
Wise words. When I look where I've been and where I am now I have much to be grateful for.
Thanks everyone I really appreciate the support. Got to venture off into this rainy day and I'm delaying, sitting here with the cat purring in my lap, all toasty and warm.
While I agree (Robert) that this process is part of healing/transformation, I do get overly frustrated with the three-steps forward, two-steps back pattern. But that's all typical human stuff?
As I get back on the road and my world broadens again the claustrophobic crowding of fears and anxiety will subside. Too much time in this chair.
Trying to work out a sustainable touring company. Tricky! Anyone got a spare 100K so I can get an EV with decent range.
It is my birthday after all
Trying to work out a sustainable touring company
Sorted.
https://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/equestrian/other/listing-2170752041.htm?rsqid=dd27fa47cfbf45c6b006f77fb50617ce-002
I love it! I can't imagine getting other comics on e-bikes.
Better dash, bus it is a coming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzL7G0jItzU
Nissan Leaf currently has a 40Kw van model that will do 250-300 km depending on terrain. My partner's work vehicle is the older 24Kw that does around 112-130km and is upgrading soon.
There is a 7 seater on TradeMe for $37,850 but I suspect it is the low range version. My partner's boss is importing his directly from the UK. Sorry, can’t offer anything more substantive, especially since it is your birthday.
I appreciate the feedback! I got lucky. Last week(s) I took friends out to see comedy and a friend of a friend came too (new friend). So, ever the great host I filled him up with Jamiesons and introduced him to several 'stars'. Turns out his job is the importation and selling of EV's and he thinks I'm the bees knees.
My mate mentioned my situation and I just heard he might be keen on a sponsorship deal – which would work out great for him as I'd talk up the EV in every town.
We shall see, what a great twist of fate that that is who he was.
Always pays to be nice, I find it much easier in theory…
Great! Hope to see you (and an EV) in a town near me…
As I get back on the road and my world broadens again the claustrophobic crowding of fears and anxiety will subside.
This is absolutely true. Overthinking is a killer. I found this speaks to the problem directly:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/well-good/112265699/bad-memories-and-cringeworthy-mistakes-fester-for-insomniacs
By temperament I have the same challenge. When I was younger I confronted it tramping, climbing and generally getting off my arse and doing things that provoked anxiety but in a controlled fashion. That was transformational, I went from being a useless 14 yr old to a functioning adult at 24 yrs. Took a while but it worked.
Next big mistake was not being responsible for my own naivety and stupid mistakes. You WILL get fucked around with and people WILL do things that are unfair and malicious; I spent far too much of my life expecting them to be better and the world to be a fairer place, when the problem was my own weakness.
The next piece of the puzzle is one crucial word … competence. Don't mistake this for being smart. People like you and me have relied on our IQ to get us through life, but by itself this is never sufficient. It leaves us feeling like we never quite fulfilled our potential. Or to put it bluntly … the world is full of smart people who're losers.
Smart is a trap, it fills the mind with useless chatter, it paralyses action and it means we never reach the point where we become truly, innately competent. IQ is merely a constraining factor in success, not the root cause of it. Competence is knowledge turned into skill, they're related but not the same thing. Worst of all the mere knowledge of this is useless to you. Without volition, without purpose and will, it fails to become action. This is the secret to never giving up, it rewires the brain, it reveals the unsuspected folded within you. In this you have to be really tough on yourself.
And Happy Birthday mate …
Profound.
Happy birthday.
Best wishes for today, WTB.
I empathise with the angst, but remind myself that after all those tests and x-rays, amongst all the chaff, you seem to be surrounded by good people and green and growing things. I'll try and do the same.
Your posts often elevate and inform, and your propensity to being just human after all, is reassuring for me at least.
We the Bleeple….Happy birthday! We are birthday twins. So hope you have a great day too!
I was really moved by what you wrote a few days back about your life. I was unab to comment at the time due to technical problems that sometimes happen for me on this site.
Anyway Happy Birthday WTB
WtB Hope your birthday turns out nice. And remember there are 364 unbirthdays out there when good things and good wishes can turn up – nice surprises can abound not recognisably wrapped with bows on. Quote for the day: Life is a see-saw – up push, down fall, ready for the next day of …action, reflection, disappointment, recovery, completion, wonder, laughter, meeting of minds sweet, hopeful and ironic.
Happy Birthday Ankerrawshark, and many more.
