Just heard on the 6am news there’s a push for privately managed isolation facilities.
OMG, are we impervious to lessons from Victoria? Do we really want a clusterfuck like Melbourne here?
The government may not be perfect in its management of quarantine, but if a problem arises they can throw money at it. A private firm will inevitably cut corners to make more profit.
Keep capitalism far away from our boarder protection management – please!
Yep, the richies want to be in charge / making profit while the rest of us take all the risks and get "jobs jobs jobs" (at minimum wage, zero-hours, no security and be grateful for it you miserable peasants)
So they want to bring in their rich mates supposedly to fix the economy? Well after 30 odd years of this stuff the bulk of the population could barely fund themselves for a 4 week stay at home – so as far as I am concerned its a failed idea and they can get stuffed. Just like private quarantine is a failed idea.
Why does the news media give so much time to just 20 people – when they are like this one.Deplatform them. Why on earth did he get one of the quarantine spaces after not bothering to be here for 2 decades.
Among them was Pooj Prenna, who recently returned to New Zealand with his family, after 20 years overseas.
And why does Helen Clark continue to want to be associated with these people. She's starting to look like Tony Blair- can't some one have a word with her.
And Prenna after 20 years out of the country and not bothering he comes back and gets an invitation to the forum and starts to tell the rest of us what to do. Well lets tax him on his worldwide interests. (appears to be a silicon valley capitalist)
Why does the news media give so much time to just 20 people
Because they're rich.
And why does Helen Clark continue to want to be associated with these people.
She may have been principled when she opposed the purchase of the Airforce strike fighters but since then she's been in government where had to collude with business to get anything done. Basically, she's drunk the cool-aid that its business that does things and not government.
Yeah I get the rich bit – but there's more of us than them and we are the one's that are gunna vote. And since the rich have done little for the masses these last 30 years we certainly aren't going to be much poorer if we ignore them now or preferably charge them some real high taxes.
And ignore them we should.
Actually the taxes should be the push back. All reporters should ask these over entitled bods if they are willing to stump up more in taxes.
And as I say regardless of how much kool aid Helen has drunk she needs to stop making the life of the current labour party more difficult. She is being used by these righties as cover for the hard right agenda behind their views.
So Key and co would like to make money out of isolation and quarantine? (Never waste a crisis..Right!!)
Where is their billion dollars each insurance against failure?(No insurance against a pandemic usually, and we don't want Private collection of Profits and Public paying for failures)
Which hospitals will be used if and when they let the virus in? Private?/Public???
Would they charge people to use their hospitals?
Whose country do they plan to poach Doctors and Nurses from?
Where will they obtain their testing kits PPE and general staff?
Yeah, agree with that 100%. I have never ever heard so much fucking winging by the right since this virus thing has started. The so-called rugged everybody stands on their own two feet, no such thing as a free lunch no passengers in this world etc etc etc right are there for assistance and handouts until you want to fucking vomit. Every time I hear the news there is some other right-wing prat winging how hard done by they are, and how MUCH better they can do it, or what a stuff up this administration has caused.
The next catch cry is going to be Private Enterprise can do everything SOOOOOO much better than governments and controlling the quarantine is just another one of them. Well if this administration buckles and allows private enterprise to run it. there have to be some strict ground rules. For starters, if any person breaks out of a privately run quarantine, the company running the isolation is instantly fined $100 000 to cover the cost of the police having to apprehend the offender and also creating the risk of spreading the virus in the community.
No private quarantine would be one election platform I'd really like. I'd be furious if they buckled – this is an opportunity to do things so much better for all the rest of us.If there had to be a punishment then I'd have the personal guarantees of all this crowd – any breach they get slung out off the country.
I'd like to think the government is testing public opinion regularly.
I consider $100,000 a very low and therefore "unsuitable fine", because the private company would include this into the costs running the operation.
How about every "business leader", including ex-PM Helen Clark, John Key, that wants to open the borders or a private organisation running the quarantine for economical gains put their bodies where their big mouth is (see newspaper, radio TV etc.)… for each "escape" at least one year prison for the glorious business leaders in case of non-infection, increased to at least five years in case of causing community transmission?
Would be interesting to see how many would still promoting it.
Covid 19 coronavirus: Travellers would not escape quarantine under National, Judith Collins says
…
People would not be escaping quarantine and managed isolation if National was in charge, leader Judith Collins says.
Collins said on Newstalk ZB this morning she had "zero tolerance" for coronavirus, and that Covid-19 "simply would not be allowed in" under her party's watch.
I guess they have snipers shooting escapees? Or National party members patrolling around the facilities.
Oh, and the virus definitely doesn't care about Judith Collins.
You know the only reason Collins wants to spend up large on Wellingtons roads was because of the traffic congestion which made her late for a hair appointment.
Time for some of these peeps to get with the plot.
Actually, I'm quite happy for them to not get the plot and the longer the better. That way they continue to prove that they're last centuries problems just trying to hang on to being relevant and, most importantly, not a solution to today's issues.
Very good idea satty, but I prefer my idea otherwise it will cost us money keeping the parasites in prison unless part of their sentence is that they pay for their own jail time. Good idea though.
…. and put all the returning kiwis in Jucy vans to free up the best hotels for wealthy tourists and students – and the spokesperson for this idea is the Jucy owner.
That actually isn't a bad idea Matiri. We don't want to let prejudice about business blind us to where they can be directly useful in times of crisis like this.
Privately run managed isolation… you mean like quarantining people in private hotels and paying them to manage the day to day issues? Huh, we should have thought of that sooner. /sarcasm
Of course not. She wants a mixture of containers and tents on Sommes Island run jointly by SERCO and MSD and to be able to shoot those who get too sick then bury them in the harbour. One of the most clear-thinking, strategic and pragmatic leaders we’ve ever had.
So the people behind this are the Alpe’s, that’s Jucy. They are most likely in the crap right now.
Key was prompting this a few days ago, wearing which hat, ANZ chair, or his personal interest.
A few questions need to be asked about what’s going on here, and who’s interests are being prompted. It’s looking like a select few before the wider New Zealand
It’s looking like a select few before the wider New Zealand
It is. To manage the population the capitalists need to manage what information that the population is getting and that's the job for the privately owned MSM.
"Why don't we let in rich Americans who want to build a house in New Zealand? Who cares? They're in Mangawhai or somewhere, they are going to create thousands of jobs.
"Why do we care if someone who lives in New York wants to spend $10 million building a house in Auckland, using NZ craftsmen and NZ tradespeople?"
Why do we care if rich Americans put even more pressure on our recourses using scarce tradespeople to build houses that will likely sit empty? Good god John Key is so stupid! It’s no wonder the housing problem became a crisis under his watch. The man is so blinded by his own self-interest that he simply cannot see the bigger picture."
John Key is so full of it. Why would they create thousands of jobs?
I think you'll find that by "houses" Key means "castles" and by "jobs" he means "serfdom". All that mountainous Central Otago landscape isn't going to plough and plant itself with wheat now is it ? — @brettroberts
Someone went to the trouble of actually working out the numbers that Key and pals couldn’t be bothered with. Guess what, it doesn’t add up
OMG, are we impervious to lessons from Victoria? Do we really want a clusterfuck like Melbourne here?
The capitalists want in of the money that the government is spending and, considering that it is a necessary service, they'll be able to low bid to get the job and then ramp up the expenses to make a higher profit.
Think this needs to be viewed in the context of NZs primary economic strategy which exists across parties (and may explain the involvement of the likes of Key and Clark, strange bedfellows indeed)…..growth via population.
Watching Weka scramble around on the Standard trying to beg left wing voters to vote Greens is glorious isn’t it? It’s like Green activists spend 3 years alienating the electorate and then realise months before the election that their woke middle class identity politics virtue signalling hasn’t won them any friends. Surprise, surprise.
Unfair to blame Weka for the Greens seeming woke. Censoring an 80 year old feminist because the alphabet soup tribe claimed she hurt their feelings was a collective idiocy, for which they are still evading moral responsibility. Given enough rope, the Green leftists used it to hang themselves, using the old rationale `if we don't hang together, we'll hang separately. Their belief system did them in – can't blame individuals.
If Labour don’t win an outright majority, the Green negotiating team will need to prioritise the policy they want passed in the first 100 days so they can show voters meaningful change and don’t end up in the same position of barely getting over 5% they are in now. That would require the kind of strategic forward thinking the Greens haven’t managed to show over the last 3 years.
This notion of Bomber’s that any group of leftists are innately capable of strategic thinking seems suspiciously like blind faith. I haven't seen leftists in Aotearoa do it ever, and I've been watching them since the late 1960s.
Fuck Bomber, I'm ex Mana ex Māori Party ex Alliance voting Greens (I did last election too). People like him, Tau Henare, NZ1st & the rabid RWs fearmongering over the Greens just strengthens my resolve.
Me too! And I hope that the Labour part of the coalition is nudged along by some of the Greens policies, in an 'aiming for the moon but might it hit a star' way as part of a consensus….but always the direction is forward.
All Parties in NZ have to be poked with a stick to stick to their supposed goal of doing the best for NZ. I've voted Greens for yonks and mixed with good people, but many tend to be loving of the environment, and looking at people as if they have invaded Eden.
The problem with such lefties is the tendency to spout high-minded stuff about green matters, and follow the latest thought on how to be, but all having different ideas about how those thoughts should be infused in real-life practices. More discussion needed to be done about how, and how practically to reach the established and tabled goals, and just how many ethical barriers should be included or put aside as being too precious. It may be that there is a more pragmatic and robust side to the Greens with Shaw, I hope so.
Bomber is a jackass. So removed from any relevancy he used to have back in the late 1990's and early 2000's as to become more a sideshow than anything serious
A pre moderated blog that lets misogynist comments through from idiots who aren't allowed to post here anymore. Not a great claim to fame for a left leaning blog.
And despite all that really important stuff from a wide range of writers, the true worth of the site is laid bare by what’s permitted under the topics in the comments.
it may surprise you that many blogs are written for readers not commenters. I don't like the commenting policy there either, but plenty of people don't like TS' policy 😉
It doesn't surprise me, why would it? I know the purpose of blogs/media/social pretentiousness etc, yet I still think the moderators allowing posts through underneath topics, like calling you "a bitch", for example, doesn't leave TDB with much left wing credibility, unless you think those readers you're talking about don't view the comments, or it doesn't matter if they do.
If I authored topics there, I'd be pretty vocal about what the moderators are happy to pass under Bradbury's posts. I'd be wondering if they really had a left wing core underneath the important stuff if they let shit like that pass. Maybe some of them will write something and show some lefty credentials.
Next time someone uses the bitch word here I'll be all over it, but I'm not sure if most people don't read the comments, and definitely not convinced that would be enough of an excuse to permit that sort of crap anyway.
Regardless, an interesting editorial position from someone running one of the leading left wing blogs in NZ.
No I was talking about the relevance he used to have which has diminished considerably. But whatever – I don't have enough skin in this game to carry on
I think you might put it more like this John S, that Bomber keeps looking and thinking and remembering that we have come right through the 20th century and mucked it up. He has had to change from what was thought relevant then. Perhaps it is you who are trailing behind in a cloud of exhaust and nostalgia. There is no blame on you if you are as many of us have that problem. But it has to be overcome, so keep those cogs whirring.
The transie crowd then went ahead and cancelled Jill because their feelings got hurt
As a gay man I have no time for the transie crowd calling me tranphobic because I don't see transmen as men. They're not. And for them to try and force me to see them as men, is outright homophobic.
I'm gay because that's what nature decreed. I have no sexual attraction to women. It's very much 100% toward men. A man has a penis. Transmen do not. They may have an imitation penis but at the end of the day, they are still biologically female. All the testosterone pills in the world will not change that fundamental fact of science.
To have transmen decry me as transphobic because I have no sexual attraction to them makes them homophobic by denying my reality. Transmen (and transwomen) are not men or women and shouldn't be so quick to lambast homosexuals because we have no sexual attraction toward them. That's homophobic and denies our biochemical response. I have met transmen, and there's an innate reaction to them and recognition that they're actually female, and not truly male. Pheromones make all the difference.
Trans people can feel who they are, but their current MO of criticising homosexuals as transphobic because we are same sex attracted, is why there is such antipathy in a large section of the gay community towards trans activists. It does appear that the worst activists are straight men who would never themselves, sleep with a transwoman because again, heterosexuality has an element of sexual attraction. A straight man can't have a family with a transwoman unless it's an adopted family. I've never had a definitive answer from any straight male activist as to whether they would sleep with a transwomen, yet some of them have said they would sleep with a transman which just goes to show that if there's a vagina, and not a penis, a straight man really is sexually attracted to the female genitalia, rather than male.
