FYI, for me too the NYT article requires an account to read it, which is not cool here on TS and along a similar vein as linking to NZH articles that are behind a pay-wall.
And do you know why Blazer, you have to trawl through Right Wing conspiracy websites, to try and find some sort of half-arsed confirmation your disgusting pro-war narrative?
Because…..
There Is No Left Position That Justifies Putin’s Attack on Ukraine
DAVID OST
April 2, 2022 by Foreign Policy In Focus
It is tough for leftists to be on the same side as the mainstream. We can easily feel at those times that we’re missing something, that we’re letting down the struggle, that by ganging up even on an admittedly bad actor we’re helping strengthen the nemesis at home, allowing it to appear as the good guy…..
….If we want to support the right of self-determination to America’s neighbors, we can’t deny the same to Russia’s. If we’re not able to recognize multiple imperialisms, we are guilty of the same kind of Americocentrism for which we castigate others.
…..A negotiated settlement should have been done by now.
In the so called peace negotiations the Russian negotiators' position was that Ukraine should surrender.
Russia even refused a temporary ceasefire during the negotiations.
The Ukrainian negotiators offered Russia an a agreement not to join Nato. Ukraine also offered their terms for a ceasefire, which were to allow Russian forces to fall back to the pre- February 25 2022 areas in the Donbas Ukrainian territories, held by Russian forces before that date. And an agreement to continue negotiations for a permanent settlement, acceptable to both sides.
Russia rejected Ukrainian peace terms and refused to stop their attack on Ukraine, or return to its pre-February lines.
Hitting a stone wall with the Putin regime negotiators, President Zylensky, went over their heads to put the same peace offer before the Russian people on the messaging platform Telegram.
The Putin regime made viewing the Telegram video of the President's peace offer a criminal offence inside Russia, under penalty of 15 years in prison for spreading fake news
So much for 'a negotiated settlement should have been done by now'.
When you say that there should have been a negotiated settlement by now. What you really mean Blazer, is that the Ukrainians should have surrendered by now.
I am afraid Blazer, that is never going to happen, no matter what the cost, Ukraine will not stop fighting until the Russian Federation is driven back to its internationally recognised legal borders.
The Latest press release from the Russian leader carried on the Russian government News Site RT, is that Putin says he is ready to talk peace.
Delivered under the usual bellicose headlines mixed with threats, it is possible that Putin is finally ready to take up Zelensky's terms.
Which are; a return to the pre-February areas of the Donbas occupied by Russia before that date, in return for a ceasefire.
Let's all hope so. And the killing stops.
.
RT
7 Jul, 2022 17:11
…..Russia is ready to engage in peace negotiations with Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has said on Thursday, warning that those who reject such prospects should realize that prolonging the ongoing conflict would only make such talks more difficult.
What I find interesting in Putin's statement announcing his readiness for peace talks, is this line;
"Attempts to sow discord in Russia have failed"
The fact that they were mentioned means that they must have had some effect.
This must be the first time that the internet has proved its worth in being able to bypass state censorship to get Zelensky's peace terms to the Russian people.
Putin's new readiness to engage in peace negotiations, whether they result in a ceasefire or not, (and I hope they do), the underlying causes of imperialist wars have not gone away, and will inevitably emerge somewhere else.
The best we can hope for, is a new cold war.
If there is another outbreak of imperialist aggression, (the underlying economic pressures of growth economies that must either expand or die, means it is likely there will be).
Whichever side is the attacker in the next violent outbreak, the aggressor needs to be opposed and condemned by the united Left.
Unfortunately the pro-invasion orchestra seems to be enjoying an intermission and have gone quite for the moment.
No doubt the orchestra will strike up again following the next Russian Federation atrocity, singing from the same song-sheet and in tune, misdirecting and obfuscating, excusing and explaining, denying, lying and justifying.
If of course the hated satanic seppos had been conducting themselves like this – along with the insanely irresponsible threats to first strike nuke if they don't get their way by conventional means – everyone here would be all over them. Including me.
But for some unspecified reason Russia gets a free pass with these dupes.
I had considered appending this you tube video, of unarmed civilian Russian speakers in Ukraine confronting the invading Russian troops, because it skewer's Blazer's pro-war viewpoint without being personal.
So, you considered it and then decided to attach the YT clip anyway to re-emphasise your view of Blazer because of his comments rather than addressing the substance of his comments.
Blazer has already denied that he’s having a pro-war narrative. I can’t see it myself and very few would be genuinely pro-war as such. In other words, it is a bold accusation to make and that requires much heavier lifting that the feeble arguments you’ve made here so far.
This tends to get ugly rather quickly and I don’t want to have to moderate you or anybody else for that matter for this kind of commenting behaviour.
Let’s put it this way, if you have nothing nice to say, then stay silent and scroll on.
With buggerral criticism from the rest of the world, you and many others.
Which is why yet another fucking baby killer, civilian bombing dickhead, Putin, knows he will get away with it.
Because the Yanks and their puppet totalitarian Dictators, have “got away with it”, for decades, and right now. Ignoring the “rules based order” at whim, they keep pontificating about.
Has our intervention made things worse? Of course. That was eminently obvious and predictable when my partner and I marched down Lambton Quay in 2002 protesting GW Bush’s imminent invasion of Iraq.
If you are demanding a more contemporary condemnation of ill-advised US foreign policy – well Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Aghanistan all pre-date this site. Hell if The Standard had been around in the 1940s there would have been lots of lefties lining up to tell us how the horrid yankees should stay out of Europe, and let the Japanese have the Pacific in the interests of peace.
The two key differences are of course that Russia is invading Ukraine with the explicit intention of permanently expanding its territorial empire. Together with the blatant, repeated threats of first strike nuclear action, Putin has not just stepped over a line – but sprinted for the wilderness.
I wonder where you find your mythical, "Lefties". Haven't met many, if any that would meet your definition of "Left".
It was "leftie" workers, including a great many Yanks, who fought and died to defeat the Japanese and Nazis. Including a huge number of "leftie" Merchant seafarers
Your right wing US hero's didn't want to get involved, until they were forced to. Too many of them thought The Nazis were right to remove those pesky trade unionists and the rest.
I knew some "lefties" that were pacifists. It didn't stop them being in the thick of it, as aid workers, merchant seaman and medics.
“Russia is invading Ukraine with the explicit intention of permanently expanding its territorial empire. Together with the blatant, repeated threats of first strike nuclear action, Putin has not just stepped over a line – but sprinted for the wilderness”.
The US bombing civilians and starving populations into changing Governments is “fine” because they don’t explicitly, though it is implicite, threaten nuclear First strikes and their empire is corporate, not “territorial”. .
One bunch of baby killing bombers, is not morally superior to the other. There is no fucking difference.
And, I expect better from “our friends”.
Where the fuck do you think Putin got the idea he could get away with ignoring the “rules based World order” and the UN, from.
''It was "leftie" workers, including a great many Yanks, who fought and died to defeat the Japanese and Nazis. Including a huge number of "leftie" Merchant seafarers.''
Yeah, but on the Allied home front during WW2 some of those Leftie workers weren't too fussed about the war.
Quote:
''In 1943 there were two major stoppages, one was a strike of 12,000 bus drivers and conductors and the other of dockers in Liverpool and Birkenhead. Both were a considerable embarrassment to Bevin since they involved mainly TGWU members. 1944 marked the peak of wartime strike action with over two thousand stoppages involving the loss of 3,714,000 days' production. This led to the imposition of Defence Regulation 1AA, supported by the TUC, which now made incitement to strike unlawful.''
Boris Johnson's leadership in peril as two senior UK ministers resign from Cabinet
Sunak and Javid gone. This is like Grant Robertson and Andrew Little resigning.
Johnson has been hit by allegations he failed to come clean about a lawmaker who was appointed to a senior position despite claims of sexual misconduct.
…
Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that appointing Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip was a “mistake”, and denies that he lied to his colleagues about being briefed about Mr Pincher’s conduct.
