[Gerald Celente in an interview with Sydney radio show talking about the election of the Syriza party and how it is portrayed in the media] “So anytime there is a new party…you read the financial times for example, they look at the new party in Greece and they call them Left wing radical parties…Who are the people in power? How about status quo madmen criminals!”
Again Key demeans New Zealand; on this latest occasion spittling Crosby Textor construct all over Waitangi Day. Waitangi Day blithely given up to nouveau riche gaucheness and the game ‘PMONZ crawls up POTUS’. Seems there is nothing, no institution, no convention, no standard of behaviour MrSelfieKey will not molest.
Well, this is interesting , even although C/T already have a big foot in the door here in NZ.
A Crosby/Textor Media Statement dated 4 February 2015, tweeted by Andrea Vance last night http://t.co/eyGHq9DeDy
As it is relatively short, here it is in full:
Kiri Hannifin and Jo de Joux today announced the formation of Hannifin de Joux, an integrated public affairs and campaign consultancy that will form a strategic partnership with CrosbyITextor Group in New Zealand.
The unique part of the Hannifin de Joux service is political, corporate and public sector campaign management.
CrosbyITextor is the world’s leading market research, strategic communications and campaign management agency. The company has offices in Australia, the UK, Italy and the UAE.
“Our collaboration with CrosbyITextor enables us to share their global best practice with local clients. It means we can provide our clients with sophisticated and targeted strategies based on the solid foundation of market research and insights,” says Ms de Joux.
The creation of political strategists Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor, the CrosbyITextor Group draws from an unrivalled bank of campaign experience and expertise to advise corporate clients, investors, industry associations and governments worldwide.
Ms Hannifin and Ms de Joux have extensive knowledge of New Zealand politics and strong track records providing advice across a range of issues at the highest levels of government and the public sector.
Jo de Joux is a seasoned campaigner, having managed four consecutive election campaigns for the New Zealand National Party.
Kiri Hannifin, a former political advisor to Helen Clark’s government, has been working in and around government for nearly 20 years in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Well Kiwi’s need to be persuaded that we need to go to war that is not mandated by the UN, hate Catton and intellectuals or actually anyone with a voice, get rid of (or even better NationalLite) Labour, Keep National in power, destroy Winston and Greens and Maori and Mana, keep Northland, Keep Herald and MSM in line, Keep Act and Peter Dunne afloat but with no power, make NZ part of the TPPA, sell assets off without anyone stopping it, Get Slater back inline, and the sleeze sites in business, try to resurrect Key and Collins careers and reputation, destroy the burgeoning left wing blogs and news sites like The Standard, TDB, No right turn etc, to have abolute control the media, keep investigative journalists silenced in NZ, deport Dotcom, make the police and SIS tow the National line, keep Jason Ede and Slater sedated against biting the hand that created them, etc
Be prepared, NZ is no longer an offshoot of Crosby/Textor OZ offices. Their slime trail around the Beehive is about to reach new levels…
Saying that all is not well in Abbot land too, maybe the slime has reached critical levels there as well…
These links will answer your question, Incognito, but will probably give you more to worry about.
This is from November 2011by David Fisher.
“Key’s inner circle of advisers is headed by Joyce, who led National’s campaign in 2005 and 2008. The National Party’s campaign manager is Jo de Joux.
She had a strong role in the Mana byelection campaign last year, which gave rising National star Hekia Parata the chance to show her potential.
The links between the party machine and the Prime Minister’s inner sanctum are close. De Joux’s husband Phil is Key’s deputy chief of staff. His immediate boss is chief of staff Eagleson, who caused a stir last year when it emerged he was partying in Las Vegas with lobbyists. He has been a strategically important manager for Key.” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10767258
Also worth reading from Otago Daily Times titiled “Is democracy under threat?” written by Bruce Munro on Sun, 18 May 2014
“Updated this month, the ”Approved visitor list to Parliament” has mushroomed from 25 people last year to 63 now.
The list of those given their own swipe card to enter Parliament without the usual security checks is heavily, but not exclusively, populated by professional paid lobbyists seeking to influence politicians to the point of view of their organisation or client.
Among those on the list are Business NZ chief executive Phil O’Reilly; Sky Television’s Tony O’Brien and Chris Major; Air New Zealand’s Phil de Joux, who used to be John Key’s deputy chief of staff; Anadarko’s Anita Ferguson, who was Steven Joyce’s press secretary; and Fonterra’s Nicola Willis, who was an adviser and speech-writer for Mr Key. There is also New Zealand Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly and secretary Peter Conway, and Food and Service Workers Union’s James Sleep.
Making up almost a third of the list are a group going by various job titles, including third-party lobbyists, public lawyers and government relations consultants. They include Saunders Unsworth’s Barry Saunders, Charles Finny and Mark Unsworth; SenateSHJ’s Scott Campbell; Silvereye’s Jo Coughlan, who was a press secretary to the National government’s minister of foreign affairs in the mid-1990s; Franks and Ogilvie’s Jordan Williams, who was spokesman for anti-MMP lobby group Vote for Change; and Webling Media’s Brent Webling, who was press director for former minister of justice Simon Power and whose clients include food industry lobby group the Food and Grocery Council.”
Ta. It is clear that they like to keep it ‘in the family’. So, we can fully expect more DP. Now all we’d need is a bit of Freed to top it off; I can’t wait.
The current Approved Visitor List to Parliament on its website updated as of 11 November 2014 still includes both Jo and Phil de Jeux, with the organisation listing for Jo showing as NZ National Party and that for Phil as Air New Zealand.
So they both still seem to have free access to the Beehive.
Claire Trevett has a story in today’s Herald clearly designed to demote Andrew Little and put him down. But the comments following it are fascinating – they look to me like they’re 20 to 1 in favour of Andrew Little and telling CT to stop being such a Nat biased journalist. Here’s the link :
Not a particularly well written article. Trevett seems to be reaching desperately and unreasonably to tie Little in to her treatise about flags and nationhood, but without success. You’re dead right about the comments, Jenny. It’s great that the readers can spot the weakness of the argument, rather than simply put their views on Little, Labour or flagwaving.
I’ve never rated her seriously, too flakey. The big political story is Key & the Police. Must buy the Sunday Star Times, I hear they have crunched a few details that don’t stack up surrounding Key’s handling of Sabin.
Next week Key will call on the services of snake oil Joyce during question time to try drag him out of the hole he has dug this week.
On TV3 news at 6pm there was a brief comment from Bush, that the police did not drop the ball when it came to informing the minister of police about Sabin. I assume it was Tolley, even though Woodhouse became minister of police early in October 2014.
How did Bush inform the minister of police?
A file
Verbally
When?
When a case is ongoing and there is a new minister of police.
Does Bush need to reinform his minister and keep them up to date, even though the commissioner is in charge of day to day operations?
I will be most interested to see how this plays out between the police and the government.
Depending on who knew what and when, and Who did or did not inform whom and when, Who is telling the truth or who is lying, One or more of these characters in the short chain of command in this murky, dodgy, conflicted of interest involving possible political fraud on the country and very expensive saga has to be sacked or must resign:
Police commissioner or
Tolley or
Woodhouse or
Eagleson or
Key!
Thanks for that Treetop. I was planning to bring it up too.
An interesting timeline mickysavage:
As far as we know, the police began the investigation early August 2014. However they would probably have known that an investigation was going to commence a few weeks in advance of that time. Let us say around mid July?
You will recall that both Cunliffe and Key took some time off prior to the start of the campaign – Cunliffe took a few days which greatly exercised the MSM, and Key took 10-12 days and flew to Hawaii. (Key’s overseas holiday didn’t bother the MSM at all – funny that.) The dates of Key’s holiday was between the 11th July and 21st July – 10 days.
So, is this what happened?
1) a senior police officer contacted Anne Tolley and gave her the heads up.
2) because Key was out of the country she passed the information on to Bill English or Steven Joyce – or both.
What happened after that we don’t know, but there is no way in a million years John Key was not informed by one or other – or both of them – as soon as he returned.
So, when Key claims that he knows other people knew about the investigation earlier but he was not informed until much later, he was actually referring to the earlier July/August time-span even though he knows everyone thinks he’s talking about the Nov/Dec period. He can then say he’s not lying with a straight face.
I mean he’s done it before! SIS-OIA -Slater-Key on holiday in Hawaii – I know nuffink… anyone?
@Anne:
Well, if English and/or Joyce received that serious information, but did not let Key know, then either one or both of those must be sacked or should resign immediately. There IS no excuse!
We might be meant to be reading this Trevett piece as satirical!
…Unless you are Labour leader Andrew Little. Little appeared to be taken by surprise when he was asked for his views on titular honours and the flag this week.