The argument is far more nuanced than the simplistic "transwomen are women" or "transmen are men" argument that is constantly peddled. Of course you can't really have a good discussion about it and explain your viewpoint without activists generally leaping straight to "you're transphobic" rather than appreciate that it's far more complex than they appreciate.
I have a transexual aunty, and I also have transgender friends. I have no problem with them. I do have a problem with activists ignoring the fact that homosexuality is "same sex" and not "same gender" attraction, by and large.
that's a really good explanation of that side of it thanks.
I'll add that the terms 'woman' and 'man' get used differently by different people. Here you clearly use them to mean biological sex. Sometimes people use the terms to mean gender/roles rather than bio sex.
(yep, that's a whole can of worms, just wanted to bring it into the discussion because it's such a sticking point and point of people talking past each other).
The two separate meanings present a massive impediment to public debate. Unfortunately the debating tactic of claiming that, the alternate positions use of the terms imposes unacceptable context on the discussion, is common.
Frequently this extends as far a claiming a biological (scientific) understanding is anti-trans (or in other contexts sexist, racist etc…).
But the only likely outcome when this happens is both sides will talk past each other because their terms are mutually incompatible. Usually this just insulates the two arguments from each other rather than leading to allowing a challenge to either sides positions.
In order to understand how this came about it may be important to consider that post-modern philosophical underpinnings of many of these radical ideas reject both logic and a scientific understanding of the world and instead begin by claiming reality is constructed by some form of widely shared beliefs (also called a social construct). Were this true then it does follow that somebody could/can change sex by imagining it to be so and convincing sufficient others to believe it so.
My observation is that both sides of the war have weaponised semantics, as you say they each use the words their own way when speaking to each other* and as well as making useful communication possible it creates a lot of aggro.
I understand why each side has done that, and the issues are actually complex beneath the semantics, but it's hard to see how any progress can be made while this continues (and I think it will).
*as well as to everyone else, so people coming to the debate fresh end up completely confused. Also, society has historically used the term gender and sex interchangeably so much that now there is a new meaning for gender we don't even have consistent language in law now.
There are some significant problems with the trans movement, that aggressive trans activists (TRAs) tend to gloss over, outlined thoughtfully by J K Rowling.
Yeah, I like the clarity of your analysis too James. I came across this recently:
Third gender, or third sex, is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither man nor woman. It is also a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders. The term third is usually understood to mean "other"; some anthropologists and sociologists have described fourth, fifth, and "some" genders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender
Quite an eye-opener for me, it was. I had no idea of the deep context documented by professional researchers.
Clearly there's a realistic basis for public policy around urinals: addition of a third option to the traditional binary. Existence of the biological third option defeats the habitual binary when identified in so many diverse cultural contexts & throughout history.
while it makes sense that most straight men won't be bothered, there's a clear conflict between some trans activist politics and women's sex-based rights. My suggestion at this point is, if you are new to this debate, to take a step back and be willing to be on a steep learning curve around gender, sex, and the TA/gender critical feminist war. It's complex, and the clusterfuck of the debate is nothing like I have seen anywhere else in 40+ years of politics. If you are not new, then you already know what I am talking about and your question is a set up.
So early in the morning! Can you keep your edge right till election time? Please – it sharpens the conversation. What sif you don’t like cauliflower, broccoli is very very good for you and greener.
Sewing the seeds of discontent the left uniting is a very unusual occurence .It seems the right have been afflicted badly by the aberration more recently airing their Dirty linen(politics) in public.
Given enough rope, the Green ideological leftists idiots used it to hang themselves, using the old rationale `if we don’t hang together, we’ll hang separately. Their belief system did them in – can’t blame individuals.
With my little adaptation in the quote, that is a good description of my views on Bomber and his ilk with their lack of toleration for ideas outside of their MAD silos. Same for those massive numbers of factional warriors in their little in groups on the right or religions or even amongst scientific and academic communities or in whole industries.
Since the 1970s I’ve watched with awe at the ability of a lot of ideologues of many ilks to dance on the head of a pin to gain their own position whereby they can denounce the ideas of others – when I can’t tell the difference between the denounced and the denouncer.
Then there are a pile of people who don’t indulge in point scoring games and who manage to cooperate despite their differences. In politics these tend to form larger political parties. In businesses they form corporations.
The ideological divide that I always see isn’t between left and right, green and free-market, religious (including atheists) and agnostic. But it between the those who can cooperate for the common good and those who find that beneath them.
This notion of Bomber’s that any group of leftists are innately capable of strategic thinking seems suspiciously like blind faith. I haven’t seen leftists in Aotearoa do it ever, and I’ve been watching them since the late 1960s.
Same for any group outside of traditional bureaucrats (who do seem to want to run on rails for decades – but seldom get the chance). For instance, businesses rarely maintain a strategic direction for more than about 3 years unless they are largely controlled by a single person. Infrastructure development and military tend to be better over longer strategic directions, but that is largely because of the length of their purchasing cycles.
The myth of strategic direction by a group is almost an axiom inside any MBA course. You’ll see cost shaving measures happening over longer periods of time – because they provide a continuing economic return. But you seldom see a genuine strategic direction last more than a few years when it isn’t caused by a underlying technology shift. For instance the JIT inventory strategies in the 1980s arising from better computer systems and better distribution links. Of the off-shoring of manufacturing as freight and air links and comms systems improved world wide.Or any number of other management fads that have been shored up by a change in the underlying tech.
But if you look closely at any organisation that is made up of groups of people, what you’ll see is a series of strategies competing, and a awful lot of creative story telling to explain the continuity in quite large shifts in strategic direction over very numbers of years. What you won’t see very often in any coherent strategic directions lasting for a decade or more.
I’d have to say that the Greens and before that Values have been remarkably consistent by comparison. Of course in NZ they have never really had access to sufficient power to start having to protect it. It’d be interesting to see what they’d do with it. Maybe this time
Yes, that's true, your generalised point about ideology & group coherence in relation to social context that is in perennial flux. Consistency and strategy based on it worked better when the pace of change was slower. That pace shift between '60s & '70s made much strategic thinking irrelevant – except at the geopolitical level, where stasis ruled.
The ideological divide that I always see isn’t between left and right, green and free-market, religious (including atheists) and agnostic. But it between the those who can cooperate for the common good and those who find that beneath them.
Because holism transcends binary divides. Focus on common ground is holist by nature – few adopt it as praxis. Focus on the common good inspired us in the early years of the Greens economic policy development. I recall Jeanette Fitzsimons advising us to read this:
For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Substainable Future, H.E. Daly and J.B. Cobb, Jr. 1990.
What Bomber forgets is that aside from silly distractions the Greens are the only party that take the future of NZ seriously, in context of the calamities that are coming. COVID is just the opening act.
Yeah but the question of alien life seems irrelevant to the story about our collapsing ecosystem (I don’t think there are any aliens out there, personally. Musk, Branson, Bezos are going to space and shitting on the Earth)
Everyone is dead and space is terra nullius? Or they learned their lesson and are hiding out in the trees again (metaphorically speaking), minding their own business.
seriously if we are waiting for a party to finally, finally do something other then sign meaning less paper (cause yeah, they are still signing on paper – hopefully recycled) then we are truly doomed.
the change will come when people understand that they have to change.
Sadly the Green Party is no more future orientated then any other Party. They live from election to election and hopefully a paycheck.
Anyone who consideres electric cars a greener option then standard cars cause 'fossil fuel' consumption, while pretending that the mining for lithium is NOT fossil fuel mining is neither green nor the answer to a better life.
So really you want change? Change yourself first, your community next and when the change is so far gone that they various beige suits hanging on the government tit can't refuse to acknowledge that change in the population anymore they will come to the party and not a day early.
But the most ineffective Party pretty much anywhere on this planet has been the Green Party.
referencing Dennis' point above about strategy, it's not possible for any party to do what you want, because most NZers won't vote for such a party. The Greens tread the fine line between what is needed and what is possible. That people like you and Bradbury continue to slag off the Greens is a failure of imagination on your part, which prevents seeing the strategy and most likely who the Greens actually are. Pfft, as if you're the only person that knows that EVs won't save the day and as if people in the GP don't understand cradle to grave. The Green Party cut their teeth on this stuff before you were even thinking about politics, and it's bizarre what prejudices people let blind them to the way out of our current dilemmas.
Yes, personal and then community change is absolutely necessary, but we don't have time to rely on that alone (and again, where is the strategy? It's not like people having been saying what you just said my whole life, it's not enough). The people in parliament are individuals who live in communities too, and many of them want real change.
Lithium production doesn't have to be fossil fuel dependent. That it mostly is at the moment is simply because it's cheaper that way, for now. But there's a bunch of alternative methods to getting the lithium, such as building a geothermal power station and extracting the lithium from the superheated groundwater going through the power station.
Understand its in the process of being scaled up for commercial production. If successful, I assume it could be deployed at other geothermal power stations.
Back in the late 90s/early noughties there was also Pacific Lithium's attempt to extract lithium from seawater here. But I was never sure whether that really was a good faith attempt to build a genuine productive business or just Robin Johannink grifting investors.
if the most ineffective party pretty much anywhere on this planet (hyperbole much?) are the greens, why is so much of what they have been banging on about, now mainstream thinking?I would say, in the BIG picture, the greens have been remarkably successful.
that's quite funny given Bradbury has spent more than three years running round slagging off the Greens, and actively undermining them, every chance he gets.
I'm not a GP activist, but people can call me a green activist. My preference would be that we had MANA and the Mp still in parliament, and others, and then I'd have more to write about.
I'd still be about the strategy though and will argue this with anyone that cares to: if actual lw policy matters, then the Greens have a significantly more lw policy platform than any other major party in this election. Hence the urge to vote for them. My personal political position is probably better described as deep green politics, and the GP are the best chance of us ever getting there.
But in the meantime, fucking climate change blows every other argument and stupid bullshit leftwing bitch fest out of the water.
My personal political position is probably better described as deep green politics, and the GP are the best chance of us ever getting there.
Exactly. I differ from you only on the political positioning required to get there – but I have had to drift with the times on that point recently. National's obduracy withstood the attempt by their progressives to steer their ship more cleverly, so the toxic culture within will defeat consensus politics for a while yet.
What is still missing is economic policy based on the commons. Both the left and right refuse to even think about that, yet it is the essential component for sustainable economics. Permaculture teaches design-based thinking, so I keep expecting it to emerge there. To provide that new design requires invention, so back in the '80s I conceived a synthesis of equity and enterprise as the conceptual basis for progress. Yet even permaculturalists haven't realised that yet. Too imaginal…
As written, as you quoted. Can't see how anyone could simplify further. But if you were fishing for framing to help explain it, I didn't get that far.
Green policy formulation in the first couple of years involved compiling elements deemed essential (UBI & true-cost accounting, for instance, pollution & natural resource taxes plus others). Members suggested & discussed in person when the working group met, policy drafts got amended subsequently by JF & posted to members for further comment. Then the Alliance hit & the process was shelved.
Since I was advocating something radical that hadn't been done before, I don't blame any of the others for being averse to integrating principles from the political left & right. Transcending binary belief systems is never easy.
I tend to view it from a human rights perspective as well as the economic view. Economics is all about efficiency of operations, costs & benefits quantised. When you transcend it via noticing that values are more qualities than quantities, and those drive behaviour more powerfully, then it becomes a question of how stuff gets shared.
By stuff, I mean mostly money & power, of course! So if society incorporates a conceptual framework empowering equity, people get a more equal share as of right. The convergence of legal provision on the principle is usually the structural problem: govts pretend to honour the principle while minimising the amount of provision. You know that.
Democracy allows them to get away with it. If they were bound by a charter of rights that included the provision, and their employment as MPs contracted them to legislate accordingly, public perception of the validity of wealth-sharing would be raised accordingly. People would see their entitlement to wealth-sharing as a human right.
Now the status quo does simulate this situation, since our government endorsed the UN covenant that specifies the several rights to sharing in the economy. Have you read those sections? In theory, our govt is bound to deliver. In practice, the delivery is ever arguable in extent.
So I advise strengthening the left hand side of the synthesis (equity) to reduce the gap between pretence & reality. As for the rhs (enterprise), I've always advised supplementing bau with collective endeavour. Traditional co-ops are a useful model but the operational lack seems to be around education and training: nobody provides! So generations keep passing the opportunity by out of ignorance. Remember Mondragon originated in 1956, yet the model has failed to replicate globally.