Thanks Patricia, my Standard friend!
Happy birthday!
I got this mean ass bath bomb, and some nice sativa weed, and then I'll boost some blues through the amp, snacks, candles…
Happy Birthday to me too!
A little blues, and I mean blues with a capital B, for your birthday, WTB.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjLSf8y94fU
This one gets me through. No matter how bad and sad I might feel, this guy has it more………..
"Drak is the Night and Cold is the Ground" -Blind Willie Johnson.
Mmm, mmm, well well aaah aaah well well mmm mmm we-e-ell
Yay more blues. Check bottom of thread Bonamassa's coming over in September. (Christchurch only).
Thanks. I'm gonna turn this up LOUD so the neighbors can enjoy it too.
Thanks We the Bleeple…Glad you got some nice stuff and love the idea of blasting some blues through the amp!!!!
Many happy returns (wishes, not unwanted prezzies).
As for sadness, I have found whenever I am aware of that emotion, allowing the mind to come to rest helps.
A simple breathing exercise may help.
That will colour your world. We are in the middle of biopsies and waiting with our son.
It tends to make one impatient with niggles and perceived moaners.
So, MANY HAPPY RETURNS WTB Cheers.
Happy Birthday WeTheBleeple! Sincerely!
I guess I am one of the people who argued with you over the last few days, but nothing personal. We all have different viewpoints but I am sure we all want the best result. And a little robust and challenging discussion can help us all in the end.
Have a great day and best of wishes for a positive outcome all round and for the year ahead!
Happy happy birthday.
Don't forget you said yourself a day or so ago (I think it was you) that after some days of feeling bad you have days of feeling fine and dandy. I know when feeling bad I think I will never not feel bad. But it's not true. Brains can be such dicks some times.
A shrink I know says to remind oneself to tell the brain some thoughts are simply not helpful.
" I know when feeling bad I think I will never not feel bad."
Yep you definitely understand. I appreciate the kind thoughts.
Happy birthday.
Are you coming across angry, or are you actually angry? Reading other people's comments is all about projection. If someone habitually uses the F word like punctuation rather than any real invective, others can infer anger when it was just a simple sentence 😉
Happy birthday to WTB on behalf of all rwnj👍
WTB (5) … I sincerely hope you had a wonderful day and may you celebrate many more 🙂
Take good care.
Hi – WeThePeeble (nifty tag!)
You know, a lot of us are wishing you well!
I don't how to do that, but I sure endorse it.
The thing I worked out – some time back – is that each of us is unique. Which is a helluva beaut thing! We are not a clone. We do things our way WTP. Which is what Nature wants. Variety; penetration, Wonder. Our way is best. Hang on to that. Good man.
By the way – you are next shout !
Thanks again everyone. Today I went to the wrong Hospital. Senility creeping in.
The editing software here is a nightmare to drop poetry into. It's godawful. Perhaps a selling point…
Five O + GST
The hairdresser couldn't make me any younger but she banished the neck fluff and beat the brows back into submission
Trimmed now I haul my aging frame out to a bench and strike conversation with Stan the homeless man
An amputee pigeon hobbles across the walkway in front of Prada "Kinda poetic" I point 'Meryl Steep wears that shit' says Stan "You mean the Devil?" We laugh "If the Devil turns up for a dress I'm'a kick him in the nuts" I say We laugh some more
I shake hands with Stan dropping a tenner in his palm then I walk the road
Twenty, forty, fifty dollars Smiling gap toothed faces
I've cheered myself up but I go all out Off to Lush for a perfumed bath bomb To Farmers for some pure wool socks and finally
A mince and cheese pie
Life is good.
(that was me attempting to get a format without large gaps in each line. Not worth the bother aye).
No, nay, never, No never no more, Will I play the wild rover, No, never, no more. Just keep on presenting poetry just like the above, or how it turns out WtB. You are wild and free, and great. Loved it all. Mince and cheese yeah. Who could ask for more.
Hi WTB. Have you ever had a look at Old Norse poetry. It's difficult because they used a circumlocutory device called kenning which takes some getting used to, but it can be very powerful. My favourite is one by Egil Skalla-Grimmsson called Sonnatorrek (loss of sons) It's a thousand years old. Probably not your thing but here it is: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/sonatorrek-loss-sons.html
I like it. It could almost have been written by some Celt today. Long, but.. no telly then.
By the format required, some of this (Skald work) might be considered 'viking doggerel' where the form relays events of the day.