The week before, he had set out his determination to focus on big issues, not “small beer” issues.
He apparently felt it meant he could only ever bang on about jobs and houses.
She seems to be a jonolist talented at writing either satirical or farcical items! I fear that this one is from the farcical side. Sheesh. How did she get to be political editor or sub or deputy – do they pick Hairy’s ones from names in a hat?
Can’t readily identify as satirical or farcical Grey’. Guess I’ll go with farcical – as to writing/writer both. Satire does not flow from the pen of a jonolist whose raison d’etre is to fellate TheGodKey. We are well familiar if unimpressed with Trevett’s styles. Sloppy exhortations to sweat the small stuff are unintelligible. As you were Trevett.
Claire Trevett can’t be as bad as that fucking idiot Paul Thomas. Every thing he writes is pro establishment inanity. I wrote a couple of replies to his latest piece of crap, to remind him that yes journalists and activists are mistreated pretty overtly in GodKeyZone. Nicky Hager, Bradley Ambrose, Jon Stephenson have been hassled by cops, spied on, and had stuff confiscated. Judith Collins and Cam Slater try to destroy careers of principals, teachers, and scientists who don’t toe the government line. Paula Bennett has no problem releasing personal details of beneficiaries who complain about government policy. National are a bunch of power abusing bullies, and any journalist with a brain and a conscience would recognise that.
Trevitt did exactly the same to Cunliffe early on in his leadership.
So the polls have been favourable about Little, “quick what can we focus on to make him look bad???? Oh yes knighthoods, etc, etc,”
She selectively pays attention to any detail, no matter how minor to attack the leader of the opposition and make him look incompetent.
That the Deputy Political Editor of the largest daily paper in NZ pays attention to issues that are red herrings (knighthoods, flags) when there are far more significant issues speaks volumes.
Trevitt is shameless writing on behalf of John Key and the National Party.
Yes Anker shameless for Hairy to call her Dep Ed, never Deep Throat! Just part of the Beehive Circus Troupe. Her role is to run up to a plank with Key on one end, jump on the other end, and fly him high into the air to a position of elevation for the delectation of the masses.
Yeah, typical Trevett. It does seem to highlight one thing: Little needs to be more aware of what’s going on around him and prepare for such questions. John Key has, for more than six months, been lying non-stop about sending troops into the Middle East. Now, after his trip to the UK for a little girl’s birthday party and a meeting with the “Five Eyes Club”, and especially since the arrival here of a top UK Tory, John Key is moments away from finally telling the truth: our soldiers are off the help kill Arabs. The MSM has been pumping out helpful horror stories with nightmare scenarios next to TINA solutions all provided by approved sources and designed to build tension as the sabre rattling reaches its crescendo. Of course useful idiots in the media like Trevett are going to be wandering around asking questions about nationalism and flags and colonial links to New Zealand’s English masters. That should have been obvious and prepared for, IMHO.
On the other hand, it does reveal something about Little which I find appealing: he is unable to spontaneously rattle off ambiguous political platitudes concerning matters he hasn’t properly considered. This, however, is a vital skill for a politician in today’s world. As much as I regret saying it, Little could do with some impromptu theatre training in order to provide the MSM soothing balm for feeding out to the sheeple.
Impromptu theatre training. Just the thing for pollies. Now they are on show so much with vids and paper and vid together. They have to think on their feet and keep the patter going and Labour needs to break through the gold curtain (not the iron one).
Also listening to some of the comedians talking about their start and experiences they would be good exemples and teachers, they know all about hecklers. I believe that the northern English working mens clubs are the pits. One comedian said they sit on their hands and look stonily at you with a ‘make me laugh then, I dare you’ hostility.
Hi Jenny- did you mean ‘denigrate Andrew Little’ rather than ‘demote Andrew Little’? I didn’t get the impression from Trevett’s article that she was trying to undermine him as Leader of the Labour Party. Or was that in fact your take on the article? I think Andrew Little is very secure as Leader.
To music4menz – yep – denigrate would have been a better word. I agree, Andrew Little is looking (and sounding) very good as Leader, and apparently the caucus has agreed “to draw a line under 2014” and get going again !
By-and-large workers here prefer to lay down and be walked over than to stand up and fight. Announcements of workplace closures are more likely to be met with tears and counselling than with “No, we’re not accepting this shite”. It is like two generations have been enfeebled.
It doesn’t have to be like this. There are all kinds of ways of fighting back. Closure threats, for instance, can be met with occupations. Occupations challenge the property rights of bosses. Occupying means workers – the people who have created the new, expanded value from which profit comes – asserting their right to work. In effect, it is saying “We produce the wealth, we don’t recognise your ‘right’ to take away our jobs and income; given that you obviously can’t run the workplace, we will.” Occupations are a much more advanced form of struggle than strikes because, instead of just going home, or standing around outside the workplace, we are inside and running it.
Occupations become schools for workers’ control and workers’ management of workplaces and, if undertaken across the society, for a new form of society altogether. One in which those who produce the wealth own and control the means of production, along with developing new means of distribution and exchange.
Sounds good. Corporations need to have some sort of corporate and social responsibility. In the absence of that, there needs to be a way that makes it harder to just sack people and close plants down.
It is too easy for corporations to sack people on mass and they are doing it too often.
From your link, I found this list of 10 jobs in Britain that make people scared to go back to work.
1. Media and publishing (86 per cent)
2. Marketing, advertising and PR (80 per cent)
3. Creative arts and design (75 per cent)
4. Teaching and education (71 per cent)
5. Science and Pharmaceuticals (69 per cent)
6. Information Technology (63 per cent)
7. Property and Construction (62 per cent)
8. Health and Social Care (62 per cent)
9. Accounting, banking and finance (60 per cent)
10. Recruitment and HR (59 per cent)
I found the list interesting. While numbers 1 to 4 seem understandable, others seem a little intriguing/unexpected.
Calm down Princess. The election result should have shown you that few gave a toss about Hagar and his criminal use of stolen information. The latest polls seem to confirm it, so save your tantrums, you’ll do yourself a mischief.
Cut the crap and your biggety blue balderdash and tell us WHEN did Key REALLY get to know about the police investigation of Sabin?…2011? April 2014? Before the election or Only on 1st Dec? Time for Key and the ‘Real’ blue team to come clean and fess up honestly to the country. Don’t you think so, Real blue?
“Closure threats, for instance, can be met with occupations. Occupations challenge the property rights of bosses. Occupying means workers – the people who have created the new, expanded value from which profit comes – asserting their right to work. In effect, it is saying “We produce the wealth, we don’t recognise your ‘right’ to take away our jobs and income”
Hilarious.
Of course most corporations choose to close businesses when there is wealth being created. /sarc
Since NZ is full of SME’s. Lets use a local example.
You own a coffee shop, all is going well until a new, better one opens down the road.
You have everything you own in this business, you invested 250k in the fitout of the place, which you borrowed, and you signed a 10 year lease on the building as you thought it a great location. Because you are a new business and not a franchise you had to personally guarantee the lease (Not uncommon). say there is a 6 month guarantee.
But now revenue / profits have tanked. You are working there 7 days a week, but you simply cannot afford to keep the business running – its costing you and every week you are further into a financial hole.
So you sadly decide to close. You owe 000’s and have nothing to show for it. You also are without a job.
But, no – the ‘workers’ decide they have a right for that job and that wage. So occupy the store and decide to run it. quote: “given that you obviously can’t run the workplace, we will.”
So – How exactly do they pay for the rent, materials etc – you cannot put it on the owners account – he has closed accounts with suppliers. You have no legal right to be there, you are using equipment that is not owned by you. Who is responsible to pay the wages, PAYE, ACC, Kiwisaver, suppliers when there is a shortfall?
when the business is taken over by the workers (shall we say 10 employees, part and full time), under a different business model (shall we say cooperative), novelty will engender enthusiasm and loyalty.
eg rather than the previous boss buying lemons for $4-$6 a kilo, the kitchen hands parents donate the lemons.
a surplus table is started where people bring their surplus produce fruit and veges in to share. this prompts a local school to set up a vege garden and donates the salad leaves three times a week.
the chefs sister in law is a bookkeepper (i love that word ookkee), she takes on the books for gratis.
the second chefs mum wants to be part of the action and does the laundry for nothing.
…..
i would heartily reccomend looking up the moosewood kitchen for an example of getting part of the way to what i describe.
hope this helps bro.
i am now off to cook for people who want to go out to just the business you describe.
cheers.
James has got a panic pulse going that workers are figuring out that they don’t need marching orders from business owners, and that these businesses can be run better democratically, not as dictatorships.