How could a working model of successful synthesis of both equity and enterprise fail to replicate? Mass psychology. Leftists promoting working together as an ideal instead of doing it in real life. Centrists being too lazy to think about it. Rightists being too scared to change.
In recent decades I've trended to the view that the paradigm shift required in politics can only get triggered by mass desperation. As we've seen recently, the inertial effect of complacency is even able to withstand a pandemic!
slagging off the Greens, and actively undermining them
Yes, I've noticed that too – I got 'silenced' from his blog for pointing out same. I can't work out what his agenda around that is supposed to be. He's built a small but vociferous army of absolute Green haters; not for anything policy-related, just due to dumb gotcha stuff he hears in the MSM.
I'm guessing some of it is because of his antipathy towards identity politics, which no doubt is in part due to the shit thrown at him by parts of the left over some of his behaviour.
Might be a bad cultural fit issue with the Greens too. He's not the only one that can't get over that.
Brain, perhaps. Since I wrote in support of it as a strategic initiative at the time. However you may recall that the Green movement originated as holistic (non-binary), and I became part of it that year (1968) on that basis, and it became overtly politic with a slogan expressly stating that it was neither right nor left in the early '80s.
Consequently the MoU was a centrist/leftist collaboration. I do understand that anyone in the leftist bubble will be unable to see it as such, of course. Bubble inevitably warp inhabitants away from reality.
So I ought to acknowledge that it was genuine evidence of leftists doing strategic thinking, eh? While simultaneously pointing out that it was a twin-tribe thingy.
"I do understand that anyone in the leftist bubble will be unable to see it as such, of course." Genuinely don’t understand why you would choose to believe that – simply having fun tilting at leftist windmills?
Sometimes absolutist reckons and wind-ups are written with such dismissive authority that gullibile readers might mistake them for facts – IMHO, of course.
One featured a progressive black Dem vs establishment black Dem battle:
Cori Bush, a progressive activist and veteran of the racial justice protest movement, defeated 20-year incumbent Missouri Rep. William Lacy Clay in a Democratic primary on Tuesday, a stunning victory for the party's insurgent left. The US House seat, based in St. Louis, has been held by Clay and his father, former Rep. William Clay Sr., one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus, since 1969.
Bush, who challenged Clay in 2018 and lost, was the first candidate launched by Justice Democrats, the progressive group dedicated to toppling moderate Democratic congressional incumbents. "We've been called radicals, terrorists, we've been dismissed as an impossible fringe movement — that's what they called us," Bush said in her victory speech. "But now, we are a multiracial, multiethnic, multigenerational, mass movement united in demanding change, in demanding accountability, in demanding that our police, our government, our country recognize that Black lives do, indeed, matter."
Bush's second attempt to unseat Clay, who won in 2018 with 57% of the primary vote, was backed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led group that champions the Green New Deal, and other leftist and progressive leaders, including Jamaal Bowman, who ousted Rep. Eliot Engel in New York during the state's June primary.
"Not me, US," Bush tweeted overnight, after her win was confirmed, echoing Sanders' campaign slogan in 2016 and 2020.
Bulldozer Gerry. Made the Christchurch quakes worse by demolishing everything with no regard for heritage and people's valuable stuff (literal fortunes) in the red zone. Stuffed up the rebuild. Has no regard for airport security.
sometime in the next year, we will all stare into the financial abyss. At that point, we will be well beyond the scope of the previous recession, and we will have either exhausted the remedies that spared the system last time or found that they won’t work this time around. What then?
I was part of the group that structured and sold CDOs and CLOs at Morgan Stanley in the 1990s. The two securities are remarkably alike. Like a CDO, a CLO has multiple layers, which are sold separately. The bottom layer is the riskiest, the top the safest. If just a few of the loans in a CLO default, the bottom layer will suffer a loss and the other layers will remain safe. If the defaults increase, the bottom layer will lose even more, and the pain will start to work its way up the layers.
Readers who are financially literate ought to read the detailed analysis – I'll just copy the sections other readers can comprehend, to illuminate the scenario.
The financial sector isn’t like other sectors. If it fails, fundamental aspects of modern life could fail with it. We could lose the ability to get loans to buy a house or a car, or to pay for college. Without reliable credit, many Americans might struggle to pay for their daily needs.
It is a distasteful fact that the present situation is so dire in part because the banks fell right back into bad behavior after the last crash—taking too many risks, hiding debt in complex instruments and off-balance-sheet entities, and generally exploiting loopholes in laws intended to rein in their greed. Sparing them for a second time this century will be that much harder.
Gabby I am reading Lindsey Davis and her character Falco who is a spy for the leaders, wealthy of Rome and he has to dodge all sorts including people who pop out with knives, like you who pop up to snipe. In the game that my sons spends time on-line, the spy is the one who jumps you from nowhere. It keeps him on his toes so to speak.
They've all been doing it since Reagan came in and said "Government is the problem". Wall St has been rolling back the New Deal and taking over the US government for decades now. A sham of democracy.
"Why don't we let in rich Americans who want to build a house in New Zealand? Who cares? They're in Mangawhai or somewhere, they are going to create thousands of jobs. Why do we care if someone who lives in New York wants to spend $10 million building a house in Auckland, using NZ craftsmen and NZ tradespeople?"
Golfing and tourism resorts built by two American billionaires, including the Tara Iti golf course near Mangawhai, received almost $1 million in wage subsidies between them during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Forget Roger Douglas, Prebs & co, subsidies are socialism at work! It's left/right win/win all over the place! He's reacting to this
The coronavirus pandemic sent the US economy plunging by a record-shattering 32.9 per cent annual rate last quarter
And he's alerting us to a collective gymnastics conundrum, via bad grammar:
Key said central government and the business community needed to be able to rapidly change course as information becomes available, even if such moves were disconcerting. "There is no elegant way of dismount a galloping horse."
Interesting he said Mangawhai. Cos of course he’s a member of the country’s most exclusive golf course there, Tara iti. Which is the cornerstone of a big really pricey real estate development that an American developer is doing.
The UK – It sounds like The Treasury is treating people as pawns again and the Government is playing russian roulette. Britain is heading for an unemployment crisis of Biblical proportions by the end of the year unless the Treasury's policy is torn up very soon. Businesses will start ‘shedding’ jobs rapidly in September as the furlough scheme dials down to 70pc of wages. It will reach a grim crescendo when support stops altogether at the end of October, long before the economy is in any fit state to absorb the army of unemployed.
“It is one of the biggest policy mistakes in modern British history,” said Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides from the London School of Economics.
What should governments be doing. What should the officials be doing, how should they cope with the changing ideas of governments. I may have put this up but it is worth repeating.
Lebanon's cabinet declared a two-week state of emergency in the capital city and handed control of security in the capital to the military following a massive explosion in Beirut that killed at least 135 people and injured 5,000 others.
The explosion on Tuesday sent shockwaves across the city, causing widespread damage as far as the outskirts of Beirut.
Officials said they expect the death toll to rise further as emergency workers dig through the rubble to search for survivors.
Beirut's city governor Marwan Abboud said up to 300,000 people have lost their homes and authorities are working on providing them with food, water and shelter.
Lebanon is in such a bad 'state' that its government can't look after the country properly. Instead they are like the National Party, looking after themselves and their friends, looking for personal advantage instead of managing the country for all the people doing the stodgy, practical things.
Who wants to be first in the world with edgy risky new measures – first being lauded for going naked into the neolib world – Grace Mullane virtually did that, now she is dead. We are vulnerable in our way.
We need to be aware of our vulnerability and keep looking after each other and the country tenaciously. No-one else will do it, we have to do it for ourselves.
There's just a huge crater where the warehouse full of ammonium nitrate once stood. The explosion registered as a M3.3 earthquake. Somewhere around 5% the power of the Hiroshima bomb.
Somewhere around 5% the power of the Hiroshima bomb.
So, approximately 750 ton of TNT equivalent. Really, Little Boy wasn't all that powerful as far as nukes go and you can't really compare the damage of an air-burst nuke to that done by a conventional ground explosion either.
Yeah, I get really irritated when people make senseless comparisons.
Leaving Brexit was an example of totally inadequate simple-majority law unsatisfactory for matters that change the system of the country. It was far different than an election that was part of the system. That decision has left the UK in a political hole it will never climb out of. Tried and true lefties say ' the people voted for it', for lies! They didn't have a clue what perversion of a political ploy they were falling for.
Houses for Ordinary people are The True Real resolve of Kiwis – not Rugby.
The persons who care for New Zealanders are not the Banks. For they exist night and day to squeeze every bit of fiscal Life out of the pockets of ordinary families and persons. Banks are Shylocks in new shirts. Ask Shakespeare.
They have even removed hundreds and thousands of NZeders out of once owned homes, and sold them off into the sweet arms of Landlords.
Landlords, as you know, demand monstrously cruel Rents and laugh at the poor they entrap.
The Wealthy people glutton on, receiving every perk the poor receive. Incredible crazy Gluttony !
The Excessive Land shall be demanded. The required Housing must be built and maintained. The Wealthy have had their fun. Haven't they ?
Else, New Zealand will be the world's laughing stock. Slaves.
All these economic decisions are rational given the market conditions set up by *government* of every stripe since Roger Douglas and his merry band of reverse robin hoods came along in their trojan horse and shafted ordinary kiwis
Unfortunately most of the world has got pulled into the freemarket neolib system and the housing problem is widespread. What to do without pulling the whole house of cards down on our heads? Perhaps we will be like Lebanon.
Or like the UK out of the EU and with huge loans still to repay – however we should remember that they ended up with a huge amount to pay to the USA after WW2 – through their lend-lease agreement etc. It made sense to join the European Common Market after that. Now they have decided to leave and pal up with the individualistic USA, a co-operative world is too common for those moguls, and the UK wants to plunder other pastures no doubt.
I think this may use up my quota of stupid questions for the month, but what happens if say ACT, NZ1 and the Greens all fall just below 5% and none of them win an electorate seat? And at the same time both Labour and National fall below 50% for the party vote?
How does this work in terms of forming a govt? Does Labour have to form a coalition with National?
In that scenario the party votes for those under 5% would be distributed proportionately.
If in the unlikely event Labour got 47% and National 45% Labour would be the government with National nipping at their heels. It would take just one or maybe two by-elections to fall from Labour to National to have a change of government.
If both parties ended up even, then we'd have a hung Parliament after redistribution and face another election.
OT: isn't it amazing that NZ only had one by-election this term when Jonathan Coleman left. Usually there's about 3 or more.
Which is why the Greens policy is preferential voting for both electorates and parties. Helps make sure that the parties that people actually prefer are elected.
Then whichever of Nats or Labour got the most votes gets to form the government. They will divvy up the 120 seats in relative proportion to their party vote. Say it was Labour 48% and Nat 44%, then Labour would get 63 seats (48% vote share*120 seats/92% total qualified non-wasted vote) and the Nats 57 seats (or maybe 62 and 58 depending on how the Sainte Lague formula works it out).
Not a silly question methinks. Could happen, so worth considering. I believe a national unity govt would be the framing deployed. They could also call it neoliberals disunited, eh? Would make fun political posturing a cultural norm until deckchair-arranging began to pall for all, whereupon the attraction of another election (mid-term) would suck their Titanic into an ocean vortex…
I know it deserves a full post in itself, but well done to this government and in particular Ministers Parker and O'Connor for the passage of the gazetting of the National POlicy Statement on Freshwater, National Environmental Standards for Freshwater, regulations on stock exclusion, and regulations on measurement and reporting on lakes and rivers;
The regulations that go into force reasonably quickly from this include:
• Requiring councils to give effect to Te Mana o Te Wai by prioritising the health and wellbeing of our waterways
• Halting further loss of natural wetlands and streams
• Setting higher health standards at swimming spots
• Putting controls on high-risk farm practices such as winter grazing and feedlots
• Setting stricter controls on nitrogen pollution and new bottom lines on other measures of waterway health
• Requiring urban waterways to be cleaned up and new protections for urban streams
• Preserving and restoring the connectivity of New Zealand fish species’ habitats
• Requiring mandatory and enforceable farm environment plans
• Making real-time measuring and reporting of data on water use mandatory.
They've also made special provision for vegetable growing areas which are critical for national supply, such as Pukekohe and the Horowhenua. The acid needs to go on Auckland Horizons councils to clean up these areas, even with the apparent carve-outs.
Looking forward to regional councils actually putting resource into enforcement and prosecution to get the turnaround we need.