That account did not sit well with Simon McDonald, the most senior civil servant at the UK Foreign Office from 2015 to 2020. In a highly unusual move, he said on Tuesday that the prime minister’s office still wasn’t telling the truth.
“The original No. 10 line is not true, and the modification is still not accurate,” McDonald wrote, referring to the prime minister's Downing Street office.
“Mr Johnson was briefed in person about the initiation and outcome of the investigation.”
Hours after McDonald's comments came out, Johnson's office changed its story again, saying the prime minister forgot he was told that Pincher was the subject of an official complaint.
Boris is now using the John Key defence!
However, Britain is an inherently conservative nation. Most voters are likely to ignore Johnson's appalling behaviour simply because he sticks it to the lefties.
Only his own Party has the ability to get rid of him. Let's see what they do.
I stumbled on Liz Cheney's speech at the Reagan Library 5 days ago. Terribly impressed with her content and delivery. If they must have a GOP President she would be great. Even to listen to a few minutes of her 40 minutes might impress. Starts after 1min. Scathing comments on Trump.
Like ianmac I was impressed with Cheney. But there's always another side. Her accusation… equating abortion rights with murdering killing new-born babies – which is effectively what she did in that clip – is dirty politics of the worst kind.
That's a leap. She's speaking (from 2019 I think?) about the protection of born alive abortion survivors protection. When she talks about 'the murder of babies', she is literally talking about new-born babies, born alive as the result of failed abortions. In fact she makes this comment "This is not about abortion, this is about killing babies after they are born". A living human being who has survived an abortion procedure surely has rights to some kind of protection?
The point to be made is: there is no way the Democrats were calling for the killing of live babies. That's a false equivalence to the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. In short, she was playing dirty to even suggest as much.
And 2019? That was only 3 years ago at the most ago so it is relevant.
I'm not sure what it is about the statement you think is incorrect.
The Bill sought to ensure the same level of care is applied to a baby surviving an attempted abortion as to any other baby born. The Bill also sought to prescribe sanctions against doctors who failed to provide that care.
That's a leap. She's speaking (from 2019 I think?) about the protection of born alive abortion survivors protection. When she talks about 'the murder of babies', she is literally talking about new-born babies, born alive as the result of failed abortions. In fact she makes this comment "This is not about abortion, this is about killing babies after they are born". A living human being who has survived an abortion procedure surely has rights to some kind of protection?
How about you put up some neutral and credible information about why those babies were being aborted, and what their prognosis is, and then we can debate what protection they have a right to.
I'm not aware of any study that combines those 2 data sets (why the abortion took place and what the babies prognosis was) in cases specifically of 'born alive abortion survivors'.
But I'm not sure either consideration is relevant in this case.
1. Once a child is born alive, the reason why the mother chose to have an abortion is irrelevant to the status of the right to life of that child. Indeed the law in the US recognises that right to life by defining the deliberate taking of that life as falling under the Federal murder law.
For the child to survive, the abortion would need to be very late stage indeed. Most countries have rather strict rules about late stage abortions, and doctors want no part of them except as medical necessities.
But late-term abortions are also very rare. In 2015, more than 400,000 abortions took place in the US. Of those, just 5,597 (or 1.3%) happened on or after 21 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The vast majority (91%) of abortions take place at or before 13 weeks of pregnancy.
There is precedent however, among disingenuous far right organisations like the US Republican party to try to create a narrative about baby killing. Here's an example from three years ago. Notably absent are actual instances of the crime they claim concerns them. Rather like yourself, with no links to support your alarming assertions.
Perhaps it slipped your mind, and you're not a mischief-maker peddling histrionic nonsense, and you'll link some evidence soon.
Your alarming assertion is that there are surviving children of late term abortions in need of legislative protection that are de facto being murdered.
Yes I stand guilty of claiming that human beings have rights.
"…that are de facto being murdered."
Here's where you went off track.
I specifically noted that any baby being 'murdered' would have the protections of Federal Law and fell outside of this discussion. My comments have focused on the 2019 Bill being about the provision of care. In my very first comment to Anne, I wrote this "A living human being who has survived an abortion procedure surely has rights to some kind of protection?" That has been my position throughout.
Whatever your motives, you have diverted this thread from Liz Cheney to something completely different and you’ve been sucking up a lot of oxygen here. You have also distorted and twisted the narratives around that US Bill that was voted down in 2019, as even a cursory read of the links that you provided show. Cheney’s motives to ‘not talk about abortion’ can be understood in the context of her Pro-Life stance (https://cheneyforwyoming.com/issue/protecting-life/). This was the gist of Anne’s comment @ 3.1.1 and about what Cheney did in that clip, not what Cheney actually said. Your motives can only be guessed at this stage.
As with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which Cheney praised, Cheney and GOP won’t give up and will keep chipping away at hard-fought women’s rights such as reproductive rights and the right to choose abortion. They will slowly erode these rights by thousands of little cuts if they cannot land an upper-cut or the KO-blow. This is an ongoing war about power and control to instil one set of moral values upon others. And this may easily turn into a ‘mission creep’ to other social norms and rights.
You are at pains insisting that these background contexts don’t matter, and to you they might not, but this is the act of a contortionist who’s denying the reality and views of others and who’s trying to get his own way. The irony is that this is similar to what Liz Cheney does as per Anne’s comment @ 3.1.1.
Your attempts to isolate an issue from its context and then fight it with trench warfare tactics is similar to commenters here who are not genuine because they have an [hidden] agenda and who therefore cannot be trusted to comment and debate in good faith. Such comments are never constructive but imposing and manipulative and tend to elicit the strong responses (i.e. push-back) on this site that they deserve.
I'm afraid your quibbling does nothing for your argument, which seems to be a dishonest construct along the lines of Pizzagate – "will nobody think of the children?"
"A living human being who has survived an abortion procedure surely has rights to some kind of protection?"
It is likely that a similar metric to end of life decisions reigns here – if that life is not self sustaining without the imposition of significant and likely futile technological intervention, medical staff are not obliged to provide it.
"It is likely that a similar metric to end of life decisions reigns here – if that life is not self sustaining without the imposition of significant and likely futile technological intervention, medical staff are not obliged to provide it."
I agree. Which is why I support the idea that the care provided to babies born from failed abortions should be the same as for all other babies. No more, no less. If the babies life is non-viable, then we should provide palliative care only.
I wasn't asking for a study that combined those two data sets. I was asking for informed debate. I have zero interest in looking at piece of legislation without knowing the facts of babies that survive abortion.
I felt quite uncomfortable listening to talk of patriotism and the greatest nation on earth that God had placed on earth. The listeners in the auditorium may have liked hearing that, but to us who live in this world outside of America not a source of pride but fear.
America was founded by the gun, it survives by the gun and it is in peril from the gun.
She spoke of freedom but America's people are not free and neither are the countries the US oppresses.
For freedom encompasses freedom of ideas, of speech, of liberty, but also human safety, human needs, and a whole gamut of 'freedoms from' ranging from fear, want, poverty, hatred, to more than I can suggest.
She did speak of finding common ground and standing up and being counted. And that's good.
But in my eighth decade I seem to look back and remember a cycle of fear and oppression that America had full responsibility for.
Missile crises, MAD and nuclear weaponry, invasions, coups, sanctions, pollution, economics, and then internally with racism, poverty, civil rights, consumption of resources…… again more than I can suggest.
Luckily I have American Studies, literature and history in my degree so I have some idea of the greatness that has come from America, too, and conversely of the applicability of these same criticisms to other countries.
The freedom she spoke of was limited and partial, and greatness is a concept to be conferred by others, not by oneself upon one's self.
Of that last Ms Cheney at least knew that was true of Trump. That awareness too was limited and partial. True of us all……….
Mac 1 "I felt quite uncomfortable listening to talk of patriotism and the greatest nation on earth that God had placed on earth."
Agreed but as US is a flag intense country that we are used to that, ho hum.