The government steps in and buys the building and declares that the taxes that the businesses pay is enough to cover basic maintenance. This gets rid of the rentiers that are destroying businesses through their greed.
The equipment is leased, or second hand, donated.
And they could read the part of Maeve Binchys Scarlet Feather where the young chefs are working to get a business going and then suffer malicious damage and burglary. How they get out of it successfully after a meeting of decision where all committed because they had personal goals that could be met by the business succeeding.
The workers and their families have come up with $50K to recapitalise the business, no sweat. Not only that, the worker-owners have agreed to all accept the minimum wage for the first 3 months until their turn around plans take effect.
Outgoings are lower than the $10K you state because the rent break which was negotiated, is in effect.
So why is the cafe unsuccessful? The main thing I see about the story is that another cafe opened up nearby. But isn’t that normal for cafes to open in areas where there are other cafes?
“…rather than the previous boss buying lemons for $4-$6 a kilo, the kitchen hands parents donate the lemons.”
LOL! That is classic and just goes to show the mentality of some on the left. Scale that thinking up to a Steel mill. Perhaps the workers parents could donate some scrap metal for them to smelt.
This is predicated on the false assumption of the far Left that everyone is entitled to a job. That assumption in turn means that employers have a duty to provide jobs. Nonsense. that’s simply not how the world works.
i can understand rights such as Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness but there is no such thing as a Right to a Job.
Article 23 of the UDoHR, which New Zealand has signed and has already set precedent in our courts, says you haven’t the first idea what you’re talking about.
Let me quote you article 23 read it carefully.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
I am correct. Everyone has a right to work and seek work. Of course they do. I never claimed that. No one has a right to a JOB. Do you not know the difference?
hi gosman, i will leave the steel mill to someone with relevant experience.
reading thru the comments i am coming to the conclusion that the naysayers have decided it cant happen and want to shoot any idea to bits.
what dreary company.
i would rather work towards making something happen using the skills, talents, and imagination of enthused company.
has it occurred to y’all that profit could be measured in a myriad of non-financial ways.
i have come to know when there is a will there is a way.
also has any of you naysayers checked out the moosewood kitchen example?
Having worked in a poorly run steel mill (with scars to prove it), where a few blokes have been killed, I have to say that
a) gosman is a [expletive deleted]
b) workers couldn’t run it any worse than the previous bunch
c) it’s now gone out of business, mercifully.
(Seriously, who signs a 10 year lease nowadays – are you fucking mad?)
1) The workers and their families pool together $50K to recapitalise the business
2) They pick up the commercial kitchen and equipment for a tiny fraction of their original cost
3) A state bank offers them 1% pa financing because they are starting a workers co-operative
4) The lease is renegotiated with the landlord, including a 3 month rent free period.
5) Suppliers are more than happy to open accounts for the new business as the worker-owners are happy to pay on 7 day credit terms for the first year of business.
6) The workers and their families turn the place into a fun, family, foody place to hang out, far more social than the corporate cafe down the road.
Why is this not already happening on a wide scale?
IMO, because people have been conditioned into believing that they need to work for others rather than working with others. This is compounded by our atomised society making it difficult to find people of like mind to work with and other difficulties.
Have some of you here who are promoting the benefits of worker control actually been involved in a successful example of such a initiative?
All looks good Draco, there is help available then.
And interesting to see the link to the UN report that rates NZ as already the number one on the co-operative economy index, and links that to the fact that we are also number one in the Social Progress Index…
But I don’t agree at all that NZ workers are ‘conditioned’ and this prevents them starting their own businesses / Co-ops.
Are you a worker Draco? Would you say that of yourself?
How many other workers here would say that they have been rendered psychologically incapable of doing anything else than be a serf?
“And interesting to see the link to the UN report that rates NZ as already the number one on the co-operative economy index,”
Is that something to do with Fonterra?
If the govt put the same degree of infrastructure and support into worker co-ops as it does other business models, I think more workers would be in to it. As it is, most people wouldn’t know how to go about this.
I am not aware of aware any govt. infrastructure and support that is not available to businesses merely on the basis they have co-operative ownership Weka?
And there are vast amounts of information, support, assistance, and mentoring available to new business, from both Govt. and Private sector.
The internet age has made that all so much more readily available than ever before.
There is no reason at all why capable workers should not be able to easily shift to ownership of their own labour through a number of business models.
Come on, those of you workers who back your ability to run a business at least as well as the boss who is currently making profit out of your labour should just do so.
I’ve seen this concept raised so many times as a positive theory on this blog, I’d love to see someone posting a concrete example of it happening in the real world.
Of all the ways to ‘revolution’ I can think of, large scale worker control of business would be the most realistic and practical form of it?
There are lots of co-operative models that have no problem taking advantage of the infrastructure in place in NZ. Fonterra is a good example. Partnerships are similar in concept to co-operatives and again they seem to have no problem. I think th left just likes to put obstacles in the way that they can blame on someone else so they don’t have to actually do anything substantive. Keep belly aching that it is the fault of the nasty 1%.
There are lots of co-operative models that have no problem taking advantage of the infrastructure in place in NZ. Fonterra is a good example.
LOL
Fonterra had specific laws passed for it so that farmers could operate as a guild which is illegal for anyone else.
I think th left just likes to put obstacles in the way that they can blame on someone else so they don’t have to actually do anything substantive. Keep belly aching that it is the fault of the nasty 1%.
Need to identify the obstacles so that they can be effectively removed.
Gosman and lost sheep, can you please find the sections on worker cooperatives in the following govt run business support websites? I’ve looked and can’t find them.
But I don’t agree at all that NZ workers are ‘conditioned’ and this prevents them starting their own businesses / Co-ops.
Are you a worker Draco? Would you say that of yourself?
It was the realisation of that conditioning within myself that allowed me to identify it. It was the get an education, get a job rhetoric that I got from my parents and others that led to it. I’ve seen and heard similar at university and polytechnics. It’s subtle and I suspect that most people don’t even realise that that’s what they’re doing but it’s most definitely there.
How many other workers here would say that they have been rendered psychologically incapable of doing anything else than be a serf?
Probably not many, there’s very few people who are as introspective as I am.
And do remember that it’s not the only barrier either. Getting ahead requires access to resources and a large number of people don’t have that access.
I appreciate the honesty of that reply Draco, and agree completely with your comments on the subtlety of social pressure.
I forget who said it, but there is a quote that goes something like ‘the most difficult part of obtaining freedom is coming to believe that you have the right and the power to claim it’.
Rather than sit around waiting for the current business that employs them to go broke, why don’t the workers just start their own cafe anyway?
In addition to draco’s conditioning argument, the other point is that the workers are intimately acquainted with the problems and issues of that cafe. They know the customer base and they have all the data they need to optimise the layout and routines of that kitchen, simply because they’ve put in, if you will, several months or years of workplace dynamics research on that specific site.
They might not have agreement on what the right location for another cafe is, but they know how to adapt that cafe to its current market location.
Set up a competiting café up near by . It will be trying to attract the same customers.
Alternatively they can choose to buy out the existing owner. If the business was really doing that badly then the owner is most likely open to getting out quickly and they can pick up the equipment cheaply. Not as cheaply as stealing them by occupying the place admittedly but they will be doing the moral and legal right thing.
Are you for real, Sheep? You think something gives you the right to pry into people’s occupations as though that will what? What exactly are you trying to say?
That the left has no business experience? That worker owned co-operatives don’t exist? That you have to jump through hoops for Sheep before you’re qualified to make observations?
You know what, it looks like a zombie, it shuffles like a zombie, and it moans like a zombie. Looks like it eats Sheep’s brains too.
Doesn’t describe me. I worked in, managed, started, and built businesses my entire life apart from a few stints at university, time in the army, and a year as a farmhand. One of those uni stints was getting a MBA (ie a master of business administration) at Otago.
As an intelligent person of business (ie not a sheeple like some of the blowhards I see from the right) I am always acutely aware of just how much businesses depend on the government built and operated infrastructure that no business interested in making a profit would run in a way that benefits its society in the long term.
That government input is required for everything from having a working legal system to having available skilled employees to useable roads. I’m also aware how much that modern economies depend on having a lot of well paid employees who then power economies. Having people marginalised and not used to the extent of their abilities because some rent-takers and crony capitalists find it convenient is simply daft and short-sighted.
Having a feudal style of politics and economy (in the way that the USA is rapidly heading) with wealthy parents sucking tithes off the poor and pumping it into advantaging their own children isn’t the way to help anyone apart from a few mindless knucklehead kids.
That is the end point of the process that I usually what I see unthinking fools like The Lost Sheep advocating. Of course they never seem to take the time to think it through.