I have mentioned that before lockdown and yes, my fear has proven correct. The majority of new unemployment cases are women.
But hey 'shovel' ready jobs are being offered. Billions being poured in shovel ready. 🙂
And women running small businesses to create an income for themselves in a society that gives few fucks of job creation for women can apply for a 'government loan' (fully refundable) or go to Winz for some much needed bullshittery in order to get nothing, cause they may share the home with a bloke aka the 'mealticket'.
I seriously hope that long term Labour will do better then that, but then Labour needs poor people, and poor women are always good to squeeze some more votes about. Right, cause 'we fight for women', and their children. One denied benefit at a time.
Without wanting to sound cynical, is there any actual breakdown analysis on this figure?
What sort of jobs we are talking about etc?
Would imagine the first people that lost their jobs were part timers that are more likely to be female (kids and things) and in hospitality (which basically shut down and is screwed) which is also more likely to be female.
Hospitality jobs, Front of house, waitresses, room maids, house keepers. Retail – all of them and more going due to self ordering and self check outs. All that retail usually also comes with office staff – production staff etc and a lot of those are also women.
So not sure what you are nitpicking about.
But yes, lets ignore the fact thatof 11.000 thousand that went on the dole 10.000 are women. And i would assume that the employment opportunities commissionar got the numbers from Winz.
Also from here a list of companies that shed jobs – Air NZ on top of the list, i would assume that a lot of the ground staff is female, a lot of the on plane staff are female.
Paying care giving jobs a decent wage would likely transfer some into that industry although I know it's not for all.
Getting over stereotypes.
Giving them some priority for courses on driving trucks and ag machinery. When ever I see agricultural areas complaining about lack of labour I think – offer part time hours and get some women trained who are well embedded in the community. Problem solved for the next decade
A lot are hospo I think. So very good argument for not extending any of the under 30 work/travel visa’s as they expire .as a lot of that work is hospo or seasonal.
i totally agree, all these women in their retail, hospitality, air NZ, cruise ship jobs etc should just move somewhere rural, be thaught how to drive a tractor and run a milking machine and all is sorted.
Yeah, right Tui.
10.000 out of 11.000 newly unemployed are women. Or did you miss that with you quick fix of bashing unde 26 year old fruit picking tourists. Mind, these women can get themselv a little camper van, bid farewell to hubby and children and just go fruit picking and sleeping in a dorm. Right? Even better, if they are single mums they can just go fruitpicking and their kids can too, right?
Good fucking grief.
This is why women in this country are among the poorest. Because there are too many that simply don't give a shit about how others do so as long as it affects not them.
Never mind that the Government has yet to actually do anything for women so far. Oh but they won't, right kinder gentler bullshit.
Err I wasn't suggesting anything like fruit picking actually and I am certainly not bashing women. I wanted to be sure that women are considered and taken onto the good number of courses being run at the moment ( and there are apparently airline pilots on some ) that lead to some of the better paid rural jobs – some of which are contracting ( driving grape pickers for example). A lot of these don't require moving to the back blocks but maybe to secondary towns like Nelson, Blenheim, Hastings Palmerston North. – or some of them may even want assistance to get HT licences to drive trucks- which generally seems to be better paid than care giving – funny that. Then there are all the trades courses – generally more women are taking these up – but we do want to make sure that any barriers are dealt with.
So no the "put the kids in the camper van and go somewhere" was not part of my thinking simply an assumption on your part so please don't sledge me about it.
Likewise hospo. Yes I have registered that we are talking about women and yes a large number of jobs seem to be from this industry and the numbers are also I assume locals eligible for welfare. But overall of out total hospo jobs pre covid a very large number (well over 2/3rds seem to be filled with those on short term visa's including the short term travel/work visa's.) There seems to be no reason to grant extensions on these visa's despite petitions and that would not have happened to any great extent pre covid so why do we not try to have locals filling our local hospo jobs? Nothing snide about that .
Do women overall need more support – right across the economy that would be a yes.
Behind a viral photo of a crowded hallway at a high school in Georgia, a potentially dire situation is brewing. Students, teachers, and parents fear the Paulding County school’s rushed reopening plans may be spiraling out of control just two days after students — who said they were told they could face expulsion for remaining home — returned to class despite reports of positive coronavirus cases among students and staff.
North Paulding High School, about an hour outside Atlanta, reopened Monday despite an outbreak among members of its high school football team, many of whom, a Facebook video shows, worked out together in a crowded indoor gym last week as part of a weightlifting fundraiser.
Does anyone know if it's legit for a sitting, albeit leaving MP such as Paula Bennett to be moonlighting for a full week of morning talkback shows on Newshub's Magic Radio especially during election cycle They're already dedicated 24/7 to trying to get the National Party into govt but what part of this and the discussions can be separated from campaign advertising $$?
ha! Huruhuru also means pubic hair. Look Waghorn, rule of thumb, if you're unsure whether naming something from someone elses culture is appropriation or not, maybe don't do it, who needs the headache.
I never write Winston Peters off. I remember the political idiots from National, Act, and the dipshit side of the left doing that in 1999, 2008, 2011, and today.
What those wishful politically dumb numpties forget is three things. He has a constituency for his brand of politic, those people are exactly the right kind of paranoid to ignore pollsters asking them who they’d vote for, and they all vote.
That is why the NZF vote on election days is always higher than virtually all of the polls by a few percent. While the greens is usually lower (lots of non voters there).
About the only thing that might mitigate that long term trend this time is Shane Jones. I am so glad he isn’t Labour any more. He is a real undisciplined pain to have around any political party.
Good probability. He has actually delivered the goodies – unlike the bridges that Bridges promised in a past by-election.
The issue would be if he could figure out how to retain the seat in subsequent elections. Electorate work is a long tedious detailed process of getting down with the distressed in an electorate. It doesn’t lend itself to the big-noting and meaningless rhetoric that Shane Jones is so well known for.
Yes, National's failure to screw over the NZ public as they wished in this case. As they couldn't say that they use personal attacks against Labour/Greens.
Jacinda always speaks in very clear language without ambiguity as she did again today. No umms or ers. Love her or hate her you wont misunderstand her.
Collins seems to jumble her sentences so that the meaning is ambiguous. And Collins spent most of her time today sneering and belittling. (As did Brownlee.)
Grant Robinson is still wedded to the delusional neoclassical/liberal school of economics. Most of Labour are and that is why they can't do the transformation that we need.
Yup, once the MMT lens is understood, it opens up a whole lot of progressive policy choices. These policies under a neoliberal view point are very difficult to justify.
Their billboards read, "Back your Future". With the greatest respect to the NZF voting demographic, their future will mostly have been planned and locked in some time ago.
Last election their billboards read, "Had Enough?"
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Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
The protest outside the White House correspondents’ dinner hotel. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR More than two dozen Palestinian journalists had called for a boycott of the dinner, writing an open letter urging their American colleagues not to attend. “You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and ...
“Our exporters should, therefore, be deeply concerned that the Fast-track Approvals Bill was not assessed for consistency with any of our free trade commitments prior to being introduced to the House,” says Gary Taylor, Chief Executive of the Environmental ...
NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff is calling on all political parties to support the new Member’s Bill from Labour’s workplace relations and safety spokesperson Camilla Belich MP that would ensure negligent companies are held accountable when their employees ...
A historian with an uncanny track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go very wrong for him. ...
A historian with a track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go wrong for him. ...
Ngaio Marsh House is one of Christchurch’s best kept secrets – and contains more than a few mysteries of its own.Trust Ngaio Marsh to leave more than a few mysteries scattered through her house long after her departure. For a start, there’s the curious concrete portal in the garden, ...
Appointment viewing has been lost to the mists of time, but memories of Montana Sunday Theatre can still be conjured by hitting play on a particular piece of classical music. “You’re not going to be able to sell it.” Over 30 years on, Karen Bieleski still recalls how the task ...
Performance Review King Luxon sat behind His massive polished oak desk. It is Performance Review time. There is a knock on the door. “Enter!” says the King. In steps Minister of Disabilities and Carer Pedicures, Penny Simmonds. “I can explain everything …” she begins. “Fine,” says King Luxon, pressing the ...
The pair opened their first fully collaborative exhibition, Nina for Flowers, last Saturday. Gabi Lardies visited their studio to find out who Nina is and what working together was like.‘It didn’t start out like, ‘This is a show about Nina,’” says Josephine Jelicich, gripping a thermos of peppermint tea. ...
Thank you, Dr Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner, for your brilliant invention. I’m another mid-20s Kiwi who had an OE last year. I hopped on my bicycle where France meets the Atlantic and cycled east. I pedalled through the Loire Valley, down rivers lined with willows and ancient wisteria-draped chateaus. I relished ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
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Just heard on the 6am news there’s a push for privately managed isolation facilities.
OMG, are we impervious to lessons from Victoria? Do we really want a clusterfuck like Melbourne here?
The government may not be perfect in its management of quarantine, but if a problem arises they can throw money at it. A private firm will inevitably cut corners to make more profit.
Keep capitalism far away from our boarder protection management – please!
SERCO – they've got form!
We need a quarantine island so people can't escape
Dunedin has an island literally named "quarantine island". Most harbours with islands plonked quarantine facilities on one of them.
It was one of those things that was routine before antibiotics and vaccines.
Yep, the richies want to be in charge / making profit while the rest of us take all the risks and get "jobs jobs jobs" (at minimum wage, zero-hours, no security and be grateful for it you miserable peasants)
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/422856/covid-19-business-leaders-push-for-privately-run-managed-isolation
So they want to bring in their rich mates supposedly to fix the economy? Well after 30 odd years of this stuff the bulk of the population could barely fund themselves for a 4 week stay at home – so as far as I am concerned its a failed idea and they can get stuffed. Just like private quarantine is a failed idea.
Why does the news media give so much time to just 20 people – when they are like this one.Deplatform them. Why on earth did he get one of the quarantine spaces after not bothering to be here for 2 decades.
Among them was Pooj Prenna, who recently returned to New Zealand with his family, after 20 years overseas.
And why does Helen Clark continue to want to be associated with these people. She's starting to look like Tony Blair- can't some one have a word with her.
And Prenna after 20 years out of the country and not bothering he comes back and gets an invitation to the forum and starts to tell the rest of us what to do. Well lets tax him on his worldwide interests. (appears to be a silicon valley capitalist)
Because they're rich.
She may have been principled when she opposed the purchase of the Airforce strike fighters but since then she's been in government where had to collude with business to get anything done. Basically, she's drunk the cool-aid that its business that does things and not government.
Yeah I get the rich bit – but there's more of us than them and we are the one's that are gunna vote. And since the rich have done little for the masses these last 30 years we certainly aren't going to be much poorer if we ignore them now or preferably charge them some real high taxes.
And ignore them we should.
Actually the taxes should be the push back. All reporters should ask these over entitled bods if they are willing to stump up more in taxes.
And as I say regardless of how much kool aid Helen has drunk she needs to stop making the life of the current labour party more difficult. She is being used by these righties as cover for the hard right agenda behind their views.
So Key and co would like to make money out of isolation and quarantine? (Never waste a crisis..Right!!)
Where is their billion dollars each insurance against failure?(No insurance against a pandemic usually, and we don't want Private collection of Profits and Public paying for failures)
Which hospitals will be used if and when they let the virus in? Private?/Public???
Would they charge people to use their hospitals?
Whose country do they plan to poach Doctors and Nurses from?
Where will they obtain their testing kits PPE and general staff?
We see you John Key.. You go plank.
Never waste a crises, there's profits to be had with no downside. Risk is all on us !
Yeah, agree with that 100%. I have never ever heard so much fucking winging by the right since this virus thing has started. The so-called rugged everybody stands on their own two feet, no such thing as a free lunch no passengers in this world etc etc etc right are there for assistance and handouts until you want to fucking vomit. Every time I hear the news there is some other right-wing prat winging how hard done by they are, and how MUCH better they can do it, or what a stuff up this administration has caused.
The next catch cry is going to be Private Enterprise can do everything SOOOOOO much better than governments and controlling the quarantine is just another one of them. Well if this administration buckles and allows private enterprise to run it. there have to be some strict ground rules. For starters, if any person breaks out of a privately run quarantine, the company running the isolation is instantly fined $100 000 to cover the cost of the police having to apprehend the offender and also creating the risk of spreading the virus in the community.
No private quarantine would be one election platform I'd really like. I'd be furious if they buckled – this is an opportunity to do things so much better for all the rest of us.If there had to be a punishment then I'd have the personal guarantees of all this crowd – any breach they get slung out off the country.
