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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, July 6th, 2018 - 89 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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I see a pair of hard right Canadian racists are coming to NZ.
The appropriate solution would be to go along and set the fire alarm off.
Link?
The appropriate solution would be, to not turn up…
If it’s an event which you’re not going to be morally aligned with…
No form of censorship is acceptable!
https://xkcd.com/1357/
Acceptance of racism is unacceptable.
Acceptance of racism…
Where/who…
I’m not clicking your link with no explanation…
Unless your illogical comment was the explanation…
The link is a comic which makes the correct point that the right to free speech is not the right to not be criticized or to have others protest against you. It is the right not to have the government throw you in jail for saying something
Basically if you go around being an arrogant arsehole, don’t be surprised when people tell you to STFU and GTO
Mind saying who, or is this some kind of “in club” news?
^^^
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/361220/controversial-speaker-lauren-southern-going-to-insult-all-of-us-islamic-community-leader
Why aren’t we getting these in Auckland.
“Fully-electric double-decker buses hit Wellington’s streets for the first time”
Damion George – The Dominion Post, Thursday, July 5, 2018
The Nats under Key ear earmarked up to $10billion for a road rail tunnel under the Waitemata.
For that much money, you could replace the whole current Auckland bus fleet with these electric vehicles, and run them fare free for twenty years.
Now there is an incentive to get people out of their cars, and completely doing away with the need for another hugely expensive new harbour crossing.
As a further incentive to get people out of their cars. take the two east lanes of the Auckland Harbour and extend the North Shore busway right into the city.
At 80 passengers per bus this would hugely increase the commuter density of Auckland Harbour Bridge.
You’ll find the new Chief Executive at Auckland Transport pretty receptive if you just email him.
Note also that Auckland Transport as of this weekend completes a revolution in bus frequency across most of Auckland.
Fully electric buses are a fairly new technology and they need significant infrastructure to put in place before they can be used effectively.
Or May be you could run wires for the buses to attach to the power!!!!
Which would be infrastructure and takes time to install.
As some who lives in Wellington and had to put up with cable buses, please please don’t even go there
Permit Patty is alive and well in Rotorua where the night shelter has been bared from housing homeless.
Four weeks after the opening of Rotorua’s night shelter the homeless have been told they can no longer sleep there overnight.
Rotorua Lakes Council staff inspected the property yesterday and found the site was being used for overnight sleeping, a breach of the agreement between the council and organiser Tiny Deane, of Visions of a Helping Hand.
God save the citizens of Rotorua from their elected officials.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12083679
Councils need to reigned in as this is one of many incidents where humanity seems to be their lowest priority.
Then there’s the property developments that get bailed out (Tauranga), Sewage that can’t be stopped from entering harbours (Waikato), expensive redevelopments of already adequate facilities (Hamilton).
All that and those convention centres as it’s almost as if everyone has one white elephant convention centre now.
Reign and rein. One of these things is what horsey looking people do, the other is how you control them.
Just saying, in a spirit of dictionary fascism.
The strangest council experience I ever had was when I rang Porirua City Council to report a dog on the loose.
It was mid morning, under the canopies (cbd) so lots of foot traffic and close to a childrens play area and cars.
Council response was they would only send someone if I restrained the dog first, or it was a waste of their time.
Watching the thing bounding across the courtyard, I turned and went home before the asked me to desex or deflea it, and possibly insist I prove I didn’t actually own the thing. Who knows with councils?
If you’d hinted you were ready to shoot it, somebody would’ve shown up pretty smartly.
Yep – hopefully with a gun to help him stop the rabid mutt from biting children’s faces off. But probably not.
There’s always the library
https://youtu.be/StNfkQrdoGM
If we are ever to become carbon neutral by 2050, then we really have to stop building huge and expensive motorway infrastructure, like the proposed Waitemata Road/Rail Tunnel, which encourages more car use, and do more of this instead.
https://at.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/new-public-transport-network/new-network-for-the-central-suburbs/
By 2020 our vehicle fleet will mainly be electric.
pardon?
Two years away… you’re a bit optimistic.
Hey Winnie – keep your hands off the Māori seats or your legacy will be spit on.
Oh now it’s his fault.
You forget he announced this as a bottom line coalition requirement.
So it’s not Winnie – it’s this coalition that will be putting it to the vote.
It is they who deserve their legacy judged on it.
Yes James the legacy judging will be wide – no one will be left out. Glad to allay your fears there.
What’s actually happening with that?