I didn't know about the abortion issue but to be expected from the GOP. However the appalling Trump rhetoric compared with that coming from Cheney and her delivery at the Jan 6 Committee, she seems to me to be the best of the possible GOP leaders. It is unlikely that Liz will survive the current election though?
She did give a huge condemnation of Trump but she got a very quiet audience at times and once or twice a big clap, especially IIRC when she spoke of the courage of the young women who were testifying against Trump. But I know nothing of the current contenders, so how any will go I don't know.
It's possibly the same in GB with all the Tory party resignations as to how they survive being the critics of their leader.
The TL,DR is that "…An inflation regime… …is one of sustained and general price increases. This cannot be a one-round affair. It requires successive price and wage adjustment. It can only happen if you have a wage-price spiral, with both price and wage setters driving up their demands…
…If this is what defines inflation, what anchors a low-inflation regime is a situation in which that reciprocal action cannot take hold. Either, neither price-setters (corporate capital) or workers have the power to set prices, or only one side does, so that you can have a first round price shock, but no second-round reaction…"
Tooze argues what has guaranteed low inflation for the past 40 years has been that one side of the above reciprocal actions – wages and salaries – have been successfully repressed through labour market "reforms" designed to defang the labour side of the wage-price spiral.
Tooze says: "…Our current condition does not actually meet the criteria of a sustained inflation. Why? Because the price surge is too one-sided. It has been driven by costs, demand pressure and mark ups. Real wages have fallen sharply. There is very little evidence of a sustainable wage price spiral in either the US or Europe. So there are first round effects, but no more than a muted second round reactions…"
So what has really got the neoliberal economists of our central banks (who have, in Tooze words, thematized the underlying regime of power "…In a remarkably unselfconscious way, the managers of the system articulate their preference for a particular configuration, or non-configuration of social forces…") worried are the signs that this is changing. What worries them is not just much higher inflation rates, but the signs that the price system is beginning to move, once again, as though it were a single system – and hence towards a wage price spiral. This means workers are beginning to re-unionise, and wage growth is starting to pick up driven by this and other factors like labour shortages.
My view is the forty plus year era of wage repression can no longer be sustained. It was only ever sustainable for this long because of price deflation driven by the move of manufacturing to China. Chinese made consumer goods are so much cheaper now in terms of relative value than they were forty years ago, and things like just in time supply chains and automation made the movement of goods ever more efficient and cheaper. As supply chain and labour supply issues bite, along with policies (tighter migration criteria, Fair Pay Agreements) that recognise that we can no longer continue down an ever downward wages path with out serious social unrest we need to come up with new ways of taming inflation. The problem is while the current labour government is at least dimly aware the wage/price crisis can't be solved by more austerity, lower wages and unchecked migration with a social catastrophe it is obvious the boss class – and the National party – are determined to go down fighting to defend their profits and their "regime of power".
That can't be true here because we have generally low wages that generally don't go up. And haven't for many years in part because unions were wiped out.
We only have strong unions covering about 10% of workers now, and it is they that are receiving the wage increases.
Of the remaining 90% , about 60% of NZ's remaining workers are getting the Minimum Wage hikes or close to it.
That seems to be what Tooze is describing. I don't understand any particular difference between his description of the state of the economy and yours, other maybe than the rate and time-span of inflation which you expect to result and characterize as an inflation.
Since immigration controls came in over the pandemic,every country that had high immigration has seen wage increases and benefit rises in the blue collar workforce.
The excessive immigration was the largest driver in household inflation (of which shelter is the largest component of cpi) We have now one of the lowest housing availability numbers in the OECD .
With the availability of cheap interest rates for lending,a housing inflation spiral enacted that increased demand over supply for existing stock,and new builds (where we have the highest building material costs in the OECD) The demand required the import of both materials and money,funded by debt,helped decrease the NZ $ ( risk to ca)creating further rises in inflation and so on.
Shelter and utilities are the largest costs in the lower income deciles,those are the areas where costs need to be rigorously examined(as do the causal mechanisms)
It seems less convincing when we consider the 2019 brief peak net immigration has fallen and is presently negative. Maybe with the right amount of lag you can correlate this with parts of the house price survey, though that doesn't seem to apply at earlier times of high net immigration.
Along with the regulator comes the code of conduct.Mbie in their briefing papers said overseas evidence from a code of conduct,results in additional compliance costs and price increases.
Diesel is a high cost for civil engineering (it is also for a agriculture,fishing and forestry.) Demand destruction ( around 6% by vol) and traders pricing in recession risk has seen prices of wti and brent decrease by around 10% in the last few days,.
The building material regulator may be an outcome from the CC investigation,if the CC lets FB buy Timu timbers,then the CC should be sacked.
New Zealand must be one of the most concentrated economies in the world, with oligopolies and near-monopolies in:
building materials, general insurance, health insurance, ports, airports, air travel, supermarkets, transport fuel, health, electricity generation, milk production, beef production, international shipping freight, roading materials, and bunches more.
Also over regulated in some areas,is part of the problem.Making a set of extended complex rules ,often too complex to readily understand,limits the ability for the lemonade stall in the driveway.
You can compare the regulatory reforms to the telecommunications sector that began in earnest in 2006, and see now how well prices have fallen over the decade. Compare that to the electricity industry and prices have just gone up and up and up.
Then there's building materials, in which two decades of leaky home wealth destruction and liability litigation have led to a wilfully conservative building products regulator. For which we are getting royally screwed.
Telecoms pricing decreased as the cost of equipment (in real terms) decreased.
In Japan as a right you can set up a business in your front room,and sell to the public with minimal regulation ( only registration) this allows a large group of pensioners to still be a part of the economy,and providing both fresh vegetables,and handmade quality goods at sustainable prices (japan inflation 0.2)
The RBNZ review identified the construction cost problem (which was problematic b4 Putin.covid et al)
World Bank data show that construction costs in New Zealand were 16% higher than in Australia and about double the OECD average in 2017. In 2012, the New Zealand Productivity Commission wrote a Housing Affordability Inquiry also showing that building costs were high here relative to other countries. Despite being high already, construction costs have also been increasing faster in New Zealand than in other countries since the GFC (Figure 8). This all strongly suggest that house building in New Zealand is an expensive business.There are no doubt many reasons why building costs are so high here. Part of the reason could be that the manufacture and distribution of building materials – which account for almost half of construction costs – take place in industries that are dominated by one or a small number of large firms
I blame the massive expansion of credit from the Australian banks (and laundered money from China), systemic failures of regulators, and fuckwit politicians who were happy to give the economy some crack cocaine to make themselves look good.
Tooze argues what has guaranteed low inflation for the past 40 years has been that one side of the above reciprocal actions – wages and salaries – have been successfully repressed through labour market "reforms" designed to defang the labour side of the wage-price spiral…..
Its not a wise strategy to blame the voters. It smacks of sour political grapes. Never a good look. If you really believe that I'm sure you can point to your active support for funding to address this 'misunderstanding'.
Axolotyls generally keep their heads down and barely have a skin. The Greens don't have the skin to take any criticism at all and tend not to rise above the surface.
It would just be great if James Shaw could show half the passion and enthusiasm of Chloe, or Jeanette, or Rod, or indeed anyone with a pulse. Does James Shaw exist?
Would James Shaw's work/achievements/potential, increase, his and The Green's influence be enhanced, by showing more passion and enthusiasm than he does presently?
I can't see that it would. The "big players" he has to negotiate/work with are off-put by "Chloe-style" passion and enthusiasm. Her manner works very well with many, but James has specific objectives and can't afford, and doesn't need, imo, to play to the crowd.
Grow bigger balls is my guess. He should have forced Labour to do better in climate. Apparently its his fault that we have a shitty climate policy because he didn't negotiate better.
Swarbrick has power that Shaw (and MD) doesn't, by dint of position. And vice versa. Trad left often fails to understand the nuance in the Greens.
I want the co-leaders to lead differently too, but I'd really like to see some serious analysis of what that might look like rather than just vague hand waving.
so abandon Ministerial responsibilities, and the GP agreement with Labour, and shift into advocacy/activist mode?