I'd like to think the government is testing public opinion regularly.
+100%
I consider $100,000 a very low and therefore "unsuitable fine", because the private company would include this into the costs running the operation.
How about every "business leader", including ex-PM Helen Clark, John Key, that wants to open the borders or a private organisation running the quarantine for economical gains put their bodies where their big mouth is (see newspaper, radio TV etc.)… for each "escape" at least one year prison for the glorious business leaders in case of non-infection, increased to at least five years in case of causing community transmission?
Would be interesting to see how many would still promoting it.
Just saw this article (NZ Herald):
I guess they have snipers shooting escapees? Or National party members patrolling around the facilities.
Oh, and the virus definitely doesn't care about Judith Collins.
Geez Nobody escapes when judith is in charge!!
Remember when she was in charge of prisons.
Thing is, as soon as someone did escape, Collins would be spouting excuses left, right and centre for the private enterprise that did a worse job.
Is she going to chain them to the walls?
Before or after turning central wellington into a motorway?
There's a quiet revolution going on out here. Time for some of these peeps to get with the plot.
You know the only reason Collins wants to spend up large on Wellingtons roads was because of the traffic congestion which made her late for a hair appointment.
she gets her hair done????…man they need to be fired.
Actually, I'm quite happy for them to not get the plot and the longer the better. That way they continue to prove that they're last centuries problems just trying to hang on to being relevant and, most importantly, not a solution to today's issues.
Answer to satty @1.3.1.2
Very good idea satty, but I prefer my idea otherwise it will cost us money keeping the parasites in prison unless part of their sentence is that they pay for their own jail time. Good idea though.
So right 1000%
…. and put all the returning kiwis in Jucy vans to free up the best hotels for wealthy tourists and students – and the spokesperson for this idea is the Jucy owner.
[Fixed error in user name]
[Fixed error in user name]
That actually isn't a bad idea Matiri. We don't want to let prejudice about business blind us to where they can be directly useful in times of crisis like this.
It's a terrible idea.
MPs, insulated from the failures of neoliberalism by comfortable remuneration, are able to imagine it is something other than an abject failure.
Privately run managed isolation… you mean like quarantining people in private hotels and paying them to manage the day to day issues? Huh, we should have thought of that sooner. /sarcasm
(from @yortw)
Has Helen offered her rentals as isolation facilities?
Why don't you ask her?
Would she tell me?
Of course not. She wants a mixture of containers and tents on Sommes Island run jointly by SERCO and MSD and to be able to shoot those who get too sick then bury them in the harbour. One of the most clear-thinking, strategic and pragmatic leaders we’ve ever had.
Right o…..
So the people behind this are the Alpe’s, that’s Jucy. They are most likely in the crap right now.
Key was prompting this a few days ago, wearing which hat, ANZ chair, or his personal interest.
A few questions need to be asked about what’s going on here, and who’s interests are being prompted. It’s looking like a select few before the wider New Zealand
It is. To manage the population the capitalists need to manage what information that the population is getting and that's the job for the privately owned MSM.
"
Why do we care if rich Americans put even more pressure on our recourses using scarce tradespeople to build houses that will likely sit empty? Good god John Key is so stupid! It’s no wonder the housing problem became a crisis under his watch. The man is so blinded by his own self-interest that he simply cannot see the bigger picture."
http://thejackalman.blogspot.com/2020/08/key-is-fool.html
John Key is so full of it. Why would they create thousands of jobs?
I think you'll find that by "houses" Key means "castles" and by "jobs" he means "serfdom". All that mountainous Central Otago landscape isn't going to plough and plant itself with wheat now is it ? — @brettroberts
Someone went to the trouble of actually working out the numbers that Key and pals couldn’t be bothered with. Guess what, it doesn’t add up
https://twitter.com/clintvsmith/status/1291132437460742144?s=21
The capitalists want in of the money that the government is spending and, considering that it is a necessary service, they'll be able to low bid to get the job and then ramp up the expenses to make a higher profit.
Vulture capitalists always have an eye for a bargain. An old person falling over is an opportunity to nick their wallet while they are distracted.
An economy on the rocks means it’s time to
stealprivatise assets at fire sale pricesHow do you get share in Serco, how much each? Or Black hawk done or whatever predator is around when people get shut away for a time.
Roblogic sees things so clearly that it must be through the eyes of a child. Better get sunglasses for protection robl…
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.“ Mt 10:16
Think this needs to be viewed in the context of NZs primary economic strategy which exists across parties (and may explain the involvement of the likes of Key and Clark, strange bedfellows indeed)…..growth via population.
He's being provocative, but does pose an interesting question: "what sort of Green Party does a Labour majority Government want?"
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/08/05/what-green-party-does-a-labour-majority-government-want/
Unfair to blame Weka for the Greens seeming woke. Censoring an 80 year old feminist because the alphabet soup tribe claimed she hurt their feelings was a collective idiocy, for which they are still evading moral responsibility. Given enough rope, the Green leftists used it to hang themselves, using the old rationale `if we don't hang together, we'll hang separately. Their belief system did them in – can't blame individuals.
This notion of Bomber’s that any group of leftists are innately capable of strategic thinking seems suspiciously like blind faith. I haven't seen leftists in Aotearoa do it ever, and I've been watching them since the late 1960s.
Fuck Bomber, I'm ex Mana ex Māori Party ex Alliance voting Greens (I did last election too). People like him, Tau Henare, NZ1st & the rabid RWs fearmongering over the Greens just strengthens my resolve.
Right there with you on that. (although I've always voted Green the sentiment is the same).
I'll be giving my party vote to the Greens this election because I want them to be part of the government. Red and Green like Christmas
Me too! And I hope that the Labour part of the coalition is nudged along by some of the Greens policies, in an 'aiming for the moon but might it hit a star' way as part of a consensus….but always the direction is forward.
All Parties in NZ have to be poked with a stick to stick to their supposed goal of doing the best for NZ. I've voted Greens for yonks and mixed with good people, but many tend to be loving of the environment, and looking at people as if they have invaded Eden.
The problem with such lefties is the tendency to spout high-minded stuff about green matters, and follow the latest thought on how to be, but all having different ideas about how those thoughts should be infused in real-life practices. More discussion needed to be done about how, and how practically to reach the established and tabled goals, and just how many ethical barriers should be included or put aside as being too precious. It may be that there is a more pragmatic and robust side to the Greens with Shaw, I hope so.
Bomber is a jackass. So removed from any relevancy he used to have back in the late 1990's and early 2000's as to become more a sideshow than anything serious
He runs one of the two largest left wing blogs in NZ.
A pre moderated blog that lets misogynist comments through from idiots who aren't allowed to post here anymore. Not a great claim to fame for a left leaning blog.
they have a wide range of writers, some of whom are covering really important stuff.
And despite all that really important stuff from a wide range of writers, the true worth of the site is laid bare by what’s permitted under the topics in the comments.
it may surprise you that many blogs are written for readers not commenters. I don't like the commenting policy there either, but plenty of people don't like TS' policy 😉
It doesn't surprise me, why would it? I know the purpose of blogs/media/social pretentiousness etc, yet I still think the moderators allowing posts through underneath topics, like calling you "a bitch", for example, doesn't leave TDB with much left wing credibility, unless you think those readers you're talking about don't view the comments, or it doesn't matter if they do.
If I authored topics there, I'd be pretty vocal about what the moderators are happy to pass under Bradbury's posts. I'd be wondering if they really had a left wing core underneath the important stuff if they let shit like that pass. Maybe some of them will write something and show some lefty credentials.
most readers don't read the comments.
I have zero interesting in a slanging match with TDB. Plenty of problems on TS around issues for women btw, if you want to dig into that.
Next time someone uses the bitch word here I'll be all over it, but I'm not sure if most people don't read the comments, and definitely not convinced that would be enough of an excuse to permit that sort of crap anyway.
Regardless, an interesting editorial position from someone running one of the leading left wing blogs in NZ.
Yeah he used to have TV shows, be on panels etc etc.
Now he just runs an echo chamber of a blog.
… and hangs out with Damien Grant.
what are TDB’s reader stats like?
No idea
so you just want to slag him off? Whatever you don't like about him, it doesn't make sense to say TDB has no validity or relevance.
No, I am talking about his relative relevance.
yes, you said he is irrelevant, and I pointed out that he runs one of the largest lw blogs in NZ.
No I was talking about the relevance he used to have which has diminished considerably. But whatever – I don't have enough skin in this game to carry on
I think you might put it more like this John S, that Bomber keeps looking and thinking and remembering that we have come right through the 20th century and mucked it up. He has had to change from what was thought relevant then. Perhaps it is you who are trailing behind in a cloud of exhaust and nostalgia. There is no blame on you if you are as many of us have that problem. But it has to be overcome, so keep those cogs whirring.
More mischief making from a media flogging their narrative.
My how fearful some are of the potential for significant change.
Who’s the “80 year old feminist” and who “censored” her? Who makes up this BS?
Jill Abigail wrote this
The transie crowd then went ahead and cancelled Jill because their feelings got hurt
As a gay man I have no time for the transie crowd calling me tranphobic because I don't see transmen as men. They're not. And for them to try and force me to see them as men, is outright homophobic.
http://www.google.com/amp/s/lesbian-rights-nz.org/2019/09/02/the-feminist-article-the-green-party-has-banned/amp/
Do you care that much if someone wants to be called "man" "woman" or whatever? As a straight man I couldn't care less what people want to be called.
That's likely why your viewpoint differs to mine.
I'm gay because that's what nature decreed. I have no sexual attraction to women. It's very much 100% toward men. A man has a penis. Transmen do not. They may have an imitation penis but at the end of the day, they are still biologically female. All the testosterone pills in the world will not change that fundamental fact of science.
To have transmen decry me as transphobic because I have no sexual attraction to them makes them homophobic by denying my reality. Transmen (and transwomen) are not men or women and shouldn't be so quick to lambast homosexuals because we have no sexual attraction toward them. That's homophobic and denies our biochemical response. I have met transmen, and there's an innate reaction to them and recognition that they're actually female, and not truly male. Pheromones make all the difference.
Trans people can feel who they are, but their current MO of criticising homosexuals as transphobic because we are same sex attracted, is why there is such antipathy in a large section of the gay community towards trans activists. It does appear that the worst activists are straight men who would never themselves, sleep with a transwoman because again, heterosexuality has an element of sexual attraction. A straight man can't have a family with a transwoman unless it's an adopted family. I've never had a definitive answer from any straight male activist as to whether they would sleep with a transwomen, yet some of them have said they would sleep with a transman which just goes to show that if there's a vagina, and not a penis, a straight man really is sexually attracted to the female genitalia, rather than male.
The argument is far more nuanced than the simplistic "transwomen are women" or "transmen are men" argument that is constantly peddled. Of course you can't really have a good discussion about it and explain your viewpoint without activists generally leaping straight to "you're transphobic" rather than appreciate that it's far more complex than they appreciate.
I have a transexual aunty, and I also have transgender friends. I have no problem with them. I do have a problem with activists ignoring the fact that homosexuality is "same sex" and not "same gender" attraction, by and large.
that's a really good explanation of that side of it thanks.
I'll add that the terms 'woman' and 'man' get used differently by different people. Here you clearly use them to mean biological sex. Sometimes people use the terms to mean gender/roles rather than bio sex.
(yep, that's a whole can of worms, just wanted to bring it into the discussion because it's such a sticking point and point of people talking past each other).
The two separate meanings present a massive impediment to public debate. Unfortunately the debating tactic of claiming that, the alternate positions use of the terms imposes unacceptable context on the discussion, is common.
Frequently this extends as far a claiming a biological (scientific) understanding is anti-trans (or in other contexts sexist, racist etc…).
But the only likely outcome when this happens is both sides will talk past each other because their terms are mutually incompatible. Usually this just insulates the two arguments from each other rather than leading to allowing a challenge to either sides positions.
In order to understand how this came about it may be important to consider that post-modern philosophical underpinnings of many of these radical ideas reject both logic and a scientific understanding of the world and instead begin by claiming reality is constructed by some form of widely shared beliefs (also called a social construct). Were this true then it does follow that somebody could/can change sex by imagining it to be so and convincing sufficient others to believe it so.
My observation is that both sides of the war have weaponised semantics, as you say they each use the words their own way when speaking to each other* and as well as making useful communication possible it creates a lot of aggro.
I understand why each side has done that, and the issues are actually complex beneath the semantics, but it's hard to see how any progress can be made while this continues (and I think it will).