Spare me the mock outrage about privacy OAB.
FFS it is an anonymous blog where no one is under any compulsion to answer anything!
What I am saying is very clear.
Many on times on this blog, and in the real world, I have heard people advocating the benefits of worker control of business.
I agree completely with that concept, having done so myself, and given that it is so easy to run a business, I genuinely do not understand why many more workers do not take that step themselves.
This being a worker oriented blog, I thought at least I’d get a little bit of positive feedback by advocating that this is a very practical and possible initiative workers can take to regain control of their productive effort.
From reading this blog OAB, I got the impression that there was a general agreement that the current economic situation was heavily dominated by Capitalists who exploited workers labour?
And many workers are not happy with that situation, and, there is a general agreement here that workers would be perfectly capable of running businesses successfully themselves?
Have I got it right so far?
So by that definition, not nearly enough businesses are under ‘worker’ control.
And so to follow the logic through…..it being entirely possible for more workers to take control of their own productive effort – they should do so.
FFS. I’m on a so called ‘workers’ blog, advocating workers wresting control of their own lives from capitalists, and some of the workers champions are finding that offensive?
No paranoia here then.
Working for giant corporations really sucks if you are just a replaceable cog in the machine. But if you’re seen as a valued asset it is completely different. Management can get away with treating people like crap in times of job scarcity, weak unions, and skewed labour laws.
After a decade of working for others, for wages well below market rates, and in jobs far below my capabilities, my self confidence was at a low ebb. After a bit of encouragement from someone who could see what was happening, I started working freelance and it’s been 100% better in every way (except having to do my own taxes).
lost sheep I just gave you an example of why “more people don’t work for themselves”. It’s a matter of experience, education, and confidence.
But for people in less-skilled segments of the labour market it is better to join a union to improve their bargaining power. And the best thing for such workers is to have a voice in the board room.
Here’s an idea. Instead of stealing someone elses property maybe the workers could have pooled their resources together in the first place and set up their own business.
Here’s an idea. Instead of stealing someone elses property maybe the workers could have pooled their resources together in the first place and set up their own business.
Gossie, creative destruction is an integral part of capitalism. So is seizing opportunity when opportunity arises.
Surely you haven’t already forgotten that hanging out with us socialists, have you?
So, John Key is about to send New Zealanders off to participate in the unlimited slaughter of innocents on behalf of US corporate interests. Unlimited because there is no exit plan. Slaughter because that’s what war is. And innocents because, well, they just get in the way of John Key’s simpering lick-spittle acquiescent colonial cringe. Fingers crossed John Key doesn’t have to deal with anything too complicated when the body bags start coming home.
I don’t think he’s doing it on behalf of US corporate interests. He’s doing it on behalf of *NZ capitalist interests*. Just like Helen Clark sent a contingent from the NZ Army to Iraq in time to meet the deadline for NZ companies to bid on ‘reconstruction’ contracts.
The NZ government represents the interests of NZ capital. Usually those interests coincide with those of US capital, but not always. And when they don’t, NZ doesn’t join in.
Actually, NZ capital is especially aggressive. In the late 1800s NZ was called “The Prussia of the South Pacific”. It was always trying to grab this or that island. Nothing whatever to do with the US or Britain. In fact, NZ capital was so aggressive that the Brits had to restrain it from time to time.
The left in this country is, in my view, far too nationalist. We always blame someone else – like America – when actually the problem is often our own ruling class. It’s them we have to fight first and foremost.
I don’t think he’s doing it on behalf of US corporate interests. He’s doing it on behalf of *NZ capitalist interests*. Just like Helen Clark sent a contingent from the NZ Army to Iraq in time to meet the deadline for NZ companies to bid on ‘reconstruction’ contracts.
The NZ government represents the interests of NZ capital. Usually those interests coincide with those of US capital, but not always. And when they don’t, NZ doesn’t join in.
Actually, NZ capital is especially aggressive. In the late 1800s NZ was called “The Prussia of the South Pacific”. It was always trying to grab this or that island. Nothing whatever to do with the US or Britain. In fact, NZ capital was so aggressive that the Brits had to restrain it from time to time.
The left in this country is, in my view, far too nationalist. We always blame someone else – like America – when actually the problem is often our own ruling class. It’s them we have to fight first and foremost.
Fair nuff – but – what is the difference between NZ capitalist interests and US corporate interests?
Yes, I am aware of what New Zealand did to Samoa. shame on us. And yes again: I agree that the working class in New Zealand has a staunch, if somewhat myopic, nationalism about it. Nothing wrong with maintaining a strong emotional attachment to New Zealand and being ready to fight on its behalf but, as you suggest, its wise that we know exactly who the enemy is and what the battle is really all about, Without a rational approach to counter the myopia, emotions are far too easily stirred up by whomever is paying the Crosby/Textors of this world. Those sorts of New Zealanders in our midst far prefer to see the working classes in different nations fighting amongst themselves while each country’s treasury and resources are looted.
Nice web site, by the way. While somewhat familiar with some Marxist terms I’m feeling the need to get a better grasp of his work. Got a “Dummies Guide To” link at all?
emotions are far too easily stirred up by whomever is paying the Crosby/Textors of this world. Those sorts of New Zealanders in our midst far prefer to see the working classes in different nations fighting amongst themselves while each country’s treasury and resources are looted.
It’s important that progressive people in New Zealand gain familiarity with the background in Syria and Iraq in order to organise effectively against NZ state intervention in this part of the world.
Thanks, Phil. I’m going to go through your posts when I have a bit of quiet time in the evening.
After watching Years of Living Dangerously, a good, but in parts flawed look at climate change, I was interested in Thomas Friedman’s segments regarding the impact the Syrian drought (2007-2010) had on creating the conditions for unrest. A few of the episodes interviewed Syrian rebels that were essentially traditional farmers, who were unable to provide for their families because the drought had made their generationally farmed land arid. The government ignored their calls for assistance.
I will admit very scant knowledge of the ongoing Syria conflict, but if being unable to provide for your family is why so many got involved, I can understand that compulsion.
Labour puts up a cordon of black-suited thugs to block out protest sign.
Do they think this is the way to protect Andrew Little?
Waitangi, 6 February 2015
On television this morning, Labour leader Andrew Little was being interviewed. As all too often, sadly, his words were vague and fairly confused: he failed to condemn John Key’s disgraceful and inappropriate misuse of his Waitangi platform to push for New Zealand to join in the “fight against ISIS”. Instead of saying something principled and intelligent, Little babbled about “effectiveness” and lack of mission clarity. He could have mentioned the fact that the U.S. and U.K. governments have armed and rhetorically supported ISIS in its murderous insurrection in Syria, that New Zealand has endorsed all of this bloody dealing, and that stopping THAT support would be the most immediately effective means of combating ISIS.
While Little droned on, behind him, protestors were holding up a sign that read “MAORI SOVEREIGNTY IS GOOD FOR ALL NZERS”. I know that’s what it read, but viewers watching this morning’s interview were prevented from reading the words because a phalanx of black-suited thugs deliberately stood in front of the sign.
I could identify one of the thugs: it was Palmerston North’s undistinguished M.P. Iain Lees-Galloway. I don’t know if the other thugs were Labour Party apparatchiki, but I strongly suspect they were.
A couple of women, clearly frustrated and disgusted at Lees-Galloway and his fellow censors, were politely remonstrating with them, and perhaps asking the police to move them away. No matter how polite they were, the police did nothing.
Why is the Labour Party trying to block democratic, peaceful protestors?
And why don’t the television crews simply walk past the likes of Lees-Galloway and his black-suited mafia lookalikes and interview the protestors?
That is the problem, sadly. If you know nothing about what the United States has been doing in Syria for the last three years, then you will not be aware of the hypocrisy of Key’s words yesterday, or of the failure of Little to put that hypocrisy into any kind of context.
If you do a little reading, weka, and actually school yourself up on the situation, you WILL see a problem with what Little said, and with what he failed to say.
Little isn’t talking about Syria or the US or FJK, or anything other than Māori sovereignty and that NZ needs to look at self-governance in the context of modern nation stated. Not a blacksuit or protestor in sight.
Which leaves us with a bunch of slurs from whatever it is you saw that you haven’t linked to. As TRP points out below, you are notoriously uneven in your accuracy, so your comment just came across as pretty useless for anything other than demonstrating what you think of Little and a Labour MP.
Maybe instead of being a patronising fuckwit you could do some research of your own.
Little DID talk about ISIS this morning, even though he failed to say anything that made much sense about it. And you’re quite right—he did not talk about Syria. That’s the problem—he’s too frightened to state the glaringly obvious, because the government would immediately whip up an hysterical political firestorm about how Labour supports Assad.