Th English Dept at Uni did my head in they spent so much time discussing things that were not there and fawning over Jane Austen, no conjoint for me… Science all the way 😀
6th June.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDeY-zjkz8M
Thanks joe90.
Resonant alright. Reminds me of Mark Knofler's style, but earthier and more folk oriented.
Touch of The Pogues going on as well. But yeah, I thought it was Knopfler singing at first.
Had to check in case he'd formed a new band.
No. The band is called Police Dog Hogan.
https://policedoghogan.com/
Only the best people.
https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/1135733732546097153
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/george-nader-arrested-child-pornography-charges-190604094946644.html
man that kushner is one strange dude – let's just say he doesn't photograph well imo – bit saurianish
I'm getting to feel very sorry for Mr Makhlouf – National have managed to screw him up. I hope not over. Vicious little buggers in National. I am told that 2,000 hits does not meet the usual status of denial-of-service. But it is certainly way out from normal. Who actually explained the case to him? Have Treasury been hoist on their own petard in looking for well-priced contracts for maintaining their IT needs, and got what they paid for?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/391303/power-play-makhlouf-s-future-in-question-as-ireland-piles-in
The sorry saga of hack-gate began about 6pm last Monday when a National Party staffer discovered parts of the government's Budget had been uploaded to the Treasury website.By 10am on Tuesday the Opposition had started drip-feeding details of the Wellbeing Budget – due to be released by the Finance Minister Grant Robertson on Thursday – to the media.,,, The National Party has for a week been calling for both Mr Makhlouf's and Mr Robertson's heads and has also demanded Mr Makhlouf at the least be stood down while the investigation is carried out.
How he's not been put on leave yet is quite baffling.
(I find it baffling how the local media can make judgments about someone being 'put on leave' over making a mistake like this very puzzling. A political journalist on a public body as Radionz calling for something that would have a destabilising effect of the government, unreasonably enhancing the minor mistake to a large misdemeanour is unsatisfactory.
Also Radionz have a number of times referred to the event as arising from simple searching. This also shows incorrect reporting. 2000 hits is not simple searching. It was using a public search option to a degree that normal public would be unaware of; a back-door way to manipulate the option to draw out more information than was intended to be available. It was a fault in the program and either known or found by manipulation then used to the full by working overtime to get the 2,000 hits.)
It would have been a long weary task but a sneaky and malign Opposition found it valuable and to its taste.
Scoop's take on it:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1906/S00009/lyndon-hood-better-analogies-for-national-pilfering-budget-data.htm
A denial of service attack just shuts websites down, it doesn't extract data.
The problem was with the search engine and the little samples of documents you get in the search results: you see a bit in front and a bit behind the search terms. So if you then search for those bits behind the original search, you can find the bits that come after them, and piece the whole document together that way. Those were the 2000 hits.
Debating whether that's a "hack" (conjuring images of spotty teens keyboard-mashing in basements to cool industrial soundtracks) is a distraction from the absolute fact that the people who extracted that data knew they should not be authorised to access the contents of budget documents in that way, yet still did so.
That's why the nats are pushing so hard on Makhlouf. Distract people from realising that what they did was illegal, and therefore that a police referral was appropriate.
To my mind it was a 'hack' alright. That is was a very easy hack technically is irrelevant. ALL hacks exploit some form of public domain vulnerability in a manner the owner of the site does not intend.
is a distraction from the absolute fact that the people who extracted that data knew they should not be authorised to access the contents of budget documents in that way, yet still did so
That is the critical and obvious point that most of the media seem determined to ignore. Totally agree with you on this one 🙂
You are obviously not well versed in IT based on your comments above. 2000 hits on the public search feature of an organisation in the time specified is not a lot at all.
From three different computers, often referring to the outputs of previous searches from those machines? When was the last time you searched a government site in that manner?
That's systemic, and intentional, and suspicious.
Yeah he knows, just parroting the same point over and over, but 2000 searches from 2-3 machines is a bit different than 2000 searches from 2000 machines, mmk?
Far more important is the discrepancy between the treasury forecast model of tax receipts being out by 2.3 billion.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113285880/new-accounts-show-surplus-could-be-billions-larger-than-expected-in-budget
It doesn't matter if it was 2 hits or 20 billion, whoever was doing this knew damn well they were not allowed to access the Budget documents before it was released.