*as well as to everyone else, so people coming to the debate fresh end up completely confused. Also, society has historically used the term gender and sex interchangeably so much that now there is a new meaning for gender we don't even have consistent language in law now.
There are some significant problems with the trans movement, that aggressive trans activists (TRAs) tend to gloss over, outlined thoughtfully by J K Rowling.
That is thoughtful… and very disturbing.
Yeah, I like the clarity of your analysis too James. I came across this recently:
Quite an eye-opener for me, it was. I had no idea of the deep context documented by professional researchers.
Clearly there's a realistic basis for public policy around urinals: addition of a third option to the traditional binary. Existence of the biological third option defeats the habitual binary when identified in so many diverse cultural contexts & throughout history.
I have a gay son, and relate so much to what you had to say. Thanks.
while it makes sense that most straight men won't be bothered, there's a clear conflict between some trans activist politics and women's sex-based rights. My suggestion at this point is, if you are new to this debate, to take a step back and be willing to be on a steep learning curve around gender, sex, and the TA/gender critical feminist war. It's complex, and the clusterfuck of the debate is nothing like I have seen anywhere else in 40+ years of politics. If you are not new, then you already know what I am talking about and your question is a set up.
Thanks. Thats the first time I heard about the story of the GP from a reasonable source.
“What is the difference between leftists and cannibals? “Cannibals don’t eat their friends.”
Attributed to Lyndon Johnson
Greens eat greens.
Those salad days are in the past.
life is but a melon, cauliflower
So early in the morning! Can you keep your edge right till election time? Please – it sharpens the conversation. What sif you don’t like cauliflower, broccoli is very very good for you and greener.
"vegetable rights and peace!"
— Neil, the Young Ones
I won’t dare telling you how to suck egg because I’d end eating humble pie.
Sewing the seeds of discontent the left uniting is a very unusual occurence .It seems the right have been afflicted badly by the aberration more recently airing their Dirty linen(politics) in public.
With my little adaptation in the quote, that is a good description of my views on Bomber and his ilk with their lack of toleration for ideas outside of their MAD silos. Same for those massive numbers of factional warriors in their little in groups on the right or religions or even amongst scientific and academic communities or in whole industries.
Since the 1970s I’ve watched with awe at the ability of a lot of ideologues of many ilks to dance on the head of a pin to gain their own position whereby they can denounce the ideas of others – when I can’t tell the difference between the denounced and the denouncer.
Then there are a pile of people who don’t indulge in point scoring games and who manage to cooperate despite their differences. In politics these tend to form larger political parties. In businesses they form corporations.
The ideological divide that I always see isn’t between left and right, green and free-market, religious (including atheists) and agnostic. But it between the those who can cooperate for the common good and those who find that beneath them.
Same for any group outside of traditional bureaucrats (who do seem to want to run on rails for decades – but seldom get the chance). For instance, businesses rarely maintain a strategic direction for more than about 3 years unless they are largely controlled by a single person. Infrastructure development and military tend to be better over longer strategic directions, but that is largely because of the length of their purchasing cycles.
The myth of strategic direction by a group is almost an axiom inside any MBA course. You’ll see cost shaving measures happening over longer periods of time – because they provide a continuing economic return. But you seldom see a genuine strategic direction last more than a few years when it isn’t caused by a underlying technology shift. For instance the JIT inventory strategies in the 1980s arising from better computer systems and better distribution links. Of the off-shoring of manufacturing as freight and air links and comms systems improved world wide.Or any number of other management fads that have been shored up by a change in the underlying tech.
But if you look closely at any organisation that is made up of groups of people, what you’ll see is a series of strategies competing, and a awful lot of creative story telling to explain the continuity in quite large shifts in strategic direction over very numbers of years. What you won’t see very often in any coherent strategic directions lasting for a decade or more.
I’d have to say that the Greens and before that Values have been remarkably consistent by comparison. Of course in NZ they have never really had access to sufficient power to start having to protect it. It’d be interesting to see what they’d do with it. Maybe this time
Then there are a pile of people who don’t indulge in point scoring games and who manage to cooperate despite their differences.
Probably most of what I've typed here in the past five years or more, has an underlying motivation that could be summarised in that one sentence.
Effective political operators are not about 'winning or losing', but on achieving useful gains that everyone can live with.
QFT
When I see either of those terms, a red flag goes up immediately. Same with “right” and “wrong”.
Yes, that's true, your generalised point about ideology & group coherence in relation to social context that is in perennial flux. Consistency and strategy based on it worked better when the pace of change was slower. That pace shift between '60s & '70s made much strategic thinking irrelevant – except at the geopolitical level, where stasis ruled.
The ideological divide that I always see isn’t between left and right, green and free-market, religious (including atheists) and agnostic. But it between the those who can cooperate for the common good and those who find that beneath them.
Because holism transcends binary divides. Focus on common ground is holist by nature – few adopt it as praxis. Focus on the common good inspired us in the early years of the Greens economic policy development. I recall Jeanette Fitzsimons advising us to read this:
For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Substainable Future, H.E. Daly and J.B. Cobb, Jr. 1990.
The notion is ancient & eternal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_good
Professor Reich brought it up to date a couple of years ago. I haven't watched this talk he gave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNLOdRMgaDY
but here's the book… https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/564303/the-common-good-by-robert-b-reich/
What Bomber forgets is that aside from silly distractions the Greens are the only party that take the future of NZ seriously, in context of the calamities that are coming. COVID is just the opening act.
https://twitter.com/hyperbolicTom/status/1289331671578243072?s=20
Did you read the bit about Fermi's Paradox, roblogic?
Yeah but the question of alien life seems irrelevant to the story about our collapsing ecosystem (I don’t think there are any aliens out there, personally. Musk, Branson, Bezos are going to space and shitting on the Earth)
Everyone is dead and space is terra nullius? Or they learned their lesson and are hiding out in the trees again (metaphorically speaking), minding their own business.
yep. It's the old left, who have tagged the environment on to their politics but still don't really get it.
seriously if we are waiting for a party to finally, finally do something other then sign meaning less paper (cause yeah, they are still signing on paper – hopefully recycled) then we are truly doomed.
the change will come when people understand that they have to change.
Sadly the Green Party is no more future orientated then any other Party. They live from election to election and hopefully a paycheck.
Anyone who consideres electric cars a greener option then standard cars cause 'fossil fuel' consumption, while pretending that the mining for lithium is NOT fossil fuel mining is neither green nor the answer to a better life.
So really you want change? Change yourself first, your community next and when the change is so far gone that they various beige suits hanging on the government tit can't refuse to acknowledge that change in the population anymore they will come to the party and not a day early.
But the most ineffective Party pretty much anywhere on this planet has been the Green Party.
It isn't easy being Green.
https://youtu.be/rRZ-IxZ46ng
referencing Dennis' point above about strategy, it's not possible for any party to do what you want, because most NZers won't vote for such a party. The Greens tread the fine line between what is needed and what is possible. That people like you and Bradbury continue to slag off the Greens is a failure of imagination on your part, which prevents seeing the strategy and most likely who the Greens actually are. Pfft, as if you're the only person that knows that EVs won't save the day and as if people in the GP don't understand cradle to grave. The Green Party cut their teeth on this stuff before you were even thinking about politics, and it's bizarre what prejudices people let blind them to the way out of our current dilemmas.
Yes, personal and then community change is absolutely necessary, but we don't have time to rely on that alone (and again, where is the strategy? It's not like people having been saying what you just said my whole life, it's not enough). The people in parliament are individuals who live in communities too, and many of them want real change.
no substantial change will happen until shit hits the fan…..
best we keep preparing then.
Lithium production doesn't have to be fossil fuel dependent. That it mostly is at the moment is simply because it's cheaper that way, for now. But there's a bunch of alternative methods to getting the lithium, such as building a geothermal power station and extracting the lithium from the superheated groundwater going through the power station.
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/04/vulcan-is-a-step-closer-to-net-zero-carbon-lithium-production/
Li from geothermal fluid is being done in the lab in NZ (in conjunction with silica extraction at Ohaaki).
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/117664525/taup-company-successfully-extracts-lithium-from-geothermal-fluid
Understand its in the process of being scaled up for commercial production. If successful, I assume it could be deployed at other geothermal power stations.
Back in the late 90s/early noughties there was also Pacific Lithium's attempt to extract lithium from seawater here. But I was never sure whether that really was a good faith attempt to build a genuine productive business or just Robin Johannink grifting investors.
if the most ineffective party pretty much anywhere on this planet (hyperbole much?) are the greens, why is so much of what they have been banging on about, now mainstream thinking?I would say, in the BIG picture, the greens have been remarkably successful.
that's quite funny given Bradbury has spent more than three years running round slagging off the Greens, and actively undermining them, every chance he gets.
I'm not a GP activist, but people can call me a green activist. My preference would be that we had MANA and the Mp still in parliament, and others, and then I'd have more to write about.
I'd still be about the strategy though and will argue this with anyone that cares to: if actual lw policy matters, then the Greens have a significantly more lw policy platform than any other major party in this election. Hence the urge to vote for them. My personal political position is probably better described as deep green politics, and the GP are the best chance of us ever getting there.
But in the meantime, fucking climate change blows every other argument and stupid bullshit leftwing bitch fest out of the water.
Oh really?
Yep I'm gonna party vote green even tho the id politics stuff is annoying. Their policies are proper left and they take CC seriously.
(unfortunately I'm in epsom & also have to swallow a dead rat (goldsmith) this election to try and get rid of ACT)
My personal political position is probably better described as deep green politics, and the GP are the best chance of us ever getting there.
Exactly. I differ from you only on the political positioning required to get there – but I have had to drift with the times on that point recently. National's obduracy withstood the attempt by their progressives to steer their ship more cleverly, so the toxic culture within will defeat consensus politics for a while yet.
What is still missing is economic policy based on the commons. Both the left and right refuse to even think about that, yet it is the essential component for sustainable economics. Permaculture teaches design-based thinking, so I keep expecting it to emerge there. To provide that new design requires invention, so back in the '80s I conceived a synthesis of equity and enterprise as the conceptual basis for progress. Yet even permaculturalists haven't realised that yet. Too imaginal…
What was the simplest way you worked out to describe it?
As written, as you quoted. Can't see how anyone could simplify further. But if you were fishing for framing to help explain it, I didn't get that far.
Green policy formulation in the first couple of years involved compiling elements deemed essential (UBI & true-cost accounting, for instance, pollution & natural resource taxes plus others). Members suggested & discussed in person when the working group met, policy drafts got amended subsequently by JF & posted to members for further comment. Then the Alliance hit & the process was shelved.
Since I was advocating something radical that hadn't been done before, I don't blame any of the others for being averse to integrating principles from the political left & right. Transcending binary belief systems is never easy.
Smaller words might help.
"economic policy based on the commons."
Can you please talk about that a bit more?
Guillotines?
I tend to view it from a human rights perspective as well as the economic view. Economics is all about efficiency of operations, costs & benefits quantised. When you transcend it via noticing that values are more qualities than quantities, and those drive behaviour more powerfully, then it becomes a question of how stuff gets shared.
By stuff, I mean mostly money & power, of course! So if society incorporates a conceptual framework empowering equity, people get a more equal share as of right. The convergence of legal provision on the principle is usually the structural problem: govts pretend to honour the principle while minimising the amount of provision. You know that.
Democracy allows them to get away with it. If they were bound by a charter of rights that included the provision, and their employment as MPs contracted them to legislate accordingly, public perception of the validity of wealth-sharing would be raised accordingly. People would see their entitlement to wealth-sharing as a human right.
Now the status quo does simulate this situation, since our government endorsed the UN covenant that specifies the several rights to sharing in the economy. Have you read those sections? In theory, our govt is bound to deliver. In practice, the delivery is ever arguable in extent.
So I advise strengthening the left hand side of the synthesis (equity) to reduce the gap between pretence & reality. As for the rhs (enterprise), I've always advised supplementing bau with collective endeavour. Traditional co-ops are a useful model but the operational lack seems to be around education and training: nobody provides! So generations keep passing the opportunity by out of ignorance. Remember Mondragon originated in 1956, yet the model has failed to replicate globally.
How could a working model of successful synthesis of both equity and enterprise fail to replicate? Mass psychology. Leftists promoting working together as an ideal instead of doing it in real life. Centrists being too lazy to think about it. Rightists being too scared to change.
In recent decades I've trended to the view that the paradigm shift required in politics can only get triggered by mass desperation. As we've seen recently, the inertial effect of complacency is even able to withstand a pandemic!