2.) Not a blacksuit or protestor in sight.
The blacksuits were in sight this morning for anyone watching television, as Little droned on confusedly about why it’s maybe not a good idea to get into the “fight against ISIS.” The protestors were pretty much blocked out by the blacksuits.
3.) Which leaves us with a bunch of slurs from whatever it is you saw that you haven’t linked to.
I reported factually about the deliberate blocking off of peaceful protestors in a public forum, by a cordon of Labour Party men. The only possible “slur” in my reporting was my labeling of Lees-Galloway and his cronies as “thugs”. If they are were not behaving as thugs, what word would YOU use to describe people who deliberately stand in front of peaceful protestors in a public space?
4.) As TRP points out below, you are notoriously uneven in your accuracy, so your comment just came across as pretty useless for anything other than demonstrating what you think of Little and a Labour MP.
Could you cite an example of my being inaccurate, let alone “notoriously” inaccurate on this or any other forum? I described exactly what Lees-Galloway and some other men did to block off some peaceful, silent protestors this morning. Are you trying to say they did not do that? You might disagree with my interpretation of what Lees-Galloway and his cronies did; I think their behaviour was sinister and profoundly anti-democratic, whereas you evidently think it’s acceptable for a political party to use people to shut down law-abiding protestors. I obviously don’t approve of such anti-democratic behaviour, but my description of the action was perfectly true. Not according to YOU, however. So please tell us: how exactly was my report of Lees-Galloway’s actions “uneven in accuracy”?
By the way, my friend, here’s a little advice: on this blog, starting a sentence with the formula “As TRP points out” is a sure-fire way to instantly discredit oneself. Your co-opting of our favorite Party apparatchik is about the funniest mis-step since…. well, since THIS howler, when a bloke cites Winston Peters to bolster his case….
Ha ha ha, keep ’em coming, Moz, this is quality stuff! We’ve really gotta get you on the telly. I’m thinking a sitcom, maybe a monkey sidekick? All we need is a catchphrase and a title. The rest just writes itself.
ffs, you do a rant, and provide a link that doesn’t show anything of what you are ranting about. A few people point out that you’re not making sense. You ignore this and continue with the rant. And now you want to claim you were being accurate?
“The link I provided is not that clear, sorry.”
No. The link is perfectly clear, it’s Andrew Little talking about Māori sovereignty. What isn’t clear is your post, and subsequent comments when you already knew the link didn’t match your story.
You’ve been called many times on how you write up the ‘transcripts’ off things like RNZ, so don’t make out you are not aware of this reputation.
At this point in the conversation I don’t give a shit about your views on Little and Lees Galoway, because you’ve demonstrated that what’s important is your view rather than communicating what happened with accuracy or respect for the people reading here. By all means keep justifying and defending, but your original comment is full of slurs, not just one slur but many. That wouldn’t be so bad (this is ts after all), but there is nothing in your comment that has substance beyond “I don’t like what Little and LG just did”.
“If they are were not behaving as thugs, what word would YOU use to describe people who deliberately stand in front of peaceful protestors in a public space?”
I don’t know, because I have no fucking idea what you are talking about. All it’s assertion, done badly, and with so mych ego shit in it it’s too hard to see what’s real. Up your game, mate. You’re better than this and IMO Waitangi Day is not the day to do this shit.
I described, clearly and unambiguously, the anti-democratic actions carried out by Andrew Little’s self-styled security corps. I labeled those fellows “thugs”, which you might disagree with—but I see you have not come up with any better description of them.
Little DID talk—foggily—about ISIS and our response to the “threat” it poses. You can pretend he didn’t if you like—it’s your credibility on the line.
2.) You’ve been called many times on how you write up the ‘transcripts’ off things like RNZ, so don’t make out you are not aware of this reputation.
This has been done to death many times on this forum. Yes, sometimes I’ll miss out something from one of my rush transcripts, and sometimes I might emphasise the stupidity and inarticulateness of, say, Hekia Parata, a little too much for some people’s liking. But inevitably, those objections have been shown to be politically motivated—the shenanigans started with poor old Lanthanide, who objected to my transcripts because they showed up the moral idiocy of not only a bewildered politician, but also of his own thinking…..
Others to jump on the “inaccurate transcripts” bandwagon were such nasty and disreputable customers as McFlock, Populuxe and of course Te Reo Putake, formerly known as The Voice of Reason. In every case, the “inaccurate transcripts” line was used as a way to attack me in the absence of their being able to muster a convincing argument against me. Their absurd and wildly exaggerated shouting about the “inaccuracy” of my transcripts started almost as soon as I started to post up stories about the U.K. regime’s persecution of Julian Assange—articles by people like Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Daniel Ellsberg. My posting of those articles enraged McFlock, Populuxe and Te Reo Putake, because they contradicted and thereby exposed their own credulity and viciousness in that shameful matter.
Of course, I like everyone else make mistakes—this morning’s dud link for the Andrew Little interview is a case in point. However, to magnify and absurdly jump up and down about the odd missed word, as Te Reo and his chums have done consistently, is neither fair nor reasonable.
3.) …IMO Waitangi Day is not the day to do this shit.
So ordinary citizens should not say anything on Waitangi Day. I presume, then, that you are also opposed to Andrew Little and John Key talking about anything on Waitangi Day?
Not even going to bother reading that. If you won’t listen to what other people are saying, then there is no point. I read your first comment, followed the link and there was nothing in that video that matched what you are claiming. All the mess that has followed is a consequence of you thinking your views are more important than communicating effectively. If you had stopped and listened to what TRP and myself had said, you could have clarified and relinked. But instead you are just reposting the same old shit.
To be fair to poor, bewildered Moz, he presumably saw an earlier clip than the one that is in the link. But he is wrong to characterise the Labour MP’s as thugs and Winston also told them the ‘protesters’ to do one. The one photo I’ve seen seems to show middle class pakeha holding the banner, so probably not all that authentic anyway.
I described something—a cordon of black-suited men blocking off a protest sign—that no one can dispute happened. Could you explain your use of the prejudicial epithet “bewildered” please?
But he is wrong to characterise the Labour MP’s as thugs
They were deliberately blocking off a sign held by peaceful protestors. They are anti-democratic thugs.
…and Winston also told them the ‘protesters’ to do one.
Winston Peters! And John Ansell! And Allen Titford! And Matthew Hooton! And Blubberguts Slater!
The one photo I’ve seen seems to show middle class pakeha holding the banner, so probably not all that authentic anyway.
I neither stated nor implied that the protestors were Māori. Is it Labour policy now that only Māori are “authentic”?
Poor Moz, life really is passing you by, isn’t it? I’m not Labour, bud, and I can laugh at middle class tossers trying to keep the spirit of Rick from the Young Ones alive whenever I feel like it.
Ps, this morning’s word ‘o’ the day is hyperbole. Look it up if you have time.
(Me, I don’t have any more time. Off to Wembley Park, Whanganui to huff and puff around the football field in the NZ Masters. Wish me luck Standardistas, I’ll need it!)
“and I can laugh at middle class tossers trying to keep the spirit of Rick from the Young Ones alive whenever I feel like it.”
Me too. Among the nuggets of informed opinion, The standard gives me a daily dose of guffaws and chortles, though I doubt very many are middle class, in fact, some are quite classless if you know what I mean.
The trouble is: Andrew Little did not talk about the issues, he avoided them. He is mealy-mouthed and afraid to speak plainly. It’s an on-going problem with Labour leaders, I’m afraid.
Wow. Labour leader fail to consult notoriously innacurate blog poster before speaking to media. So that’s where we’ve been going wrong these last few years. I’ve let McCarten know and no doubt he’ll be in touch pronto, Moz. Stand by your phone!
How is what I described at all inaccurate? Did Lees-Galloway and others in black suits deliberately block out that protest sign or not?
You have recently, I note, been taken to task by Paul over your strategy of launching into demeaning personal attacks. It’s an unpleasant habit that does nothing to enhance your credibility.
“Backtracking”? Everything you say is couched in the most demeaning and negative fashion possible. I conceded that the word “thug” is a value-laden term. I think it is appropriate for people who illegally block the right of peaceful protestors to hold up a sign, but some people might disagree with that.
I do not “backtrack” or resile from what I wrote this morning: it is quite clear and beyond refutation what Lees-Galloway and his cronies—yes, that’s another value-laden word—were up to.
What do YOU call people who illegally stop citizens from protesting in a public place?
“What do YOU call people who illegally stop citizens from protesting in a public place?”
and you have used the term “illegally” a few other times when referring to this incident.