(it's not obvious what you mean, apart from you believe that CS is a very effective MP. I do too, one of the best. But she's not a Minister, and she is by agreement free to speak in ways that the other two aren't. This isn't absolute, I can see room to critique MD and JS. I just was hoping you would do some actually analysis).
ok, so you don't have any actual analysis beyond Chloe is great! why can't Marama and James be like her?!
I give my analysis of various things to do with the GP fairly often. In fact, I just did some in the comment above, pointing to why CS is freer to speak than the other two. Here’s the L/G agreement that sets out why.
Shaw and Davidson, from your own link, are perfectly able to critique from every single angle unconstrained by anything if it is outside Ministerial portfolios.
"The Green Party will determine its own position in relation to any policy or legislative matter not covered by the Ministerial portfolios and areas of cooperation set out in this agreement. Differences of position within such portfolios and areas of cooperation will be managed in accordance with this agreement."
Since you are clearly incapable of taking the start of the thread for the actual compliment to the Greens that it was, and also quite incapable of responding to any actual mild criticism of the Green Party leadership even while I was praising their Auckland MP, all you've done is show that it is actually Green Party supporters like yourself that hold them back from being the bold activists they should be.
Do you really think, Ad, that James Shaw is unconstrained by anything, if the issue is outside of Ministerial portfolios?
I suppose he could "passionately and enthusiastically" attack aspects that are dearly-held by other parties, but would that enhance his chances of succeeding in his Ministerial responsibilities; areas where real progress, actual change, can be negotiated and set into law?
Since you are clearly incapable of taking the start of the thread for the actual compliment to the Greens that it was, and also quite incapable of responding to any actual mild criticism of the Green Party leadership even while I was praising their Auckland MP, all you've done is show that it is actually Green Party supporters like yourself that hold them back from being the bold activists they should be.
Meanwhile, what I actually did:
asked you to share what you think courage would look like from the GP leaders
said I agree with you that CS is a very good MP
asked you to provide some analysis for your belief that the co-leaders could be like CS, ie the how.
pointed out that the leaders aren't as free as CS to speak out
provided a link the agreement which governs that.
said I think there is room to critique the GP leadership and that I wish they would speak out more.
You quite often slag off the Greens, I'm just pointing out a flaw in your politics. It's not personal, it's a feature of NZpol to say shit about the Greens but fail to explain how they could work differently in the system they are in. It's rare for people to explain how it could be.
I've written about the option for the Greens to stay out of a C/S agreement precisely so they can speak out, particularly on climate. Whether I'm right or wrong, I laid out some of the ways in which the Greens could be acting differently.
As Robert points to, much of what happens with the GP is based on relationship and the need to maintain those well. This applies to the agreement with Labour. I addressed that in the post too.
If Shaw were to take Swarbrick's approach on say climate eg invite the fight, he wouldn't be able to build the bridges across diverse politics and needs that he has. And it's hard to see how the relationship with Labour would remain strong.
The idea that he could have taken a warrior approach and forced NZ into a much stronger climate policy is just not real when we consider that it is Labour that has the more conservative policy, not the Greens. The Greens would have us far further ahead. Shaw works with what he has got, and makes change from within. It's not flashy, but there have been gains made.
I'm completely open to being wrong about the impact on the relationship, but someone would have to put up the actual argument.
My suggestion is that if people want a stronger GP, they should support them in practical terms and vote for them. The Greens on 20 MPs would indeed give them the power to speak out more.
Has anyone else read Kiwi blog lately? The anti Jax, anti vax, anti masks, sick chat was far worse than previous iterations. The anti vax groundswell far right and every other anti are there. A sewer of seething hatred.
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In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
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Russia continues its war strategy honed in Chechnya and Syria of targeting civilian infrastructure, a war crime under UN definition.
Russia says it does not target civilians and civilian deaths that occur are 'collateral damage'.
A quick search reveals numerous instances of Ukraine killing civilians as well.
'the first casualty of war..is truth'.
'
Citation Needed:
"A quick search reveals numerous instances of Ukraine killing civilians as well." Blazer
Very well Blazer. How about showing us the results of your ‘quick search’.
You don't even really sound like you're convincing yourself anymore
Nothing?
Why am I not surprised.
Blazer your 'quick search' is taking some considerable amount of time.
Maybe other supporters of Putin's bloody invasion and war, need to give you a hand.
Any takers?
Ukraine Targets&Kills Civilians, Says Russia Did It – U.S.&EU Press Report The Lie – OrientalReview.org
Ukrainian bombing of civilian areas of Donetsk June 13 killed 5 & caused massive fires | 6,724 views 14 Jun 2022 Fires still burning at a stationary warehouse and a nearby water bottling facility in Donetsk. Elsewhere in the city, Ukraine bombed a market, killing three civilians including a child. Ukraine pounded all over Donetsk this afternoon. *The number of civilians killed is now 5. *In April, I saw the aftermath | The Tea Party's Front Page. | Slowly, our freedoms are being chipped away with, "We know better…" justification as its hammer and chisel. (ussanews.com)
Four Killed After Explosions in a Russian City Near the Ukraine Border – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Watch: Ukrainian Citizens Say ‘Fascist’ Neo-Nazi Azov Brigade ‘Only Shoot Civilians’ – NewsWars
You would have to be very naive or biased to suggest that Ukraine has not killed civilians.
The mountain has laboured and given birth to a mouse.
A website that bills itself as the "Front Page of the Tea Party?
A New York Times pay for view article that I cannot open?
And Newswars, Infowars, Alex Jones?
Really?
Two Far Right conspiracy websites and one pay for view website I cannot read?!?
I gotta tell ya Blazer. It's not very convincing.
Surely you can do better than this?
-'The Tea Party movement is an American fiscally conservative political movement within the Republican Party.
-New York Times article is easily opened…maybe you just don't want to read it.
-it's not Info wars.
Surely you can ..do better.
When you 'get there' Jenny,I'm sure Forest Gump will be there to meet you wrapped in stars and…stripes.
FYI, for me too the NYT article requires an account to read it, which is not cool here on TS and along a similar vein as linking to NZH articles that are behind a pay-wall.
The "Tea Party" is the US equivalent of the "Tax Payers Union".
A bunch of right Wing “useful idiots” financed by heaps of dark money.
Hardly a credible source.
An interesting exercise tho. Wouldn't you agree Blazer.
Try harder next time.
And do you know why Blazer, you have to trawl through Right Wing conspiracy websites, to try and find some sort of half-arsed confirmation your disgusting pro-war narrative?
Because…..
I do not have a 'pro war 'narrative.
A negotiated settlement should have been done by now.
This conflict signals the end of U.S domination of the international finance system.
You seem to have a very simplistic view as to the situation,its catalyst and the geo political consequences.
Ost has his opinion,you yours and me my own.
If someone attacks you, you have to defend yourself.
The one who can stop the attack is the attacker not the defender.
If you support the attacker, you have a pro-war position.
In the so called peace negotiations the Russian negotiators' position was that Ukraine should surrender.
Russia even refused a temporary ceasefire during the negotiations.
The Ukrainian negotiators offered Russia an a agreement not to join Nato. Ukraine also offered their terms for a ceasefire, which were to allow Russian forces to fall back to the pre- February 25 2022 areas in the Donbas Ukrainian territories, held by Russian forces before that date. And an agreement to continue negotiations for a permanent settlement, acceptable to both sides.
Russia rejected Ukrainian peace terms and refused to stop their attack on Ukraine, or return to its pre-February lines.
Hitting a stone wall with the Putin regime negotiators, President Zylensky, went over their heads to put the same peace offer before the Russian people on the messaging platform Telegram.
The Putin regime made viewing the Telegram video of the President's peace offer a criminal offence inside Russia, under penalty of 15 years in prison for spreading fake news
So much for 'a negotiated settlement should have been done by now'.
When you say that there should have been a negotiated settlement by now. What you really mean Blazer, is that the Ukrainians should have surrendered by now.