Yes, I've noticed that too – I got 'silenced' from his blog for pointing out same. I can't work out what his agenda around that is supposed to be. He's built a small but vociferous army of absolute Green haters; not for anything policy-related, just due to dumb gotcha stuff he hears in the MSM.
I'm guessing some of it is because of his antipathy towards identity politics, which no doubt is in part due to the shit thrown at him by parts of the left over some of his behaviour.
Might be a bad cultural fit issue with the Greens too. He's not the only one that can't get over that.
NZ examples of leftist strategic thinking exist, e.g. the 2016 Labour/Green MoU. Is it your eyesight or your brain that’s letting you down?
Brain, perhaps. Since I wrote in support of it as a strategic initiative at the time. However you may recall that the Green movement originated as holistic (non-binary), and I became part of it that year (1968) on that basis, and it became overtly politic with a slogan expressly stating that it was neither right nor left in the early '80s.
Consequently the MoU was a centrist/leftist collaboration. I do understand that anyone in the leftist bubble will be unable to see it as such, of course. Bubble inevitably warp inhabitants away from reality.
So I ought to acknowledge that it was genuine evidence of leftists doing strategic thinking, eh? While simultaneously pointing out that it was a twin-tribe thingy.
Sometimes absolutist reckons and wind-ups are written with such dismissive authority that gullibile readers might mistake them for facts – IMHO, of course.
CNN has a review of several primaries here: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/05/politics/primary-results-takeaways-august-4/index.html
One featured a progressive black Dem vs establishment black Dem battle:
Good, the Clays sound like the yanker version of monarchy.
Thats a huge win.
I remember her taking on Clay in the doco Knock Down The House.
Perseverance paid off.
I see a Newshub headline on my device this morning. Looks like National's put its policy out : something about Collins saying Ardern is 'weak.'
I don’t think that Collins attacking Ardern directly is going to be much of a vote winner. It will just be to get the base worked up.
Collins "Ardern is weak, the successful Covid response is because of Bloomfield"
Brownlee "Bloomfield is scaremongering, what does he know that he isn't telling us!!!"
Key "Open the borders"
Clarke "Privatise quarantine"
Hosking "Don't get tested, freedom!!!"
Bomber "Greens are scary"
etc…
What he is telling us Gerry is that he knows what you fuckers are capable of.
What Gerry is also saying is "aren't you guys lucky I'm nowhere near the controls of power", indeed we are Gerry, and very thankful.
Bulldozer Gerry. Made the Christchurch quakes worse by demolishing everything with no regard for heritage and people's valuable stuff (literal fortunes) in the red zone. Stuffed up the rebuild. Has no regard for airport security.
https://twitter.com/TryRadicalism/status/1290746244805976064?s=20
A capitalist examines the prospects of system crash: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/coronavirus-banks-collapse/612247/
Readers who are financially literate ought to read the detailed analysis – I'll just copy the sections other readers can comprehend, to illuminate the scenario.
Incomprehensible, especially the last two sections.
Playing dumb, eh? Yet clever enough to have postponed it until the danger of being selected as a Labour list candidate is safely past. 😏
It’s official, you’re talking gibberish. No wonder I cannot parse 84.3 ± 0.9% (95% CI) of your comments.
That's not a flash suit you're wearing, those tailors put one over on you.
Gabby I am reading Lindsey Davis and her character Falco who is a spy for the leaders, wealthy of Rome and he has to dodge all sorts including people who pop out with knives, like you who pop up to snipe. In the game that my sons spends time on-line, the spy is the one who jumps you from nowhere. It keeps him on his toes so to speak.
Still, we shouldn't criticise the private sector for proposing campervans as acceptable accommodation.
Trump rolled back all the laws enacted by the Obama admin.
So ponzi schemes , huge bonuses for bankers etc all the worst banking practices have been allowed to flourish to levels much worse than the GFC.
They've all been doing it since Reagan came in and said "Government is the problem". Wall St has been rolling back the New Deal and taking over the US government for decades now. A sham of democracy.
Dark knight gives Nats economic policy: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12354064
Forget Roger Douglas, Prebs & co, subsidies are socialism at work! It's left/right win/win all over the place! He's reacting to this
And he's alerting us to a collective gymnastics conundrum, via bad grammar:
Key should fuck off to Hawaii, easier to suck up to rich Americans over there.
https://twitter.com/alans_world/status/1291071252791046144?s=20
Interesting he said Mangawhai. Cos of course he’s a member of the country’s most exclusive golf course there, Tara iti. Which is the cornerstone of a big really pricey real estate development that an American developer is doing.
Covid-19 is upsetting all and WTF – politicians are starting to resign in droves as it's not worth the money, too much stress, just too hard./sarc?
It is quite alarming, Sweden has had a stable level of Covid-19 cases, but to no avail economically. The last quarter was down 8.9% as their trading partners aren't up to trading. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/05/sweden-suffers-record-plunge-despite-lighter-lockdown/
The UK – It sounds like The Treasury is treating people as pawns again and the Government is playing russian roulette.
Britain is heading for an unemployment crisis of Biblical proportions by the end of the year unless the Treasury's policy is torn up very soon.
Businesses will start ‘shedding’ jobs rapidly in September as the furlough scheme dials down to 70pc of wages. It will reach a grim crescendo when support stops altogether at the end of October, long before the economy is in any fit state to absorb the army of unemployed.
“It is one of the biggest policy mistakes in modern British history,” said Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides from the London School of Economics.
Only half of the 9.6 million furlough jobs have so far come back. There must be a high risk that premature fiscal tightening will abort the recovery and lead to bitter social conflict, spelling the political death of this Government.…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/05/economic-consequences-mr-sunak/
Yet – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/05/bbc-spends-38-million-call-centres-staff-chase-over-75s-licence/
What should governments be doing. What should the officials be doing, how should they cope with the changing ideas of governments. I may have put this up but it is worth repeating.
*fuck*
https://twitter.com/cnni/status/1291033723471663104
Lebanon's cabinet declared a two-week state of emergency in the capital city and handed control of security in the capital to the military following a massive explosion in Beirut that killed at least 135 people and injured 5,000 others.
The explosion on Tuesday sent shockwaves across the city, causing widespread damage as far as the outskirts of Beirut.
Officials said they expect the death toll to rise further as emergency workers dig through the rubble to search for survivors.
Beirut's city governor Marwan Abboud said up to 300,000 people have lost their homes and authorities are working on providing them with food, water and shelter.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/lebanon-eyes-state-emergency-deadly-beirut-blast-live-200804234925493.html
I hope Jacinda urgently demands a review of the fertiliser stockpiles around NZ.
We tend to put fertiliser works out of town because they have a habit of blowing up. This isn’t the first one to go up, with similar consequences
The Oklahoma city bomber was horribly effective with just 3 tons of the stuff. Beirut had 2,700 tons.
This one was a ship in port, 581 fatalities when 2000 tonne went up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster
This one was a fert plant a few year ago, fortunately out of town but a good bang Still killed 15 on site
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explosion
Lebanon is in such a bad 'state' that its government can't look after the country properly. Instead they are like the National Party, looking after themselves and their friends, looking for personal advantage instead of managing the country for all the people doing the stodgy, practical things.
Nov.2019 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-protests-causes-explainer/explainer-why-is-lebanon-in-an-economic-and-political-mess-idUSKBN1XG260
Skyscrapers towering over the city landscape. I wonder who owns those? https://www.focus-economics.com/countries/lebanon
15/7 More money is not the answer to Lebanon's troubles : Any financial aid to Lebanon should be tied to a material commitment by its elites to undertake long-needed reforms. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/money-answer-lebanon-troubles-200714113658835.html
3/8 Beware of the looming chaos in the Middle East : The region in 2020 is in much worse shape than in 2010. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/beware-looming-chaos-middle-east-200803042230463.html
And we have the USA setting us up – rocket launching aiming at where?
Unmanned AI driven aircraft developed by USA Boston interests – why here? https://nelsonweekly.co.nz/2020/08/no-pilots-no-problem/
https://newzealand.ai/insights/a-new-partnership-will-create-a-strong-ai-community-in-nelson
https://newzealand.ai/
Who wants to be first in the world with edgy risky new measures – first being lauded for going naked into the neolib world – Grace Mullane virtually did that, now she is dead. We are vulnerable in our way.
We need to be aware of our vulnerability and keep looking after each other and the country tenaciously. No-one else will do it, we have to do it for ourselves.
A little stirring music from Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie with banjos!
that demolished grain silo held 85% of the countries stock pile. It is going to be a hard winter for the Lebanese.
the levels of disability resulting from that are mindblowing too.
There's just a huge crater where the warehouse full of ammonium nitrate once stood. The explosion registered as a M3.3 earthquake. Somewhere around 5% the power of the Hiroshima bomb.
2700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate in ONE place..
Frigging hell. Good thing that the explosion itself would have disrupted the explosion going full on.
What were they thinking? That is just daft piling all of that in a warehouse.
We stored that smelting byproduct in a flood-prone area by the Mataura River.
Probably find the ammonium nitrate in the warehouse was "temporary" when they confiscated it, but never got the funding to move or dispose of it…
Yeah – there is never anything as permanent as a temporary solution.
So, approximately 750 ton of TNT equivalent. Really, Little Boy wasn't all that powerful as far as nukes go and you can't really compare the damage of an air-burst nuke to that done by a conventional ground explosion either.
Yeah, I get really irritated when people make senseless comparisons.
Brexit in a nutshell.
https://twitter.com/MPIainDS/status/1290292769089626114
https://twitter.com/TheNewEuropean/status/1290971014487322624
Q. What was the winning margin of that indicative, not conclusive, vote on Brexit?
A. Leave 17,410,742 – 51.89% Remain 16,141,241 – 48.11% Turnout of registered voters 72.21%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum
Leaving Brexit was an example of totally inadequate simple-majority law unsatisfactory for matters that change the system of the country. It was far different than an election that was part of the system. That decision has left the UK in a political hole it will never climb out of. Tried and true lefties say ' the people voted for it', for lies! They didn't have a clue what perversion of a political ploy they were falling for.
It needed a 55% or 60% super majority, or there should have been a confirmatory referendum once people had more information on the outcome.
The Liberal Democrats fucked it up big time by attacking Corbyn rather than joining with him in his stance.
Cameron was a fool to commission the referendum…but a genius compared with Boris.
Brexiters continually went on about 17 million people wanted the outcome without saying once that 16 million didn't.
Houses for Ordinary people are The True Real resolve of Kiwis – not Rugby.
The persons who care for New Zealanders are not the Banks. For they exist night and day to squeeze every bit of fiscal Life out of the pockets of ordinary families and persons. Banks are Shylocks in new shirts. Ask Shakespeare.
They have even removed hundreds and thousands of NZeders out of once owned homes, and sold them off into the sweet arms of Landlords.
Landlords, as you know, demand monstrously cruel Rents and laugh at the poor they entrap.
The Wealthy people glutton on, receiving every perk the poor receive. Incredible crazy Gluttony !
The Excessive Land shall be demanded. The required Housing must be built and maintained. The Wealthy have had their fun. Haven't they ?
Else, New Zealand will be the world's laughing stock. Slaves.
All these economic decisions are rational given the market conditions set up by *government* of every stripe since Roger Douglas and his merry band of reverse robin hoods came along in their trojan horse and shafted ordinary kiwis
Unfortunately most of the world has got pulled into the freemarket neolib system and the housing problem is widespread. What to do without pulling the whole house of cards down on our heads? Perhaps we will be like Lebanon.
Or like the UK out of the EU and with huge loans still to repay – however we should remember that they ended up with a huge amount to pay to the USA after WW2 – through their lend-lease agreement etc. It made sense to join the European Common Market after that. Now they have decided to leave and pal up with the individualistic USA, a co-operative world is too common for those moguls, and the UK wants to plunder other pastures no doubt.
Speaking of Banks
I am listening to John Bank's covering for the normal dude on talk back this morning.
I'd forgotten what a patronising prat he is
It' all that wax in his ears.
I think this may use up my quota of stupid questions for the month, but what happens if say ACT, NZ1 and the Greens all fall just below 5% and none of them win an electorate seat? And at the same time both Labour and National fall below 50% for the party vote?
How does this work in terms of forming a govt? Does Labour have to form a coalition with National?
I must be missing something here.
In that scenario the party votes for those under 5% would be distributed proportionately.
If in the unlikely event Labour got 47% and National 45% Labour would be the government with National nipping at their heels. It would take just one or maybe two by-elections to fall from Labour to National to have a change of government.