How does being ‘blocked’ from view during an on camera interview suddenly equate to people being “illegally” stopped from protesting?
Were the protesters you referred to manhandled away?
Were they evicted from the grounds of Waitangi?
Or did some suits simply stand between them and the camera?
Rude, certainly, but illegal?
At /open-mike-06022015/#comment-964190 You wrote “but viewers watching this morning’s interview were prevented from reading the words because a phalanx of black-suited thugs deliberately stood in front of the sign.”
How is this an illegal act?
Do you concede that your language use is getting a bit extreme in describing a situation which is no different to almost every other TV broadcast ever held at Waitangi?
…you have used the term “illegally” a few other times describing this incident.
I used the word advisedly, and accurately.
How does being ‘blocked’ from view during an on camera interview suddenly equate to people being “illegally” stopped from protesting?
You put the word “blocked” in scare quotes as if it didn’t actually happen. It did happen, and it was illegal, just as it would be illegal for me to accost you and prevent you from carrying out an entirely legal action, such as walking down the street or looking at a sign on a shop-front. The Labour Party is not the police force. They had no right to prevent those protestors from showing that sign.
Were the protesters you referred to manhandled away?
Were they evicted from the area?
or did some suits simply stand between them and the camera?
Rude, certainly, but illegal?
Rudeness is not the issue here, the issue is that they formed a physical barrier, and illegally prevented the protestors from making their protest in a public place. The action of Lees-Galloway and his cronies was illegal.
How is this an illegal act?
Nobody—certainly not the Labour Party—has the right to stop a citizen legally stating an opinion in a reasonable, orderly way, in a public place.
Do you concede that your language use is getting a bit extreme in describing a situation which is no different to almost every other TV broadcast ever held at Waitangi?
If there was a problem with order, it was the job of the police to sort it out. The Labour Party is not permitted to employ anyone to stop people protesting. Protestors, just as much as politicians, have the right to be seen, and heard, in a public forum.
The ‘blocked’ was meant to be in quotation marks as it was taken directly from your comments. My apologies for that error.
Please don’t take this the wrong way Morrisey, or think I am telling you to be quiet but maybe take a break and go for a walk or something, fresh air is a good thing and it helps with perspective.
Well, we must be listening to a different Andrew Little, I am constantly reassured how “on the nail” he is , and find him very refreshing when listening to any other “soundbite, poll driven “politician.
I think it is black and white thinking that got us into this mess,
What on earth do you mean by “black and white thinking”?
the issue is one to grapple with, not dog whistle
And Little will not grapple with the issue. If he did, he would raise the issue of our government’s continued support for ISIS in its bloody campaign in Syria.
Haven’t seen the video etc but when my leader is being interviewed I would not want to have other messages becoming distractions to his message.
What would we have said had the interruptions come from youth doing hand signs, or people saying ‘Hi, mum” or celebrity gate crashers?
It could be argued that the ones breaking protocol, being nuisances, being unhelpful, being invasive, those at fault might be the sign holders. As in the case of the t-shirt protester in Australia, or others who are rude, boundaries can be crossed where even Popes have their tolerance stretched.
As I say, I’ve not seen the situation. All I am doing is saying there could be, and usually is, another point of view. And ‘thugs’, morrissey, might be just too strong a word. Do you have another agenda involving Little or Lees-Galloway?
Black suits can be, by the way, a sign of respect shown by visitors wearing their best formal clothes.
I also acknowledge the sign holders who have strong views and feel they need to get their message across. Their particular issue was referred to positively by Little in his korero, was it not?
when my leader is being interviewed I would not want to have other messages becoming distractions to his message.
Then “my leader” needs to conduct interviews in a studio, and not in a public space.
What would we have said had the interruptions come from youth doing hand signs, or people saying ‘Hi, mum” or celebrity gate crashers?
The protestors were doing none of those things. They were quiet, orderly and dignified.
It could be argued that the ones breaking protocol, being nuisances, being unhelpful, being invasive, those at fault might be the sign holders.
No, that could not be argued. The protestors were quiet, orderly, dignified throughout.
And ‘thugs’, morrissey, might be just too strong a word.
Do you have another agenda involving Little or Lees-Galloway?
I have often criticised Little before today—not for being “colourless” as some trivial media naysayers have done, but for the very qualities he showed today: a failure to speak plainly and honestly. I have taken little notice of Lees-Galloway before his disgraceful performance this morning. Maybe I shouldn’t blame him however; perhaps he was merely carrying out orders from one of those clever Labour Party tacticians who have done so much to make Labour a respected political voice for the last six years.
Black suits can be, by the way, a sign of respect shown by visitors wearing their best formal clothes.
In this case, however, they were a sign of disrespect and contempt for the rights of people to demonstrate in a public place.
I also acknowledge the sign holders who have strong views and feel they need to get their message across. Their particular issue was referred to positively by Little in his korero, was it not?
If Little was sincere about that, he would have told Lees-Galloway and the others in that cordon to sit down.
You say “Then “my leader” needs to conduct interviews in a studio, and not in a public space.’
I would ask where the studio is upon a marae? Also, politicians are most often interviewed in open, public spaces. That is generated by being where the politicians actually are, and by the needs of the interviewers.
And you say, “In this case, however, they were a sign of disrespect and contempt for the rights of people to demonstrate in a public place.”
They were a sign for you, Morrissey, but they would have worn the clothes out of respect for the place and occasion. This is the heart of my disagreement with you. An action takes place which you disapprove of, and everything becomes coloured by that- black in this case.
I am glad that the sign carriers were quiet and dignified. To have been other wise would have reflected upon their message. So, too, does exaggeration (black suits, thugs) reflect upon your message.
There were any number of rooms available if, as seems to be the case, Little wanted to exclude any possible demonstrations by ordinary citizens. He chose to do the interview in public territory.
2.) I am glad that the sign carriers were quiet and dignified.
I am pleased that you recognize that. Perhaps next time you will think carefully before equating democratic, responsible, law-abiding demonstrators with “youth doing hand signs, or people saying ‘Hi, mum” or celebrity gate crashers… breaking protocol, being nuisances, being unhelpful, being invasive, … rude”.
3.) …exaggeration (black suits, thugs)…
The men in the cordon were wearing black suits, which is what I described. How is that “exaggeration”? You may reasonably disagree with my labeling those men as “thugs”—so what would YOU call people who—illegally—block off signs held up in a public forum?
1.) Why did you link to something showing not what you describe..? in fact contradicting what you claim..
I clicked on the link, as it was the first one that came up after I googled “andrew little waitangi isis” this morning. You’re correct that it doesn’t exactly show what I described, but how does it “in fact contradict” what I claimed?
2.) ..and..are you sure u aren’t getting confused with the interview with key….where two large burly men wearing small backpacks….stood backs to camera..blocking protestors/a sign/banner from view….if not..cd u plse link to the footage u describe..
No, Phillip, I am not confused between Key and Little. I didn’t see Key’s interview, but I did see Little’s, and I did see a phalanx of Mafia types, including Ian Lees-Galloway, deliberately masking out the protestors’ sign. It was on either Television One or TV3 this morning, live. I think it was TV3.
Morrissey, the link you provided had an interview with Little. A wharenui in the background, two people standing in the porch. No mafia, black suits, dark glasses, thuggery, stand over tactics, deliberate blocking, masking, not even Ian Lees-Galloway.
Sorry I’ve been wasting your time writing about something that doesn’t seem to have…….. happened.
Ps, Moz, Iain LG is a long way from “undistinguished”. He has held Palmy against a concerted effort from the Tories for 3 elections and for one term was the only provincial Labour MP. He successfully promoted David Cunliffe for the leadership, and was elected as junior whip. He clearly has Andrew Little’s ear as well. Even more significantly, he has also built a formidable local electorate team that is easily the best in Labour for canvassing and publicity and is a model for how to campaign successfully. Even John Key acknowleged his work, commenting to Banksie in the teapot tapes that he was unbeatable in the seat.
He also turned off many workers who enjoyed 3 or 4 handles of beer after work
, by pushing a bill to cut alcohol limits for drivers. National were forced to lower the limit against their will, something that wasn’t lost at the booths.
Eh? NZ lining up with the rest of the developed countries in their driving/alcohol limits was not an issue for anybody at the election. I like a beer or three myself, but I cut my consumption to match the new limit if I’m driving. Simples.
I note that brewers are brewing to the new laws. My favourite brewery now puts out a 2.4% golden ale which is very enjoyable but far less destructive than my favourite tipple of theirs which is 7%- basically three times the strength. My own Friday night drinking mates hoe into the 2.4% with no complaint.