From that linked Stuff article:
… a National Party staffer discovered parts of the government's Budget had been uploaded to the Treasury website.
For fuck's sake, parts of the budget were not uploaded to the Treasury's web site, and that has been explained multiple times in various forums by people who know what they're talking about. Journalists should know better by now. The budget documents were indexed by the web site's search engine, which is not the same thing at all.
The mistake was somebody missing a config change they needed to make to a search engine. How that gets parlayed into something Gabriel Makhlouf and Grant Robertson should resign or be stood down for is beyond me. I notice Simon Bridges hasn't offered to resign for carrying out a data breach on a government agency, which sounds much more like a resignation offence to me.
"Broken promises" and "lies" are the words Ms Johnstone uses to describe her disappointment with the Labour government she's previously campaigned for after it failed to meaningfully boost funding to Pharmac in its latest budget.
"I was devastated," said Ms Johnstone, whose eight-year-old daughter Lucy featured on a Labour campaign advertisement during the last elections.
"David Clarke and Jacinda Ardern had all said they were going to improve cancer care and we believed it."
"I'd had friends who had never voted before who said, 'that's it, I'm enrolling and I'm going to vote' and who messaged me on the day 'I went and voted for you Claudine, I want to give you a chance.' So I feel like I've lied to them too, I've let them down."
Pharmac received just a $10 million increase in annual income over the next four years in the Wellbeing budget but that only results in a 1 percent lift.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/first-up/audio/2018698319/broken-promises-and-lies-people-like-me-don-t-matter-nz-breast-cancer-sufferer
It's too late now, these Kiwis have flown….but what about other voters who were foolish enough to believe the spin?
Those who were lied to by the current government will not necessarily vote National…they just won’t vote at all.
"Those who were lied to by the current government will not necessarily vote National…they just won’t vote at all"
..indeed, it will be interesting to see turn out next election. Certainly I can see, at best, large disaffected/disillusioned groups dragging their feet reluctantly to the voting booths…though I get the feeling Labours 'trump card*' is hoping that National stick with Bridges.
*Both a figurative and Literal pun at this time. And a strategy that didn't help the Democrats last election.
There is deep disillusionment out here in formerly Hopeful Land. The wounds from National's hard arsed years are still raw, and the Wellbeing Balm is not being spread evenly across all those who have done it tough for well over a decade.
Making the most vulnerable on benefits wait years for any appreciable relief is cruel and unforgivable and will hurt children and those who are unable to work through health and disability issues most.
On these pages there appears to be little appetite for supporting those calling for an increase in Pharmac's budget so New Zealanders are not looking enviously at their Aussie cousins while their lives slip way.
I read the comment then went to check an article in Ingenio which just arrived 'Fighting Cancer: Our Research Revolution'
It's mostly to do with immune therapy, and how they believe they may have cancer beat – eventually. Apparently our survival rate was 24% in 1972, and 57% today. Still not great but definitely better.
All this research they're doing is rather brilliant and so is the team. But at the end of the day it's still a pipeline to make new drugs that pharmaceutical companies get hold of. Then, all that taxpayer money and philanthropy given to them is converted to dollars for billionaires and screw you.
As I see it.
I only lasted a few months in medical (micro) biology as I realised they were after new drugs, and I was after eliminating the need for them.
The whole Big Pharma drug business model is self-perpetuating and monopolising in the sense that it is the only existing pipeline, i.e. they are the only game in town. Therefore, it is inevitable that sooner or later a new drug or treatment ends up with and in the hands of Big Pharma. They will recoup costs plus a healthy [pardon the pun] profit margin so that they keep their shareholders happy and can keep investing in the next blockbuster. They need to do this to stay in business or become the target of a hostile take-over or a ‘friendly’ merger or acquisition.
If this pattern can be broken, or bypassed rather, and I think it can, and much of the irrelevant ‘development costs’ be removed then overall costs will drop and more smaller (niche) players can enter the game.
Instead of bringing new drugs to market, it will be bringing new drugs to patients. A fundamental shift in thinking AKA a paradigm shift.
An example of a different model is the money the Government spends on combatting Kauri disease. It is not profit-driven but needs-driven. I’d like to to think that it can be done in other settings too!
I agree entirely Incognito.
In the meantime, it is the system we are stuck with..with Pharmac acting as gatekeeper.
While we await this fundamental paradigm shift what do we say (as taxpayers) to those who are having the funding cut for the drugs that work for their condition or cannot get funding for drugs that are working for others overseas with their condition?