If both parties ended up even, then we'd have a hung Parliament after redistribution and face another election.
OT: isn't it amazing that NZ only had one by-election this term when Jonathan Coleman left. Usually there's about 3 or more.
Forgive my ignorance and it is pure lack of knowledge of history, but have we ever had a hung election in NZ?
No.
But 2020 has told us that all bets are off.
Although given how diabolical National are, it's unlikely to happen this year.
Pretty fair assessment Lol
Which is why the Greens policy is preferential voting for both electorates and parties. Helps make sure that the parties that people actually prefer are elected.
Then whichever of Nats or Labour got the most votes gets to form the government. They will divvy up the 120 seats in relative proportion to their party vote. Say it was Labour 48% and Nat 44%, then Labour would get 63 seats (48% vote share*120 seats/92% total qualified non-wasted vote) and the Nats 57 seats (or maybe 62 and 58 depending on how the Sainte Lague formula works it out).
https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2017/statistics/sainte-lague-formula.html
Not a silly question methinks. Could happen, so worth considering. I believe a national unity govt would be the framing deployed. They could also call it neoliberals disunited, eh? Would make fun political posturing a cultural norm until deckchair-arranging began to pall for all, whereupon the attraction of another election (mid-term) would suck their Titanic into an ocean vortex…
I know it deserves a full post in itself, but well done to this government and in particular Ministers Parker and O'Connor for the passage of the gazetting of the National POlicy Statement on Freshwater, National Environmental Standards for Freshwater, regulations on stock exclusion, and regulations on measurement and reporting on lakes and rivers;
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2008/S00045/new-rules-in-place-to-restore-healthy-rivers.htm
The regulations that go into force reasonably quickly from this include:
• Requiring councils to give effect to Te Mana o Te Wai by prioritising the health and wellbeing of our waterways
• Halting further loss of natural wetlands and streams
• Setting higher health standards at swimming spots
• Putting controls on high-risk farm practices such as winter grazing and feedlots
• Setting stricter controls on nitrogen pollution and new bottom lines on other measures of waterway health
• Requiring urban waterways to be cleaned up and new protections for urban streams
• Preserving and restoring the connectivity of New Zealand fish species’ habitats
• Requiring mandatory and enforceable farm environment plans
• Making real-time measuring and reporting of data on water use mandatory.
They've also made special provision for vegetable growing areas which are critical for national supply, such as Pukekohe and the Horowhenua. The acid needs to go on Auckland Horizons councils to clean up these areas, even with the apparent carve-outs.
Looking forward to regional councils actually putting resource into enforcement and prosecution to get the turnaround we need.
I too feel elated whenever politicians facilitate "the passage of the gazetting of" things.
The gazetting, in particular, always gets my heart rate up.
Done with half a day of Parliamentary time to celebrate it.
Cheers.
I have mentioned that before lockdown and yes, my fear has proven correct. The majority of new unemployment cases are women.
But hey 'shovel' ready jobs are being offered. Billions being poured in shovel ready. 🙂
And women running small businesses to create an income for themselves in a society that gives few fucks of job creation for women can apply for a 'government loan' (fully refundable) or go to Winz for some much needed bullshittery in order to get nothing, cause they may share the home with a bloke aka the 'mealticket'.
I seriously hope that long term Labour will do better then that, but then Labour needs poor people, and poor women are always good to squeeze some more votes about. Right, cause 'we fight for women', and their children. One denied benefit at a time.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018758209/covid-19-attention-must-be-paid-to-jobs-for-women-during-recovery-employment-opportunities-commissioner
Without wanting to sound cynical, is there any actual breakdown analysis on this figure?
What sort of jobs we are talking about etc?
Would imagine the first people that lost their jobs were part timers that are more likely to be female (kids and things) and in hospitality (which basically shut down and is screwed) which is also more likely to be female.
Hospitality jobs, Front of house, waitresses, room maids, house keepers. Retail – all of them and more going due to self ordering and self check outs. All that retail usually also comes with office staff – production staff etc and a lot of those are also women.
So not sure what you are nitpicking about.
But yes, lets ignore the fact thatof 11.000 thousand that went on the dole 10.000 are women. And i would assume that the employment opportunities commissionar got the numbers from Winz.
Also from here a list of companies that shed jobs – Air NZ on top of the list, i would assume that a lot of the ground staff is female, a lot of the on plane staff are female.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12336053
from here a few numbers which industry has shed how many jobs and talking about the second wave of unemployment
https://www.careers.govt.nz/job-hunting/whats-happening-in-the-job-market/covid-19-and-the-labour-market/#:~:text=In%20New%20Zealand%20many%20workers,businesses%20lost%20about%2024%2C000%20employees.
the spin off also has something to say about that
https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/05-08-2020/why-the-hell-has-new-zealands-unemployment-rate-just-gone-down/
re – under utiliastion rate….lol
shovel ready. Yeah, sure . Tui!
Paying care giving jobs a decent wage would likely transfer some into that industry although I know it's not for all.
Getting over stereotypes.
Giving them some priority for courses on driving trucks and ag machinery. When ever I see agricultural areas complaining about lack of labour I think – offer part time hours and get some women trained who are well embedded in the community. Problem solved for the next decade
A lot are hospo I think. So very good argument for not extending any of the under 30 work/travel visa’s as they expire .as a lot of that work is hospo or seasonal.
i totally agree, all these women in their retail, hospitality, air NZ, cruise ship jobs etc should just move somewhere rural, be thaught how to drive a tractor and run a milking machine and all is sorted.
Yeah, right Tui.
10.000 out of 11.000 newly unemployed are women. Or did you miss that with you quick fix of bashing unde 26 year old fruit picking tourists. Mind, these women can get themselv a little camper van, bid farewell to hubby and children and just go fruit picking and sleeping in a dorm. Right? Even better, if they are single mums they can just go fruitpicking and their kids can too, right?
Good fucking grief.
This is why women in this country are among the poorest. Because there are too many that simply don't give a shit about how others do so as long as it affects not them.
Never mind that the Government has yet to actually do anything for women so far. Oh but they won't, right kinder gentler bullshit.
Err I wasn't suggesting anything like fruit picking actually and I am certainly not bashing women. I wanted to be sure that women are considered and taken onto the good number of courses being run at the moment ( and there are apparently airline pilots on some ) that lead to some of the better paid rural jobs – some of which are contracting ( driving grape pickers for example). A lot of these don't require moving to the back blocks but maybe to secondary towns like Nelson, Blenheim, Hastings Palmerston North. – or some of them may even want assistance to get HT licences to drive trucks- which generally seems to be better paid than care giving – funny that. Then there are all the trades courses – generally more women are taking these up – but we do want to make sure that any barriers are dealt with.
So no the "put the kids in the camper van and go somewhere" was not part of my thinking simply an assumption on your part so please don't sledge me about it.
Likewise hospo. Yes I have registered that we are talking about women and yes a large number of jobs seem to be from this industry and the numbers are also I assume locals eligible for welfare. But overall of out total hospo jobs pre covid a very large number (well over 2/3rds seem to be filled with those on short term visa's including the short term travel/work visa's.) There seems to be no reason to grant extensions on these visa's despite petitions and that would not have happened to any great extent pre covid so why do we not try to have locals filling our local hospo jobs? Nothing snide about that .
Do women overall need more support – right across the economy that would be a yes.
Undoing everything The Black Guy did.
https://twitter.com/NGrossman81/status/1291104766240661507
can you feel the economic anxiety of the white male working class of the US?
did you hear about her fucking emails and her lack of stamina?
oh well, to bad.
Poor people's lives are less important that rich guys profit. After all, its easy to replace the poor person killed to continue raking in the profit.
Today is the 75th Anniversary of the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our species is unsurpassed at self-destruction.
https://twitter.com/TheSpinoffTV/status/1291101672232673282?s=20
And stupidity.
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1291163858950918152
https://twitter.com/Freeyourmindkid/status/1290626349426671617
Behind a viral photo of a crowded hallway at a high school in Georgia, a potentially dire situation is brewing. Students, teachers, and parents fear the Paulding County school’s rushed reopening plans may be spiraling out of control just two days after students — who said they were told they could face expulsion for remaining home — returned to class despite reports of positive coronavirus cases among students and staff.
North Paulding High School, about an hour outside Atlanta, reopened Monday despite an outbreak among members of its high school football team, many of whom, a Facebook video shows, worked out together in a crowded indoor gym last week as part of a weightlifting fundraiser.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mollyhensleyclancy/georgia-school-reopening-photo-paulding-county
Does anyone know if it's legit for a sitting, albeit leaving MP such as Paula Bennett to be moonlighting for a full week of morning talkback shows on Newshub's Magic Radio especially during election cycle They're already dedicated 24/7 to trying to get the National Party into govt but what part of this and the discussions can be separated from campaign advertising $$?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/122353535/threats-abuse-for-huruhuru-shop-owners-over-hairy-te-reo-meaning
I thought we wanted te reo in every day usage.
This is the second article in a fortnight were shop owners are getting shit for using it .
The other one was a restaurant in Auckland..if I recall rightly
ha! Huruhuru also means pubic hair. Look Waghorn, rule of thumb, if you're unsure whether naming something from someone elses culture is appropriation or not, maybe don't do it, who needs the headache.
So bullies get to set the rules , righto!!
Did we just see Winston's last ever speech in parliament?
I am guessing yes
I never write Winston Peters off. I remember the political idiots from National, Act, and the dipshit side of the left doing that in 1999, 2008, 2011, and today.
What those wishful politically dumb numpties forget is three things. He has a constituency for his brand of politic, those people are exactly the right kind of paranoid to ignore pollsters asking them who they’d vote for, and they all vote.
That is why the NZF vote on election days is always higher than virtually all of the polls by a few percent. While the greens is usually lower (lots of non voters there).
About the only thing that might mitigate that long term trend this time is Shane Jones. I am so glad he isn’t Labour any more. He is a real undisciplined pain to have around any political party.
I think Shane Jones will win the Northland seat.
Good probability. He has actually delivered the goodies – unlike the bridges that Bridges promised in a past by-election.
The issue would be if he could figure out how to retain the seat in subsequent elections. Electorate work is a long tedious detailed process of getting down with the distressed in an electorate. It doesn’t lend itself to the big-noting and meaningless rhetoric that Shane Jones is so well known for.
A gracious, eloquent Adjournment debate speech by the Prime Minister, followed by one full of personal attacks by the Leader of the Opposition.
The contrast between the two speeches should be a marker for our approach to voting on election day.
The opposition aren't supposed to point out a govts failings before an election now?
I take it you missed Labours speeches in the house before the last election?
There's a difference between pointing out political disappointments and personal attacks.
"political disappointments"
Is this the term for failure now Lol
Yes, National's failure to screw over the NZ public as they wished in this case. As they couldn't say that they use personal attacks against Labour/Greens.
Jacinda always speaks in very clear language without ambiguity as she did again today. No umms or ers. Love her or hate her you wont misunderstand her.
https://ondemand.parliament.nz/parliament-tv-on-demand/?itemId=215321
Collins seems to jumble her sentences so that the meaning is ambiguous. And Collins spent most of her time today sneering and belittling. (As did Brownlee.)
https://ondemand.parliament.nz/parliament-tv-on-demand/?itemId=215322
More MMT talk starting to appear in the news
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/106385/grant-robertson-remains-committed-reducing-government-debt-long-term-saying-modern
It's a shame Grant Robertson has dismissed it so quickly.
Grant Robinson is still wedded to the delusional neoclassical/liberal school of economics. Most of Labour are and that is why they can't do the transformation that we need.
Yup, once the MMT lens is understood, it opens up a whole lot of progressive policy choices. These policies under a neoliberal view point are very difficult to justify.
You'll probably find this interesting.
Thanks for sharing, will have a listen when I get some time.
James Shaw with a couple of zingers in his last speech in the house this term.
"There's Labour: 'Let's keep moving.' New Zealand First: 'Let's not.'
“You can almost see the ads can’t you?” said Shaw. “New Zealand First: You can stop progress.
“Act are making a bold play for the assault rifle vote, with: ‘The Act Party – more deadly than serious.’
“And National have settled on a new leader with a new slogan: ‘Why vote for the lesser evil?'”
Their billboards read, "Back your Future". With the greatest respect to the NZF voting demographic, their future will mostly have been planned and locked in some time ago.
Last election their billboards read, "Had Enough?"
Winston, I think we have.
If Grace Mullane's murderer loses his appeal, can his sentence be adjusted, due to his utter lack of remorse?
+100
Well said.