Yes my local watering hole has started putting out a superb 3% pilsner, usually have 3℅ triple hops pilsner at home, 2 stubbies = 2 standard drinks. Friends visiting know where they stand if driving afterwards.
And I’ll bet they charge you as much, if not more, for the ‘New legal limit’ beer.
No thanks. I’d rather take the Full tasting and Full Alcohol beers home, to enjoy them where I won’t be ripped off over the price of Beer, finger foods or soft drinks/water. The last time I went to the Pub they wanted $9.00 for a stubbie of Heineken, I said no went to the Supermarket and bought a dozen for $23.00 and went home.
I had a close look at skinny’s numbers with the same concern. Four 500 ml handles at 4% equals six standard drinks which would put an 85kg male on the doubtful limit after two hours drinking at the old 80 mg limit.
There was nothing wrong with the old limit. Drinking sensibly with a bite to eat, knowing your limits up to the legal limit. Very few road deaths were recorded up to and under the old limit. Tourist’s account for far more road fatilites. Alcopop’s and the young not a good mix. Fast cars green drivers, the list goes on.
Cocaine will do that for you. You can drink a bottle of vodka and the next morning do a line of coke and go to work totally straight as an airline pilot or whatever. Drugs are good!
I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the old limits. They were difficult to exceed by accident. The new ones aren’t, and therefore raise more revenue.
This link has got it all. A look at how multistorey housing can look good even in close confines. Set on a beautiful river and not dominated by huge hotels blocking the scenery. A pleasant looking architectural style for accommodation adopted as a standard for a large area, doesn’t have to look like our property developers South Auckland edifices with porticos you might stab yourself under, which seem an impediment to feelings of happiness and enjoyment of home when viewed from outside.
And on top of it all a large proportion of the music makers of the area acting out a flashmob event of the Blues Brothers theme, accompanied by drums on land and river.
This is – anecdotally – one reason for the high number of disqualified votes in Maori electorates: many people wrongly assume they’re on one roll or the other and thus use the wrong voting form (I’m not sure of the technicalities, just reporting what I’ve heard.) There’s a real lack of information for people at election time about needing to check which roll they’re on, or when they’re able to make the decision to change rolls.
i was listening to a Kiwiana goes pop cd I bought and heard Dave Jordan’s State House Song. I was thinking what a negative put-down. by someone who thinks that houses grow on trees.
So I looked him up. He had a reasonable start, teachers college, teacher, uni, overseas – just a little ignorant of reality. He married overseas, the wife returned to Brazil after he got mutiple sclerosis and so had to fend for himself. Finally some friends provided him with a home till he died.
Not video, but here’s a report including quoting Key,
Mr Key says he doesn’t think there is room for Maori to have self-rule or self-governance in some areas of the country.
“The Crown’s view is that sovereignty was ceded in 1840, but ceded to a modern New Zealand that was built for all New Zealanders,” he told reporters at Waitangi.
I heard that the the Ngāi Tūhoe tribe already independently manage some of their tribal affairs. So, need not necessarily divide the country. No harm in discussing and exploring the possibilities and see how and if it can be mutually beneficial. There may be other countries with precedents.
Would be interesting to see ACT’s and Seymour’s view on this, as well as that of the Maori MPs, Parata etc in the National party.
All style, no substance. A “prime minister” who can’t even run a department. Had no idea what the DPMC was up to, tourism is run by MBIE, and he fobbed the security services onto Finlayson.
Maybe this is why Key wants our flag changed?….to get rid of NZer’s sense of sovereignty?
A Very interesting discussion and debate on Crosstalk and relevant to NZ and TPPA ie issues of financial control imposed and loss of sovereignty/democracy and dictatorship by wealthy bankers and corporates in Europe …and now revolt in Europe …and maybe internationally it is just beginning as the German analyst/ commentator suggested
‘Euro-revolt?’
“Euro-revolt! First Greece and now maybe Spain. Grassroots democracy from the left appears to be making a comeback in Europe. This is interesting in itself because the political right is doing the same. Can Europe’s elitist political status quo be maintained?”
CrossTalking with Iain Begg, Robert Oulds, and Ernst Wolff.
With normal democratic procedures in abeyance, there were two ways to go. First, it was open for the government to dissolve itself and invite the National Party to join a ministry of national salvation. That would have lessened the democratic deficit of the times by having a team of rivals without ...
Dr Kirsty Ross Children and young people can respond differently in times of distress. This also varies by age and developmental stage, with younger children having more magical and imaginative thinking, and older children having more awareness and knowledge of the issues our communities are facing (which brings up ...
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...
While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in. They're planning a lot of infrastructure spending as economic stimulus, and have asked for proposals which can start the moment ...
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...
Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ...
Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
The story of Les Gray, the public sector psychologist who told the truth about his use of cannabis and set off a storm, has a special place in the lore of cannabis reform in New Zealand.When Paul Shannon interviewed Gray for the 'Dope and Hope' issue of Planet magazine in ...
by Phil Duncan For Marxists, a key concern about social trends is their context – not just their causes, but why they happen when they do. Events and phenomena have causes, but they also are time or period-specific. While much of the left have capitulated recently to postmodernism, most notably ...
Since the lockdown began, we've all suddenly been reminded who the actually essential workers in our society are: not the people at the top who pay themselves the big bucks and rort the perks, but the people at the bottom they screw over and squeeze: cleaners, warehouse staff, truck drivers ...
Kia ora! As I've watched nearly all my remaining work vanish over the past couple of days, it has occured to me that one good way to keep me away from arguing with fools on Twitter all the time (in the knowledge that all we're really doing is processing our ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to trying to extirpate the virus that causes COVID-19 from its shores. To do that, as a society we’ve moved to “Level 4”. That means adapting to unprecedented restrictions on our personal freedoms, particularly to our rights to move freely and associate with friends and ...
When the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency last week, she handed the police powers to enforce it. And almost immediately, we started hearing about heavy-handed, arbitrary "enforcement" by police who (at best) cared more about order than law, or (more likely) had no idea what the rules were ...
. . Lock Down: Day 4 – A photo essay with observations . March 29: Usual wake up routine as RNZ snaps on my radio-clock. Jim Mora’s voice slowly enters my conciousness; there’s talk of a second wave of covid19 taking hold in South Korea; the week in Parliament – ...
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Misinformation kills’: The link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate denialGrist / Rob Kim / Stringer / CSA Images Scientific ...
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...
. . Lock Down: Day 3 – A photo essay with observations . March 28: First day of the first weekend in Lock Down. It feels like it’s been weeks since only Level 3 was declared last Tuesday, only four days ago. Woke up this morning to RNZ; coffee; toast, ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 22, 2020 through Sat, Mar 28, 2020Articles Linked to on FacebookSun, Mar 22, 2020In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of Disasters by Chelsea Harvey, ...
I’m here in lockdown with my flatmate and her two girls (6 and 2) and it. is. a time. They’re usually really active so to start with the only boardgame in the house is the copy of Guess Who that the 6 year old got for her birthday. Flatmate commented ...
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...
. . Lock Down: Day 2 – A photo essay with observations . March 27 – Day 2 of our Strange New World. The Park and Ride near my suburb, usually filled with hundreds of vehicles, had just… four; . . Another drive into Wellington City on a highway nearly ...
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to rent a property on the open market in New Zealand, which is one of the most expensive in the entire world, you’ll likely be keenly aware of just how arrogant and entitled landlords and their real estate agents can be.Unfortunately for ...
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights:In this legal blog we outline some ...
by Equipo Jurídico Pueblos and Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (25/03/2020) An escape plan in question On the night of March 21st and the early morning of the 22nd, the forces of the Colombian state stormed into the Modelo prison in Bogotá, murdering 23 prisoners and injuring 83, in response to the ...
When the government banned semi-automatic weapons in response to a terrorist atrocity, gun-nuts were outraged. Mired in toxic American gun culture, they thought owning weapons whose sole purpose was killing people was some sort of "constitutional right", a necessity for "defending themselves" against the government. Now, the Court of Appeal ...
Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from ...
. . Lock Down: Day 1 – A photo essay with observations . Day one of the Level 4 nationwide lock-down (or, DefCon 4 as I sometimes cheekily call it) started at 11.59PM on 25 March. For a moment, most of the nation held it’s collective breath. In that brief ...
Broad, Sunlit Uplands: How those words fired my young imagination! Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say: how those words fused, in my young mind, with the image printed on every packet of Fielder’s Cornflour. Always fascinated by history, especially modern history, I cannot hear Churchill’s wonderfully evocative words, even ...
. . 24 March 2020 9.46AM Number of covid19 cases in Aotearoa New Zealand: 102 . As of 11.59 on Thursday, most of New Zealand will go into “lock down”. People will be expected not to travel to work; not to socialise; and to stay home. I will not be ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield long-term savings many times larger than the up-front costs. The new 2020 Drawdown ...