I am afraid Blazer, that is never going to happen, no matter what the cost, Ukraine will not stop fighting until the Russian Federation is driven back to its internationally recognised legal borders.
‘
BREAKING NEWS;
The Latest press release from the Russian leader carried on the Russian government News Site RT, is that Putin says he is ready to talk peace.
Delivered under the usual bellicose headlines mixed with threats, it is possible that Putin is finally ready to take up Zelensky's terms.
Which are; a return to the pre-February areas of the Donbas occupied by Russia before that date, in return for a ceasefire.
Let's all hope so. And the killing stops.
Let us also hope that this is the very last time that the Russian Federation launches a foreign incursion across its borders.
P.S.
What I find interesting in Putin's statement announcing his readiness for peace talks, is this line;
"Attempts to sow discord in Russia have failed"
The fact that they were mentioned means that they must have had some effect.
This must be the first time that the internet has proved its worth in being able to bypass state censorship to get Zelensky's peace terms to the Russian people.
Putin's new readiness to engage in peace negotiations, whether they result in a ceasefire or not, (and I hope they do), the underlying causes of imperialist wars have not gone away, and will inevitably emerge somewhere else.
The best we can hope for, is a new cold war.
If there is another outbreak of imperialist aggression, (the underlying economic pressures of growth economies that must either expand or die, means it is likely there will be).
Whichever side is the attacker in the next violent outbreak, the aggressor needs to be opposed and condemned by the united Left.
Unfortunately the pro-invasion orchestra seems to be enjoying an intermission and have gone quite for the moment.
No doubt the orchestra will strike up again following the next Russian Federation atrocity, singing from the same song-sheet and in tune, misdirecting and obfuscating, excusing and explaining, denying, lying and justifying.
If of course the hated satanic seppos had been conducting themselves like this – along with the insanely irresponsible threats to first strike nuke if they don't get their way by conventional means – everyone here would be all over them. Including me.
But for some unspecified reason Russia gets a free pass with these dupes.
Putin has copied the U.S modus operandi-'military operation','collateral damage'.
He has never threatened to 'bomb them back to the..Stoneage'…or 'make the economy…scream'…however.
He has threatened to use nuclear weapons.
If any sort of weapons could bomb "them" (Ukrainians), back to the stone age it is nuclear weapons.
Blazer. Your blood thirsty pro-war partisan bias is showing through.
P.S. Anyone who supports Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is by definition pro-war.
Perhaps you could dial back a bit the personal stuff and concentrate more on debating the contents of Blazer’s comments, yes?
Yes of course. Why not.
I had considered appending this you tube video, of unarmed civilian Russian speakers in Ukraine confronting the invading Russian troops, because it skewer's Blazer's pro-war viewpoint without being personal.
'It’s You That's Fascist'
Meanwhile Russia' slaughter of civilians that Blazer tries to justify continues.
3 hours ago
https://kyivindependent.com/uncategorized/governor-3-civilians-killed-in-russias-recent-attack-on-kharkiv
So, you considered it and then decided to attach the YT clip anyway to re-emphasise your view of Blazer because of his comments rather than addressing the substance of his comments.
Blazer has already denied that he’s having a pro-war narrative. I can’t see it myself and very few would be genuinely pro-war as such. In other words, it is a bold accusation to make and that requires much heavier lifting that the feeble arguments you’ve made here so far.
This tends to get ugly rather quickly and I don’t want to have to moderate you or anybody else for that matter for this kind of commenting behaviour.
Let’s put it this way, if you have nothing nice to say, then stay silent and scroll on.
They have since WW2.
With buggerral criticism from the rest of the world, you and many others.
Which is why yet another fucking baby killer, civilian bombing dickhead, Putin, knows he will get away with it.
Because the Yanks and their puppet totalitarian Dictators, have “got away with it”, for decades, and right now. Ignoring the “rules based order” at whim, they keep pontificating about.
With buggerral criticism from the rest of the world, you and many others.
From 2014: :
And that is just one from a very narrow search.
If you are demanding a more contemporary condemnation of ill-advised US foreign policy – well Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Aghanistan all pre-date this site. Hell if The Standard had been around in the 1940s there would have been lots of lefties lining up to tell us how the horrid yankees should stay out of Europe, and let the Japanese have the Pacific in the interests of peace.
The two key differences are of course that Russia is invading Ukraine with the explicit intention of permanently expanding its territorial empire. Together with the blatant, repeated threats of first strike nuclear action, Putin has not just stepped over a line – but sprinted for the wilderness.
Straw Man again!
I wonder where you find your mythical, "Lefties". Haven't met many, if any that would meet your definition of "Left".
It was "leftie" workers, including a great many Yanks, who fought and died to defeat the Japanese and Nazis. Including a huge number of "leftie" Merchant seafarers
Your right wing US hero's didn't want to get involved, until they were forced to. Too many of them thought The Nazis were right to remove those pesky trade unionists and the rest.
I knew some "lefties" that were pacifists. It didn't stop them being in the thick of it, as aid workers, merchant seaman and medics.
“Russia is invading Ukraine with the explicit intention of permanently expanding its territorial empire. Together with the blatant, repeated threats of first strike nuclear action, Putin has not just stepped over a line – but sprinted for the wilderness”.
The US bombing civilians and starving populations into changing Governments is “fine” because they don’t explicitly, though it is implicite, threaten nuclear First strikes and their empire is corporate, not “territorial”. .
One bunch of baby killing bombers, is not morally superior to the other. There is no fucking difference.
And, I expect better from “our friends”.
Where the fuck do you think Putin got the idea he could get away with ignoring the “rules based World order” and the UN, from.
''It was "leftie" workers, including a great many Yanks, who fought and died to defeat the Japanese and Nazis. Including a huge number of "leftie" Merchant seafarers.''
Yeah, but on the Allied home front during WW2 some of those Leftie workers weren't too fussed about the war.
Quote:
''In 1943 there were two major stoppages, one was a strike of 12,000 bus drivers and conductors and the other of dockers in Liverpool and Birkenhead. Both were a considerable embarrassment to Bevin since they involved mainly TGWU members. 1944 marked the peak of wartime strike action with over two thousand stoppages involving the loss of 3,714,000 days' production. This led to the imposition of Defence Regulation 1AA, supported by the TUC, which now made incitement to strike unlawful.''
http://www.unionhistory.info/timeline/1939_1945.php
https://www.bls.gov/wsp/publications/annual-summaries/pdf/strikes-1942.pdf
I can't see a connection between what KJT said, and your comment, and the quote below it. What are you trying to say?
Wasn't "Lefties" marching against fighting in WW2.
When Nazis Took Manhattan : Code Switch : NPR
And. I marched against the Vietnam war. Why the hell were we fighting against Vietnams gaining independence from France, in the first place?
Boris Johnson's leadership in peril as two senior UK ministers resign from Cabinet
Sunak and Javid gone. This is like Grant Robertson and Andrew Little resigning.
Boris is now using the John Key defence!
However, Britain is an inherently conservative nation. Most voters are likely to ignore Johnson's appalling behaviour simply because he sticks it to the lefties.
Only his own Party has the ability to get rid of him. Let's see what they do.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/uk/300630286/boris-johnsons-leadership-in-peril-as-two-senior-uk-ministers-resign-from-cabinet
I stumbled on Liz Cheney's speech at the Reagan Library 5 days ago. Terribly impressed with her content and delivery. If they must have a GOP President she would be great. Even to listen to a few minutes of her 40 minutes might impress. Starts after 1min. Scathing comments on Trump.
Quite the choice, an incompetent fascist (Trump) or a competent fascist (Cheney)?
https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1544071921322430465
Thanks for that Joe 90.
Like ianmac I was impressed with Cheney. But there's always another side. Her accusation… equating abortion rights with
murderingkilling new-born babies – which is effectively what she did in that clip – is dirty politics of the worst kind.That's a leap. She's speaking (from 2019 I think?) about the protection of born alive abortion survivors protection. When she talks about 'the murder of babies', she is literally talking about new-born babies, born alive as the result of failed abortions. In fact she makes this comment "This is not about abortion, this is about killing babies after they are born". A living human being who has survived an abortion procedure surely has rights to some kind of protection?