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/361175/winston-peters-wants-two-part-referendum-on-maori-seats
Seems a reasonable position.
And I’m in favour of getting rid of them. They were put in place because the voting system at the time only allowed propertied men to vote and māori didn’t own land and thus were excluded from voting. Now that we have Universal Suffrage they’re not needed and could be considered divisive of our society.
Yes well good for you.
Robert and friends were discussing tribalism yesterday – i’d like to add a thought.
Tribalism is not inherently a ‘bad thing in my view. In fact it is needed so that a synthesis can be made. A synthesis isn’t capulation from one side – it is using the dialectic positions from each side to create a UNIQUE solution – a solution that is made from the opposing sides.
Tribalism is a positive not negative however fundamentalism is not positive and we see a lot of that. The ideas above are based on WANTING to find solutions and many fundys dont want that.
I see tribalism as blindly following a group- at the TS it’s the red, green or blue team, and ignoring or remaining mute when your team misses the mark. Not a lot of thinking.
For me a funny is like an extreme tribalist, in that they are more likely to criticize their ‘team’ because they don’t go far enough. Too much thinking.
I am nearly always looking for a common ground to proceed on but must admit to getting frustrated when the Tories come to TS with their lies, obfuscation and derailing pedantry.
(Like yesterday when Wayne ‘reckoned’ nurses earn $90,000).
“Tribalism is a positive not negative however fundamentalism is not positive and we see a lot of that. ”
Yeah that maybe a better way of putting it
To Robert:
“How are you going about your detribalising?”
Its not easy because I guess the first thing you need to look it is why and then having to admit that “your” tribe does have its faults and if you tie yourself to that tribe then does that mean you have to admit to your own faults (or at least blindness to those faults?)
“Have you other examples of something you’ve identified and adjusted;”
I’m not sure, I mean if any of the previous dealings are found to be illegal then i think that whoever is involved should be punished to the fullest extent of the law but then the difficulty of proving that may well be a cop-out (like washing my hands kind of thing)
I’ve yet to find a tribe, Pucky, that isn’t mistaken in some it’s positions. Often, an individual within the tribe pointing out those mistakes, is reviled/mocked/dismissed as a threat to the tribe; it’s been that way since forever, I guess; Nicky Hager, Mike Joy et al are those sorts of figures, I reckon and it irks me to see them so quickly and comprehensively ‘taken down’ by New Zealanders who don’t recognise their roles. I see both as New Zealanders, not Right or Left wingers; sorting them like that just makes the demonisation automatic. Key is a clear example of someone who used tribalism as a weapon against those sorts of commentators; it’s possible he didn’t believe what he was saying; certainly I didn’t 🙂 What do you reckon about that, Pucky? In any case I enjoy having my own ‘tribal’ beliefs pointed out to me and having a go at getting my head around the claim and if possible, revising/reversing them; it’s refreshing to do so; liberating even 🙂
Hi Robert, good questions but unfortunately I’m knocking off early but i’m sure someone else might be able to have a go at answering them 🙂
Maybe next week, Pucky; enjoy your weekend.
I guess, Marty, if you wanted to change something the tribe does or believes, there’d have to be an agreed process to enable that. I bet there are communities around the world where that process is superior to ours here on the political blogs. It would be useful to include some sort of “quality control” over practices that develop over time; are they valid aside from their bonding function, that sort of thing.
Has Trotter finally crossed the Rubicon? One can hope.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/07/05/keeping-power-homeless/
This is a good question from Danyl Strype:
Capitalism has never been about freedom. It’s only ever been about ownership and the control of society through that ownership.
Just wanted to say, I’m so very proud of the kids at our local school. We’ve just finished the school production and it was outstanding.
Some of our year 7 and 8 students may not be that great at core subjects, life may not be that great at home for them either, but the production gave them a chance to shine, and shine they did. My face is still aching from smiling and laughing.
So proud 🙂 So happy for them 🙂 No amount of money can buy those feelings. What a way to end the term 🙂
Fantastic Cindy. Great for kids and all of us to get joy out of these endeavors…..no big budgets involved. Fab
Good this is being implemented imo. It really is pathetic if someone opposes this – I hope we all support it.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/105284096/women-must-make-up-half-of-all-state-sector-boards-govt
I wonder if Laurel Hubbard would qualify for an appointment?
After all she was allowed to compete in the Women’s weightlifting at the Commonwealth games.
Of course she would.
What are you trying to say?