Oh that's right….die or fuck off.
Thanks lprent
Note everyone Daily Review at No.15. Things looking up on the search side.
Yeah!! Joe Bonamassa's coming to town. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiMqvPYPvQ0
Details!
https://premier.ticketek.co.nz/Shows/Show.aspx?sh=JOEBONA19
Be wary of crooked ticket agents they're all over this already. Ticketeks allright, but they take too much cut off my shows 😀 They do a good job but.
Christchurch only, Wednesday 25th September.
Oh, and I got to add one of his latest songs it is hair stand on end awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDe-dI3c5d0
"Shut your mouf! Why don't you shut your mouf!?" —- Sad old git "Lord" Sugar doesn't like being confronted with his racist comments.
Piers Moron and that hideous, hectoring woman next to him are almost as nasty and ignorant as “Lord” Sugar….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M04Cqc7MTc
Bloody hell bettered by piers? ffs – great to watch though ta – sugar was classic
It's a pleasure, marty. I love seeing these fools melt down in public. Sugar's simply a gross and disgusting creature—a repulsive mixture of two other elderly racists, Donald Trump and our own "Sir" Bob Jones—-and his performance was nothing more or less than you would expect.
Less edifying, of course, is to see Keith Olberman, who used to be a thoughtful and intelligent commentator, allow himself to degenerate into a deranged conspiracy theorist, barking madly about "Russian SCUM!!!!"…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrKKPGhh-ZU&t=2s
How efficient NZ business is effective on the ground?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12042757 1 May, 2018 10:30am
SkyCity convention centre faces further six-month delay…. the Auckland-based company told the Macquarie Investor Conference in Sydney today.
When Fletcher won the contract in October 2015, construction was predicted to start in late December that year and be finished in February 2019. However after *Fletcher ran into problems with cost blowouts, SkyCity said last year that the deadline had been pushed out to mid-2019.
SkyCity said today that its investment in the projects is expected to be in line with the original budget of about $703m, and it remains comfortable with the contractual arrangements. The construction contracts provide for liquidated damages, which should mitigate losses through delay, the company said….
The company said it has secured three major convention bookings since March, in addition to the six previously announced, and continues to work on numerous leads and opportunities. The 33,000sq m facility will be the largest purpose-built convention centre [Auckland NZ International Convention Centre] in the country.
*Remember that Fletcher shares are now owned by many overseas retirement trusts etc. So they have come to NZ grabbed all the contracts and spoiled the flow of our business to our companies, and then FU and don't keep to contract. Also Fletchers seem to be majorly building casinos, and convention centres round the country. So is that where the building resources and foreign investment (so good for NZ economy) is going?
from June 8, 2016 https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/job-losses-feared-auckland-convention-centre-steel-contract-goes-offshoreJob losses feared as Auckland convention centre steel contract goes offshore
"There is not doubt in my mind that local industry could deliver the required amount of steel and the required quality as well," said David Moore, Grayson Engineering chief executive. "We'd just like to say we're here, we're capable, we have the skill set."
While the steel companies accept international competition, they say it's ultimately workers here who are being let down.
The union Etu has slammed the steel contract decision.
"I think it's a national disgrace that we are not supporting our local manufacturers who employ local people on big local jobs," said Joe Gallagher of the union.
Our government also fails to recognise the assistance China gives her steel mills in financial terms as "subsidies", and so no tariffs or penalties are applied to imports.
Therefore any domestic steel manufacturers are often unable to compete or even match on product price.
Cinderella is sweet often but rather simple. She keeps hoping for a Prince with good heart and bags of money. Meantime she whiles away her days dreaming of pumpkins turning into carriages, but that only happens in fairy stories. That is about the summation of our intellectual expertise and likely outcome I fear.
Kia ora The Am Show.
Its good that the gun person face supprisson order been lifted people will see Hes a puppet .
scottmo is suppressing the media in Australia is it accommodation ?????????
Eco Maori says the Obamas keeping a public profile is awesome we need good people to show the Papatuanuku how good whanau behave there spotafi deal will help keep that Phenomenon going congratulations on the book.
Alcohol causes a lot of harm to our society it's the usual everything in moderation 2 to 3 in the evening not getting stuffed up by the stuff.
It's good that the teachers strike next week has been called off. Why get rid of Kiwibuild there are people under the bridge judy can't get that logic.