The point to be made is: there is no way the Democrats were calling for the killing of live babies. That's a false equivalence to the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. In short, she was playing dirty to even suggest as much.
And 2019? That was only 3 years ago at the most ago so it is relevant.
"there is no way the Democrats were calling for the killing of live babies. "
This from CBS about the 2019 bill:
"The legislation — which fell seven votes short of the 60 it needed to move forward — would have required doctors to provide care to infants who "survive an abortion or attempted abortion."
The Dem's voted against providing care to surviving babies.
"That's a false equivalence to the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy."
She didn't make that connection at all. As I pointed out, she specifically said that her comments were NOT about abortion.
"That was only 3 years ago at the most ago so it is relevant."
The context is relevant. The context was about taking the life of a born alive baby.
"The Dem's voted against providing care to surviving babies.
That statement has got to be codswallop. Whoever made it is skewering whatever actually happened – presumably for political purposes.
I'm not sure what it is about the statement you think is incorrect.
The Bill sought to ensure the same level of care is applied to a baby surviving an attempted abortion as to any other baby born. The Bill also sought to prescribe sanctions against doctors who failed to provide that care.
42 out of 44 Dems voted against that Bill (according to this fact check site – "all of whom received funding from Planned Parenthood during their latest election cycle").
How about you put up some neutral and credible information about why those babies were being aborted, and what their prognosis is, and then we can debate what protection they have a right to.
I'm not aware of any study that combines those 2 data sets (why the abortion took place and what the babies prognosis was) in cases specifically of 'born alive abortion survivors'.
But I'm not sure either consideration is relevant in this case.
1. Once a child is born alive, the reason why the mother chose to have an abortion is irrelevant to the status of the right to life of that child. Indeed the law in the US recognises that right to life by defining the deliberate taking of that life as falling under the Federal murder law.
2. Regarding the prognosis of the child, the 2019 Bill was not calling for any rights for a child born as the result of a failed abortion than are afforded to any other child. The bills sponsor specifically stated that if "a botched abortion results in the live birth of an infant, health care practitioners must exercise the same degree of professional skill and care to protect the newborn as would be offered to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.”
For the child to survive, the abortion would need to be very late stage indeed. Most countries have rather strict rules about late stage abortions, and doctors want no part of them except as medical necessities.
As the Guardian notes:
But late-term abortions are also very rare. In 2015, more than 400,000 abortions took place in the US. Of those, just 5,597 (or 1.3%) happened on or after 21 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The vast majority (91%) of abortions take place at or before 13 weeks of pregnancy.
There is precedent however, among disingenuous far right organisations like the US Republican party to try to create a narrative about baby killing. Here's an example from three years ago. Notably absent are actual instances of the crime they claim concerns them. Rather like yourself, with no links to support your alarming assertions.
Perhaps it slipped your mind, and you're not a mischief-maker peddling histrionic nonsense, and you'll link some evidence soon.
We'll wait.
Late term abortions are indeed very rare. As is the rate of survival. I’m not sure either fact is relevant to this discussion, however.
"with no links to support your alarming assertions."
Can you provide an example of one of my 'alarming assertions'.
Your alarming assertion is that there are surviving children of late term abortions in need of legislative protection that are de facto being murdered.
Now, put up or shut up.
Ah, I see what you did there. You have combined a series of claims into one alleged assertion that I never made. So let me deconstruct.
"there are surviving children of late term abortions"
Guilty as charged. There is ample sources for this. Here's two, one from Australia, one from the US.
At least 27 babies survived late term abortions in Queensland last year and left to die | Daily Mail Online
The Facts on the Born-Alive Debate – FactCheck.org
"in need of legislative protection"
Yes I stand guilty of claiming that human beings have rights.
"…that are de facto being murdered."
Here's where you went off track.
I specifically noted that any baby being 'murdered' would have the protections of Federal Law and fell outside of this discussion. My comments have focused on the 2019 Bill being about the provision of care. In my very first comment to Anne, I wrote this "A living human being who has survived an abortion procedure surely has rights to some kind of protection?" That has been my position throughout.
Whatever your motives, you have diverted this thread from Liz Cheney to something completely different and you’ve been sucking up a lot of oxygen here. You have also distorted and twisted the narratives around that US Bill that was voted down in 2019, as even a cursory read of the links that you provided show. Cheney’s motives to ‘not talk about abortion’ can be understood in the context of her Pro-Life stance (https://cheneyforwyoming.com/issue/protecting-life/). This was the gist of Anne’s comment @ 3.1.1 and about what Cheney did in that clip, not what Cheney actually said. Your motives can only be guessed at this stage.
As with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which Cheney praised, Cheney and GOP won’t give up and will keep chipping away at hard-fought women’s rights such as reproductive rights and the right to choose abortion. They will slowly erode these rights by thousands of little cuts if they cannot land an upper-cut or the KO-blow. This is an ongoing war about power and control to instil one set of moral values upon others. And this may easily turn into a ‘mission creep’ to other social norms and rights.
You are at pains insisting that these background contexts don’t matter, and to you they might not, but this is the act of a contortionist who’s denying the reality and views of others and who’s trying to get his own way. The irony is that this is similar to what Liz Cheney does as per Anne’s comment @ 3.1.1.
Your attempts to isolate an issue from its context and then fight it with trench warfare tactics is similar to commenters here who are not genuine because they have an [hidden] agenda and who therefore cannot be trusted to comment and debate in good faith. Such comments are never constructive but imposing and manipulative and tend to elicit the strong responses (i.e. push-back) on this site that they deserve.
I'm afraid your quibbling does nothing for your argument, which seems to be a dishonest construct along the lines of Pizzagate – "will nobody think of the children?"
"A living human being who has survived an abortion procedure surely has rights to some kind of protection?"
It is likely that a similar metric to end of life decisions reigns here – if that life is not self sustaining without the imposition of significant and likely futile technological intervention, medical staff are not obliged to provide it.
"It is likely that a similar metric to end of life decisions reigns here – if that life is not self sustaining without the imposition of significant and likely futile technological intervention, medical staff are not obliged to provide it."
I agree. Which is why I support the idea that the care provided to babies born from failed abortions should be the same as for all other babies. No more, no less. If the babies life is non-viable, then we should provide palliative care only.
I wasn't asking for a study that combined those two data sets. I was asking for informed debate. I have zero interest in looking at piece of legislation without knowing the facts of babies that survive abortion.
"I wasn't asking for a study that combined those two data sets. "
Sorry, I thought you were.
So here goes:
On why women choose late term abortions:
"Abortions performed due to maternal and/or fetal indicators are a small percentage of the abortions done later in pregnancy."
(Jones RK, Finer LB. Who has second-trimester abortions in the United States? Contraception. 2012:85;544)
A more recent Guttmacher study focused on abortion after 20 weeks of gestation and similarly concluded that women seeking late-term abortions were not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.
Foster DG, Kimport K. Who seeks abortions at or after 20 weeks? Perspect Sex Reprod Health. 2013;45(4):210–218. doi:10.1363/4521013.
On their prognosis:
From what I can find, the data on this is sketchy.
I did find this:
The study looked at the cases of 4,987 infants “without congenital anomalies,” or birth defects, born before 27 weeks gestation. It found that 5.1 percent of babies born at 22 weeks gestational age survived and 3.4 percent survived “without severe impairment.” Several weeks further into gestation, at 26 weeks, 81.4 percent of babies survived, 75.6 percent without severe impairment. Abortions in such later stages of pregnancies (which typically are 38 to 42 weeks full term) could be performed because of congenital anomalies, but that study provides some sense of when a fetus without birth defects could be viable and when decisions on medical interventions could be made. "
"I have zero interest in looking at piece of legislation without knowing the facts of babies that survive abortion."
The only facts that matter are that the legislation sought to treat a baby who survives a failed abortion equally to any other new born baby.