Are you transphobic? You are sounding that way. For non transphobic people there is no issue. Time to look in the mirror al and see the real you warts and all.
I know where they could start 😉
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Labour_Government_of_New_Zealand#/media/File:New-govt-2017.jpg
Lol – good one.
Ha ha!
Another stupid idea. I mean why only half? If appointments are based on merit, whose to say there shouldn’t be more women than men? Or more men than women?
If appointments were made on merit virtually none of the incumbents would be there.
Even if you’re right (and I doubt you are) appointing people on a quote just makes that worse.
When you look at the shambling buffoons there now a change in the process of appointment is likely to freshen things up. We’ve had decades of going backwards, time for some folk who live in this century instead of dragging us back to the 19th.
Most organisations have (or have had) their share of fools at the helm. Remember Labour had Andrew Little, David Cunliffe and Phil Goff. But when you move away from merit based appointments, you get this http://sandrarose.com/2018/03/diversity-fail-women-engineering-team-behind-collapse-miami-pedestrian-bridge/.
‘It stoopiddd’ is the level of debate i’d expect from some but i thought you were going to try and be original in your thinking and utterances – you’ve let yourself down badly.
‘Stupid’ is an apt description of such quota’s. I gave my reason. Merit.
merit?
Imo that attribute is constructed by the dominant view and/or culture and therefore it really doesn’t exist in actuality.
No, merit is constructed toward the best person for the job.
Exactly – which is changeable so therefore subjective. It means different things to different people depending, and therefore can be described as anyrhing you want – therefore it is.meaningless in effect.
Actually, you gave your lack of reason.
Or, perhaps, that should be your excuses for there being a discrepancy between the population demographics and the number of men on boards.
If Boards and Shareholders are stupid enough to not appoint on merit, that’s their loss. If we are stupid enough to create a construct based on genitalia, then that is our loss.
You do understand that, statistically speaking, would be impossible right?
No. If appointments were on merit, there could be more men appointed than women, or more women appointed than men.
If we could judge merit perfectly, your argument would be arguable.
But we can’t.
Quite obviously, we don’t. Otherwise a statistical gender parity would already exist on boards.
As it is, either selectors erroneously believe that men have more merit than women, or the selectors are biased towards male candidates when roughly equivalent candidates apply for the same job.
I guess we need an independent panel to adjudicate merit, otherwise we end up with people like this:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-05/qatars-ceo-says-only-a-man-can-lead-his-company/9837312
A firearms analogy came to mind.
The barriers we face when judging merits of candidates is like judging the accuracy of different shooters. If all the shooters are using a rifle with an accuracy of 1 minute of angle at 100yds, then any single perfect shot will be within an inch of the 100yd aiming point.
So if you have twenty shooters bunging in their CV, the top five might all be within an inch of what you want. But who has the most merit? Hell, some of them might have been aiming almost two inches away from your ideal point and just got lucky.
Statistically-speaking, off that sample there’s no way of truly judging merit. So you might as well make diversity the deciding factor, because variability creates strength in an organisation.
My argument is that appointments should not be made by quota, which is by definition NOT on merit, and is patronising to those it is designed to benefit.
oh, you’re concerned about women being patronised, lolz
Appointments made “on quota” are only not merit based if there aren’t enough people from the “quota” groups to be appointed on merit.
If ten candidates are all pretty equivalent, and one is a woman, and there are no women on the board, one could argue that the diversity she begins to give the board actually increases her merit above the other candidates.
And it would be entirely their business for a Board to make an appointment on such a basis. But a quote, per se, just patronises the people it seeks to benefit. I have worked alongside plenty of terrific women on boards – they don’t need your help McFlock, they can make it entirely on their own.
Then why aren’t half of NZ board positions already filled by women?
Could be a number of reasons. Sexism. Stupidity. Not enough women putting their names forward. I don’t care about the gender of people I sit alongside on management teams or boards. I only care about competence.
Then this rule won’t bother you then.
Unless you’re lying.
And yet you want to keep the same bigoted and stupid system you currently have. No surprises- it’s the system that put you on a board in the first place
Nobodie’s making appointments by quota.
“Then this rule won’t bother you then.”
Quota’s may lead to a less competent person being nominated because of their genitals. So yes, that bothers me.
“Nobodie’s making appointments by quota.”
That’s what is being proposed.
“The Government has set a compulsory target that would have women make up half of the directors on all state sector boards and commmittees by 2021.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/105284096/women-must-make-up-half-of-all-state-sector-boards-govt.