It cool that Aotearoa scientists are pioneering ruamoko earthquake monertying technology to save lives.
That's why he didn't sign the social media clauses set up in one way its good to see Rugby.
Tall people have a advantage in society us average height tangata are ok my sons give me stick because they are taller than me.
The weight problem is dietary we consume way too much sugar it should be only put in the petrol tanks when the price of carbon goes up it will force the price of sugar up and it will all be diverted to fuel hopefully.
Ka kite ano P.S nice photo shoot Amanda
Here you go Whanau this proves that the wealthy make OUR laws to suit their ideals .
I have heard a old saying you have to have poverty to keep the system going to keep wages low to keep the economy humming along YEA RIGHT what's wrong with everyone having enough money to have a happy healthy life now and in the future.
You see Whanau it's the 99.9 % tangata who make the system if we all champion equalty for all it will happen.
The Wealthy could gift half of their money to the poor and still have plenty to play with .
Inequality is unlikely to fall much in the future unless our attitudes turn unequivocally against it. Among other things, we will need to accept that how much people earn in the market is often not what they deserve, and that the tax they pay is not taking from what is rightfully theirs.
One crucial reason why we have done so little to reduce inequality in recent years is that we downplay the role of luck in achieving success. Parents teach their children that almost all goals are attainable if you try hard enough. This is a lie, but there is a good excuse for it: unless you try your best, many goals will definitely remain unreachable Inequality begets further inequality. As the top 1% grow richer, they have more incentive and more ability to enrich themselves further. They exert more and more influence on politics, from election-campaign funding to lobbying over particular rules and regulations. The result is a stream of policies that help them but are inefficient and wasteful. Leftwing critics have called it “socialism for the rich”. Even the billionaire investor Warren Buffett seems to agree: “There’s been class warfare going on for the last 20 years and my class has won,
Ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2019/jun/06/socialism-for-the-rich-the-evils-of-bad-economics
It gives Eco Maori a sore face to see that our rangitahi are raising the awareness of climate changes being a huge threat to our future society's.
Public concern about the environment has soared to record levels in the UK since the visit of Greta Thunberg to parliament and the Extinction Rebellion protests in April.
The environment is now cited by people as the third most pressing issue facing the nation in tracking data from the polling company YouGov that began in 2010. Environment was ranked after Brexit and health, but is ahead of the economy, crime and immigration
Ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/greta-thunberg-effect-public-concern-over-environment-reaches-record-high
The Whole Papatuanuku need to follow in the footsteps of these good intellectuals whom can see that recycling everything we can so as not to over exploit mother earth's capacity
The smell in Natural Weigh, a zero-waste shop that opened a year ago in Crickhowell in mid-Wales, is lovely. The shop – filled with pasta, grains, seeds and dried fruit served from hoppers to avoid plastic packaging; washing-up liquid and laundry products that customers pump into their battered old squeezy bottles; fair-trade coffee and chocolate, plus an array of environmentally friendly products, such as bamboo toothbrush holders, plastic-free dental floss and vegan leather snack pouches – looks lovely. The little town itself, which prides itself on having the best high street in Britain, is lovely, too. I am captivated ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/21/the-zero-waste-revolution-how-a-new-wave-of-shops-could-end-excess-packaging
Congratulations for your win Lisa I agree we can not let the disruptors win they use racial issues any issues to stirs up the people emotions and lie next minute when they are in power the people are let down because everything farge promises is just lies to pull in the votes .I think that there should be a huge fine for Bullshiting pollies who are caught losing.
Peterborough byelection result: Labour scrapes past Brexit party to hold seat
Labour’s Lisa Forbes says result shows ‘the politics of division will never win’
Labour has held on to the marginal seat of Peterborough, defeating predictions that the contest could deliver a first byelection victory to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party.
Addressing her supporters early on Friday following the count, Labour candidate Lisa Forbes said: “Tonight’s result is significant because it shows that the politics of division will never win
Ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/07/peterborough-byelection-result-labour-sees-off-brexit-party-threat-to-hold-seat
Kia ora Newshub.
The tramper missing in the Tararua rangers hope he is found a live sounds like he is onto it fingers crossed.
It would be good to have cameras on all fishing boats to keep the fishermen honest and make them be extremely careful in areas where our endangered Maui dolphins resides.
A month rain in 24 hours the bad weather making havoc in America at the minute———–.
That is good luck the British motorbike rider who was impailed on a branch of the tree he crashed into on his bike.