I felt quite uncomfortable listening to talk of patriotism and the greatest nation on earth that God had placed on earth. The listeners in the auditorium may have liked hearing that, but to us who live in this world outside of America not a source of pride but fear.
America was founded by the gun, it survives by the gun and it is in peril from the gun.
She spoke of freedom but America's people are not free and neither are the countries the US oppresses.
For freedom encompasses freedom of ideas, of speech, of liberty, but also human safety, human needs, and a whole gamut of 'freedoms from' ranging from fear, want, poverty, hatred, to more than I can suggest.
She did speak of finding common ground and standing up and being counted. And that's good.
But in my eighth decade I seem to look back and remember a cycle of fear and oppression that America had full responsibility for.
Missile crises, MAD and nuclear weaponry, invasions, coups, sanctions, pollution, economics, and then internally with racism, poverty, civil rights, consumption of resources…… again more than I can suggest.
Luckily I have American Studies, literature and history in my degree so I have some idea of the greatness that has come from America, too, and conversely of the applicability of these same criticisms to other countries.
The freedom she spoke of was limited and partial, and greatness is a concept to be conferred by others, not by oneself upon one's self.
Of that last Ms Cheney at least knew that was true of Trump. That awareness too was limited and partial. True of us all……….
Agreed but as US is a flag intense country that we are used to that, ho hum.
I didn't know about the abortion issue but to be expected from the GOP. However the appalling Trump rhetoric compared with that coming from Cheney and her delivery at the Jan 6 Committee, she seems to me to be the best of the possible GOP leaders. It is unlikely that Liz will survive the current election though?
She did give a huge condemnation of Trump but she got a very quiet audience at times and once or twice a big clap, especially IIRC when she spoke of the courage of the young women who were testifying against Trump. But I know nothing of the current contenders, so how any will go I don't know.
It's possibly the same in GB with all the Tory party resignations as to how they survive being the critics of their leader.
More likely as a Democrat one would think. I doubt the Republican party can support her candidacy after her part in the January 6 hearings.
Adam Tooze has a fascinating take here on inflation. I'd urge you to subscribe, he is an incisive and brilliant historian.
The TL,DR is that "…An inflation regime… …is one of sustained and general price increases. This cannot be a one-round affair. It requires successive price and wage adjustment. It can only happen if you have a wage-price spiral, with both price and wage setters driving up their demands…
…If this is what defines inflation, what anchors a low-inflation regime is a situation in which that reciprocal action cannot take hold. Either, neither price-setters (corporate capital) or workers have the power to set prices, or only one side does, so that you can have a first round price shock, but no second-round reaction…"
Tooze argues what has guaranteed low inflation for the past 40 years has been that one side of the above reciprocal actions – wages and salaries – have been successfully repressed through labour market "reforms" designed to defang the labour side of the wage-price spiral.
Tooze says: "…Our current condition does not actually meet the criteria of a sustained inflation. Why? Because the price surge is too one-sided. It has been driven by costs, demand pressure and mark ups. Real wages have fallen sharply. There is very little evidence of a sustainable wage price spiral in either the US or Europe. So there are first round effects, but no more than a muted second round reactions…"
So what has really got the neoliberal economists of our central banks (who have, in Tooze words, thematized the underlying regime of power "…In a remarkably unselfconscious way, the managers of the system articulate their preference for a particular configuration, or non-configuration of social forces…") worried are the signs that this is changing. What worries them is not just much higher inflation rates, but the signs that the price system is beginning to move, once again, as though it were a single system – and hence towards a wage price spiral. This means workers are beginning to re-unionise, and wage growth is starting to pick up driven by this and other factors like labour shortages.
My view is the forty plus year era of wage repression can no longer be sustained. It was only ever sustainable for this long because of price deflation driven by the move of manufacturing to China. Chinese made consumer goods are so much cheaper now in terms of relative value than they were forty years ago, and things like just in time supply chains and automation made the movement of goods ever more efficient and cheaper. As supply chain and labour supply issues bite, along with policies (tighter migration criteria, Fair Pay Agreements) that recognise that we can no longer continue down an ever downward wages path with out serious social unrest we need to come up with new ways of taming inflation. The problem is while the current labour government is at least dimly aware the wage/price crisis can't be solved by more austerity, lower wages and unchecked migration with a social catastrophe it is obvious the boss class – and the National party – are determined to go down fighting to defend their profits and their "regime of power".
It requires successive price and wage adjustment.
That can't be true here because we have generally low wages that generally don't go up. And haven't for many years in part because unions were wiped out.
We only have strong unions covering about 10% of workers now, and it is they that are receiving the wage increases.
Of the remaining 90% , about 60% of NZ's remaining workers are getting the Minimum Wage hikes or close to it.
So his claim doesn't work.
Which claim doesn't work?
Your saying for Tooze ideas to be correct about NZ inflation should be hard locked to zero?
In the current century New Zealand doesn't have a correlation between wage increases and inflation. We are in nothing like a wage-price spiral.
That seems to be what Tooze is describing. I don't understand any particular difference between his description of the state of the economy and yours, other maybe than the rate and time-span of inflation which you expect to result and characterize as an inflation.
Since immigration controls came in over the pandemic,every country that had high immigration has seen wage increases and benefit rises in the blue collar workforce.
The excessive immigration was the largest driver in household inflation (of which shelter is the largest component of cpi) We have now one of the lowest housing availability numbers in the OECD .
With the availability of cheap interest rates for lending,a housing inflation spiral enacted that increased demand over supply for existing stock,and new builds (where we have the highest building material costs in the OECD) The demand required the import of both materials and money,funded by debt,helped decrease the NZ $ ( risk to ca)creating further rises in inflation and so on.
Shelter and utilities are the largest costs in the lower income deciles,those are the areas where costs need to be rigorously examined(as do the causal mechanisms)
Didn't we have border closures (e.g lower immigration) right at the same time as house prices took off (e.g end of lock-downs)?
Or your saying the immigration rates at that time were in practice higher due to NZers returning?
net gain of 80000 in 2019 (cumulative gain 300k under labour) when we were already under growth strain.
Thats a 108000 unit increase in housing just to add to immigration demand.
Housing availability had decreased since 2007 from 395 (per 1000) to 385 in 2017.
Is this the same net immigration statistic your describing?
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/international-migration-february-2022
It seems less convincing when we consider the 2019 brief peak net immigration has fallen and is presently negative. Maybe with the right amount of lag you can correlate this with parts of the house price survey, though that doesn't seem to apply at earlier times of high net immigration.
The RBNZ uses the compliance certificate/new net electrical connection to ascertain the difference in net housing ( demolished houses vs new builds)
The housing availability had decreased since 2007 (gfc and earthquakes) to 2017 by 10 houses per 1000 pop.
The result of the present imbalance has seen the rental market correct slightly,more inventory,some price reduction.
An increase in housing stock of what is consented would still keep us well in the lower half of the OECD average.
The only reference I can find shows 2020 is indistinguishable from 2011.
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/-/media/3a82b34177de41c493c9e278591abc7b.ashx
The range of values is 375-395 (per 1000) and appears to be more or less a constant since 1991.
2011 to 2020 is a difference of 10/1000 or 50000 housing units for 5m. pop
We're overdue for a Building Materials Price Regulator.
This government is today announcing the Supermarket regulator, but will it provide the RB with evidence of inflationary shopping prices?
Personally I blame diesel prices for about everything.
Along with the regulator comes the code of conduct.Mbie in their briefing papers said overseas evidence from a code of conduct,results in additional compliance costs and price increases.
Diesel is a high cost for civil engineering (it is also for a agriculture,fishing and forestry.) Demand destruction ( around 6% by vol) and traders pricing in recession risk has seen prices of wti and brent decrease by around 10% in the last few days,.
The building material regulator may be an outcome from the CC investigation,if the CC lets FB buy Timu timbers,then the CC should be sacked.
New Zealand must be one of the most concentrated economies in the world, with oligopolies and near-monopolies in:
building materials, general insurance, health insurance, ports, airports, air travel, supermarkets, transport fuel, health, electricity generation, milk production, beef production, international shipping freight, roading materials, and bunches more.