So that quota will determine the appointments. Keep up.
Unlikely.
No it’s not. What’s being proposed is that boards of directors have 50/50 split of male/female.
No it won’t.
Double jackpot for KiwiBuild winners is wrong
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/105278941/double-jackpot-for-kiwibuild-winners-is-wrong
“This Government is now waving something in front of them that they may or may not be able to get – but certainly the Government’s giving the impression they can get.
Expectations are being raised. If you raise expectations, you have to manage them, and you have to manage the inevitable fallout when people get disappointed.
Really good on this Government for having a go at this.
But I do fear there’s a huge streak of naivety at the core of KiwiBuild and the way it’s being put together.
The next part of the process – defining eligibility, and making it clear just how long people might have to wait – is going to be crucial..
Turned off and disillusioned
If people get turned off or disillusioned by the KiwiBuild process, well, that’s going to blow up in this Government’s face quite quickly, and at the ballot box.”
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/94662/governments-willingly-put-itself-under-enormous-pressure-inviting-registrations
This could have (and should have) been structured so much better.
A good win for the taxpayers union. And well done David Parker for making the right noises.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/105253796/council-releases-12m-cost-of-library-touch-wall-as-attorneygeneral-demands-urgent-action-over-secrecy
Read this yesterday and thought it had some merit:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/105278941/double-jackpot-for-kiwibuild-winners-is-wrong
“The basic principle is simple: buy at a discount, sell at the same discount.
Here’s roughly how it would work. When Bob decides to sell his house, he can either sell it in the open market or sell it to another KiwiBuild qualified buyer in the KiwiBuild secondary market.
In the first case, the new buyer pays the full market price; but Bob receives only half of it, with the other half (the originally discounted proportion) returned to the Government.”
I dunno. If it is all framed through ‘return’ then it is distorted from the get go whether a secondary market exists or not. A bit like – if you really are a long term house owner then short term market fluctuations are less than meaningless. The point is to get more people into houses not create more wealth for property investors – at least in my view.
I highlighted the same article above at 10.
It raises a valid point.
However, should there be a time period (say 15 years opposed to 3) where if owned for longer buyers of kiwibuild homes get to keep all the capital gain?
Good to see the New Zealand Defence Forces recognising their role in responding to the risks of climate change.
https://defence.govt.nz/publications/publication/strategic-defence-policy-statement-2018
Accompanying statement from the Minister:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1807/S00074/strategic-defence-policy-statement-2018-launched.htm
I recall making some suggestion like this in a post a while back.
Yes Ad, it good see Climate Change and also a focus on International Base rules in today’s policy. Also the. future Defence Prourement Policy was release as well and I wouldn’t be able to read the full atm as I’m out bush until next week as I’m getting married after 9yrs, also if this post appears to all over place is because I left my glasses behind (I’m blind as bat atm) and had wild a night the pub as some locals brought their pets aka snakes, a snapping hand bag with big some reptiles aka lizards etc as well, a buffalo and a kangaroo.. This pub isn’t for the faint hearted as it’s one of last old school pubs in theNT.
Ad, this there anyway that we can chat offline IRT to theses policy releases and your post about climate change IRT NZDF and Climate Change?
Exkiwiforces
I wish you a happy marriage day and the years beyond. That pub night sounds good enough to be the central point of a movie about the outback.
And by the way can anyone tell me where Rod Oram is? I didn’haven’t found him in his usual haunt at Radionz? Don’t say they have lost him as well as John Campbell?
Exkiwiforces “Good luck and Best wishes”.
three goes in one week. greedy old fossil barry soper had three op-ed pieces in the Wairarapa Times Age this week. none of them original. all copies of the crap the nationals are peddling in parliamentary question time. swingeing attacks on kiwibuild, winston, and hauahama. No facts. Just opinion. This is kiwi politics at its sleaziest and apart form the content it says something about the avariciousness and greed of the author of this garbage. there is no right of reply and the nationals are getting nationwide syndicated free goes so so much for the free press. soper is going to seed but he is still vicious and dangerous.
Good evening Newshub I the Rotorua Lakes Council should work with the people running that Building to get the work done to get its fire safety permits .
One would think that councils would look after there Tangata No that would be a wise way to solve that problem.
The Rugby and Rugby League is quite exciting at the minute.
Im A bit tired at the minute the writing skills are on siesta.
So looks like a day of rest apoapo with the wet weather thats being forcaste
Ka kite ano