The plastic fantastic roads being made using recycled plastic is awesome that is the correct attitude never giving in on your quest to recycle our waste . This is just the start in our recycle reuse SOCIETY.
Ka kite ano
Kia ora te ao Maori news.
Ka pai to te ao Maori news and Mr Black for championing the need for science room for the tamariki at that kurakopapa.
Mr Dews I agree we need to come up with new fishing techniques to stop the damage being dune to our endangered Maui dolphins.
Its is that Vanuatu got that hurricane last year it wreaked havoc on there coffee crop and plants 5 million from Aotearoa to help their Agricultural sector is very good.
It would be nice to see whare around all Marae I say we should structure mahi cottage industry around our Marae as well as houses we need to create our own mahi and money with the Marae mana the whanau won't let it fail.
Eco Maori is a fan of Ardijah and Pukuhohe Maori TV comedy series.
Ka kite ano P.S thanks
Kia ora Newshub Nation.
There are some farmers not being compliant on the environment laws for their property the few make the many look bad .
I agree we need to have more horticultural farming having policies and money to make that happen is cool
Its the old saying don't have to marry eggs in one basket we need to all Farm Organically also have to much exposure to China and dariy prices at the minute.
Alcohol needs to be restricted alcohol is a problem that has caused a lot of damage to tangata whenua Eco Maori say it's a gateway drug to harder DRUGS.
It should not be sold in food outlets supermarket keep the stuff out of sight of our Mokopuna.
I don't think that alcohol companies should be in school education tamariki about alcohol bad effects that's what the media job is .
Its hard for people with disabilities in our society's culture at the minute we need to value and respect our disadvantage tangata.
I agree the state making the disabled to keep producing duplicates of forms to apply for state funding when in most cases the person circumstance doesn't change how ridiculous.
Ka kite ana
Some Eco Maori music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/gOsM-DYAEhY
Eco Maori thinks that junk food is definitely causing food allergies I think that is what was wrong with my mokopuna a last year all the chemicals that are put into that stuff is amazing that the food companies can get away with it commercialism 1
A ballooning diet of junk food might be one of the factors fuelling a rise in food allergies, researchers have suggested.
Experts say they have seen a rise in food allergies in western countries, including the UK. While true prevalence can be tricky to determine, data published by NHS Digital shows episodes of anaphylactic shock in England due to adverse food reactions rose steadily from 1,362 in 2011-12 to 1,922 in 2016-17.
The culprit, some scientists have suggested, could be substances known as advanced glycation endproducts, or AGEs.
AGEs occur naturally in the body, but they are found in high levels in highly processed foods, as well as other sources such as cooked meats. They form when sugars react with proteins or lipids. High levels of AGEs in the body, which it has been suggested can result from consuming AGE-rich foods, have previously been linked to a number of conditions including diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
Now a small study by researchers in Italy has shown that children with food allergies have higher levels of AGEs in their bodies than healthy children without allergies. Children with respiratory allergies showed no such differences. The team also found that children with higher levels of AGEs consumed more food containing such substances la kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/08/junk-food-rise-food-allergies-children
Outstanding effort Eco maori, thank you.
From the food study
“Canani said the team’s research using cells suggested AGEs might directly interact with with immune cells, and they also seemed to have a detrimental effect on the gut barrier.”
That (gut epithelial deterioration) aligns with other studies into various conditions associated with dietary problems including Coeliac’s and IBS.
Kia ora Newshub.
I decided to stay out of the Crusaders debate.
The housing shortage is dire it's bad that those people in Edgecome liveing in a tent 2 working but there are no suitable houses thanks shonky.
I say its very cool the walking tracks being closed so they can be up graded with board walls to minimize the spread of the Kauri die back disease in Auckland.
That's awesome NASA selling fairs to the space station that we're we have to go in the future. Its cool world health is it or highlighting all the plastic waste being washed into Tangaroa and our Awa
Ka kite ano
Kia ora te ao Maori news.
The skilled teachers shortage is another symptom of the last ten years of a government that ran the country cut budgets for core government services and gave the wealthy tax cuts.
The extra work for the people of Kai kohi planting trees is cool mahi is great for the wairua.
The sky tower challenge its cool that the aim is to tau toko mental health
Good short film made about Wahine monthly periods and Kuia menopause being short listed for a award.
Congratulations and good luck with your new song and single Pere
Ka kite ano