Also over regulated in some areas,is part of the problem.Making a set of extended complex rules ,often too complex to readily understand,limits the ability for the lemonade stall in the driveway.
You can compare the regulatory reforms to the telecommunications sector that began in earnest in 2006, and see now how well prices have fallen over the decade. Compare that to the electricity industry and prices have just gone up and up and up.
Then there's building materials, in which two decades of leaky home wealth destruction and liability litigation have led to a wilfully conservative building products regulator. For which we are getting royally screwed.
Sometimes lemons just can't be made palatable.
Telecoms pricing decreased as the cost of equipment (in real terms) decreased.
In Japan as a right you can set up a business in your front room,and sell to the public with minimal regulation ( only registration) this allows a large group of pensioners to still be a part of the economy,and providing both fresh vegetables,and handmade quality goods at sustainable prices (japan inflation 0.2)
The RBNZ review identified the construction cost problem (which was problematic b4 Putin.covid et al)
I blame the massive expansion of credit from the Australian banks (and laundered money from China), systemic failures of regulators, and fuckwit politicians who were happy to give the economy some crack cocaine to make themselves look good.
Heads should roll
Tooze argues what has guaranteed low inflation for the past 40 years has been that one side of the above reciprocal actions – wages and salaries – have been successfully repressed through labour market "reforms" designed to defang the labour side of the wage-price spiral…..
Wage-price spiral explained in eight words
Increased profits > Growth > Good!
Increased wages > Inflation > Bad!
If we had 10 Labour local MPs as good as Chloe Swarbrick …
The Front Page: Chloe Swarbrick's message to lobbyists as she readies next political fight – NZ Herald
And yet Labour won a majority in an MMP system at the last election…..how did that happen with such a star as CS opposing them?
Because most voters in New Zealand don't understand what they're voting for.
Its not a wise strategy to blame the voters. It smacks of sour political grapes. Never a good look. If you really believe that I'm sure you can point to your active support for funding to address this 'misunderstanding'.
I don't blame the voters. Reference to sour political grapes suggests your take on things is a little too simplistic.
You're not familiar with MMP clearly.
It started in 1993. Do catch up.
Just need Labour MPs prepared to put ego aside and work with her as partners.
Actually it would need her own party to show courage.
Which they can't because they are led by two of the weakest politicians in the country.
what would showing courage look like?
Chloe Swarbrick obviously.
Fantastically uninformative circular reasoning.
What we know is you think that the Green party is useless, yawn.
Actually I just praised a Green Party MP as a good and effective leader.
Asked then answered.
Of course you just sound like one of those tiresome Axolotyls who would rather keep the Green Party's head below water than grow an actual skin.
" those tiresome Axolotyls who would rather keep the Green Party's head below water than grow an actual skin."
As an axolotl-keeper, I'm intrigued by whatever it is you might mean by your statement 🙂
Also, I wonder what it is you are expecting James Shaw to do, other than what he has already done?
Axolotyls generally keep their heads down and barely have a skin. The Greens don't have the skin to take any criticism at all and tend not to rise above the surface.
It would just be great if James Shaw could show half the passion and enthusiasm of Chloe, or Jeanette, or Rod, or indeed anyone with a pulse. Does James Shaw exist?
Would James Shaw's work/achievements/potential, increase, his and The Green's influence be enhanced, by showing more passion and enthusiasm than he does presently?
I can't see that it would. The "big players" he has to negotiate/work with are off-put by "Chloe-style" passion and enthusiasm. Her manner works very well with many, but James has specific objectives and can't afford, and doesn't need, imo, to play to the crowd.
Grow bigger balls is my guess. He should have forced Labour to do better in climate. Apparently its his fault that we have a shitty climate policy because he didn't negotiate better.
Swarbrick has power that Shaw (and MD) doesn't, by dint of position. And vice versa. Trad left often fails to understand the nuance in the Greens.
I want the co-leaders to lead differently too, but I'd really like to see some serious analysis of what that might look like rather than just vague hand waving.
Go on then. Analyse the Green Party.
so abandon Ministerial responsibilities, and the GP agreement with Labour, and shift into advocacy/activist mode?
(it's not obvious what you mean, apart from you believe that CS is a very effective MP. I do too, one of the best. But she's not a Minister, and she is by agreement free to speak in ways that the other two aren't. This isn't absolute, I can see room to critique MD and JS. I just was hoping you would do some actually analysis).
Do your own analysis – you're the Green Party supporter.
Even within their portfolios they appear to have forgotten how to speak.
ok, so you don't have any actual analysis beyond Chloe is great! why can't Marama and James be like her?!
I give my analysis of various things to do with the GP fairly often. In fact, I just did some in the comment above, pointing to why CS is freer to speak than the other two. Here’s the L/G agreement that sets out why.
https://www.parliament.nz/media/7554/labour_greens_cooperation_agreement-1.pdf
Shaw and Davidson, from your own link, are perfectly able to critique from every single angle unconstrained by anything if it is outside Ministerial portfolios.
"The Green Party will determine its own position in relation to any policy or legislative matter not covered by the Ministerial portfolios and areas of cooperation set out in this agreement. Differences of position within such portfolios and areas of cooperation will be managed in accordance with this agreement."
Since you are clearly incapable of taking the start of the thread for the actual compliment to the Greens that it was, and also quite incapable of responding to any actual mild criticism of the Green Party leadership even while I was praising their Auckland MP, all you've done is show that it is actually Green Party supporters like yourself that hold them back from being the bold activists they should be.
Do you really think, Ad, that James Shaw is unconstrained by anything, if the issue is outside of Ministerial portfolios?
I suppose he could "passionately and enthusiastically" attack aspects that are dearly-held by other parties, but would that enhance his chances of succeeding in his Ministerial responsibilities; areas where real progress, actual change, can be negotiated and set into law?
Not feeling' it.
The coleaders =/= the party.
Meanwhile, what I actually did:
You quite often slag off the Greens, I'm just pointing out a flaw in your politics. It's not personal, it's a feature of NZpol to say shit about the Greens but fail to explain how they could work differently in the system they are in. It's rare for people to explain how it could be.
I've written about the option for the Greens to stay out of a C/S agreement precisely so they can speak out, particularly on climate. Whether I'm right or wrong, I laid out some of the ways in which the Greens could be acting differently.
https://thestandard.org.nz/is-it-time-for-the-greens-to-go-their-own-way/
As Robert points to, much of what happens with the GP is based on relationship and the need to maintain those well. This applies to the agreement with Labour. I addressed that in the post too.
If Shaw were to take Swarbrick's approach on say climate eg invite the fight, he wouldn't be able to build the bridges across diverse politics and needs that he has. And it's hard to see how the relationship with Labour would remain strong.
The idea that he could have taken a warrior approach and forced NZ into a much stronger climate policy is just not real when we consider that it is Labour that has the more conservative policy, not the Greens. The Greens would have us far further ahead. Shaw works with what he has got, and makes change from within. It's not flashy, but there have been gains made.
I'm completely open to being wrong about the impact on the relationship, but someone would have to put up the actual argument.
My suggestion is that if people want a stronger GP, they should support them in practical terms and vote for them. The Greens on 20 MPs would indeed give them the power to speak out more.
You're saying that the Green party are preventing Labour working with Chloe? Supporting evidence welcome.
I'm saying precisely that Chloe is a better MP than Davidson or Shaw.
Which does not answer my question – unless somehow you think the only people Labour can work with are party leaders.
Labour picks up some or whole parts of Private Members bills regularly.
Your question was simply a misguided understanding disguised as a rhetorical ploy, and you knew it.
I have no idea what you mean by that. Which does not bother me anymore.
Did you miss the entire set of political polls since the start of the year?
Kiwiblog are preparing to win.
It's the equivalent of throwing their toys out of their collective cots because they can't get what they want. Childish and pathetic.
Paragons, those Groundswellers!
Paragons!