It will pass. What happens next? Not immediately, but longer term. There are many opinions, fewer certainties. Will it “change everything!” as many confidently, and contradictorily predict? In this post I look at how foresight can help bound some of the uncertainties so you can more objectively consider the future. ...
We’ve been meaning t write something on Cuba and the coronavirus but have just discovered a very good article on the subject in the US left publication Jacobin. The article looks at how Cuba, a poor country but one where capitalism has been done away with, is leading the way ...
In 2018, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey - two British citizens who had purportedly been stripped of their citizenship by the British government - were captured while fighting for Isis in Syria. The British government then conspired to hand them over to the US, and agreed to provide evidence ...
Transformers: The disaster of the Great Depression was transformed into a new and fairer society by the democratic socialism of the First Labour Government. The disaster of the Covid-19 Pandemic offers a similar transformative possibility to the Labour-NZ First-Green Government. Seize the time, Jacinda! You will never have a better ...
Tamper with The System? Well, we already are. But there's a difference between accidentally trickling sand into a precision gearbox versus formulating a plan to alter it on the fly with improvements in mind. One action is more or less innocently unscrupulous, the other amenable to earning an easy ...
Associate Prof George Thomson, Louise Delany, Prof Nick WilsonWhile it is possible that New Zealand can use intense public health controls to eradicate COVID-19 from the country – we must also plan for other scenarios where thousands of New Zealanders are sick – including many urgently hospitalised.1 Better resilience ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...
We're about to do something unprecedented as a nation. We hope that by taking this extraordinary action before a single life in New Zealand has been lost to the deadly novel virus we will save tens of thousands of lives. Our lives. We'll do it together, in households, in isolation ...
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”So writes the author of Ecclesiastes, a book in the Old Testament that’s counted as a ‘wisdom’ book and written as if by an unnamed king of Jerusalem. But who would have thought there would be a time ...
I was surprised when the prime minister described the Economic Response to Covid-19 package as the ‘largest peacetime government spend in New Zealand's history’. Reflecting – checking through history – I realised that the term ‘spend’ was crucial and the package had no income tax cuts. Even so, it has ...
Years ago the Argentine sociologist Carlos Weisman wrote a book titled “Living within our Means.” It was a critique of Argentine society that focused on the paradoxical question of why, in a land of plenty, there was so much economic instability, inequality, corruption and political turmoil. His conclusion was basically ...
Parliament will be leading by example and adjourning tomorrow after a special sitting to consider an epidemic notice and state of emergency. Day-to-day oversight of the government will be delegated to a select committee. But that's not the only overight mechanism. The OIA will still be law, and (so far) ...
Michael Baker, University of OtagoOverjoyed. That’s not a word epidemiologists normally use, but that’s how I felt after hearing Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement about New Zealand’s COVID-19 shutdown of everything except essential services for at least four weeks from midnight on Wednesday. More than anything, I just ...
How much homelessness is caused by house hoarding? We're about to find out. The pandemic has destroyed tourism, which means that house hoarders who put their hoarded properties up as short-term tourist rentals are now offering them on the ordinary rental market:Property investors are pulling properties from Airbnb to offer ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman It seems like such a simple, straightforward, empowering idea: plant trees – a lot of trees – all over the world, and watch the planet’s temperature fall. Who doesn’t love a tree or two, even far more – the right ...
According to Newshub, Simon Bridges is open to joining a “grand coalition” with Labour as we hunker down to go into a month long lockdown. The idea is sound. Before now, the role of the opposition was to scrutinise and oppose. In the context of what almost amounts to a ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or ...
We need to be lifting our game against COVID-19. You and I need to help those working to prevent the spread of COVID-19 while they’re trying to lift the testing and treatment efforts. We don’t want to be playing this game running backwards. Best to play it solidly forward, from ...
Prof Tony Blakely, Prof Michael Baker, and Prof Nick WilsonThe NZ Government must do more to clearly articulate its COVID-19 strategy: eradication or ‘flattening the curve’ mitigation. But to do so means understanding the maths and ethics of both these strategies. In this blog, we adapt our work for ...
A few days ago I was starting to write something about the pandemic, which now seems unconscionable. It took the form of a letter to an agony aunt:“Dear Deidre, I have an ugly confession. I am quite excited by Covid-19.”This is how the piece went:“I’m not a psychopath, honest. Although the ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Climate Feedback Article Review... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of DisastersThe likelihood of extreme events ...
Last week, the government announced a $12 billion initial package to support people during the pandemic. Today, the Reserve Bank is buying government bonds - effectively printing money - to keep up the money supply during the crisis. Normally such moves would have the right apoplectic. Instead, the National Party ...
I am a pundit, somebody who opines and comments on the news. There are no real qualifications to punditry though having a rudimentary way with words and good general knowledge helps. That is one reason there is a constant oversupply of would-be pundits and why it is quite hard to ...
I recently encountered the following prescription from a Faculty of Education at a leading New Zealand University. At first I wondered if it was another product of the postmodern generator (http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/), designed to create gibberish in the postmodern form, but I’m told it is real: The “schooled” society: Towards the ...
The coronavirus pandemic has of course had a major impact on individual lives and on societies as a whole. But, long after the crisis has passed (assuming it does), we will begin to realise that its real and lasting significance lies in the lessons it has taught us, if only ...
COVID-19 has plunged Aotearoa New Zealand (indeed, the world) into territory that, while maybe not totally unprecedented, certainly hasn’t been seen during the lifetimes of most of us here today. Our borders are closed to non-citizens, we’re being told not to gather in groups of more than 500 outside/100 inside, ...
For the last few weeks, I’ve been urging you to prepare yourself, your family, business, and community for Covid-19. Now it’s time for real action. Yesterday the director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced another 13 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, bringing our total to date to 52. ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 15, 2020 through Sat, Mar 21, 2020 Editor's Pick Now Isn’t the Time to Forget About Our Climate Change EffortsTasha Tilberg, Lindsey Wixson, and Liu Wen photographed ...
by Jan Rivers The article has been corrected to show that it was Ewen MacAskill, former Guardian journalist and not Luke Harding who travelled to meet Edward Snowden with journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras. Some of the Guardian’s well-known journalists who did not sign the protest letter are ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
As New Zealanders brace for a global downturn due to Covid-19, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his Coalition Government’s rescue package "more significant" than any other he's seen around the world. The Coalition is to reveal a multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan on Tuesday afternoon designed to cushion the economic blow ...
We know some people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic DevelopmentThe Government is investing $36.8 million into waterfront and visitor projects that will help transform Whakatāne and the wider eastern Bay of Plenty region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today.The investment in three projects, through the Provincial Growth Fund and ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Minister of Transport Phil Twyford has today announced details of the Government’s support package to keep key air freight moving and ensure New Zealanders retain access to essential goods during the four-week level 4 lockdown. “The Government is working with airlines and air freight operators to ensure New Zealand’s key ...
New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 3 – Restrict New Zealand to move up to COVID-19 Alert Level 4 – Eliminate, in 48 hours Two-staged approach to give people and businesses time to prepare Level 3, from tomorrow Non-essential businesses must close All events and gatherings must be ...
Good afternoon The Cabinet met this morning to discuss our next actions in the fight against COVID-19. Like the rest of the world, we are facing the potential for devastating impacts from this virus. But, through decisive action, and through working together, do we have a small window to get ...
The Government is announcing significant further support for the economy, workers and businesses as the country unites to prepare for Alert Level 4 in the fight against COVID-19. Cabinet today agreed to remove the cap on the Government’s wage subsidy scheme, which will inject a further $4 billion into the ...
The Government is backing the Reserve Bank’s latest action to support the economy by reducing longer-term interest rates, meaning lower costs for businesses and mortgage holders, and a lower currency to help our exporters. The Minister of Finance has signed a memorandum of understanding and a letter of indemnity with ...
The Government has asked the Commerce Commission to take account of the exceptional circumstances created by COVID-19 when monitoring business behaviour in coming weeks. “The purpose of my request to the Commerce Commission is to make sure businesses can work together in ways that will allow them to provide ...
The New Zealand Government has temporarily closed its High Commission in Bridgetown, Barbados and its Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Due to the increasing scarcity of air links in and out of Bridgetown and Yangon, and the pressure COVID-19 is placing ...
Associate Health and Whānau Ora Minister Peeni Henare has today announced the Government’s plan to support Māori communities and businesses in the face of COVID-19. “Our Government’s $12.1 billion economic package will help many Māori whānau, workers and businesses, whether it’s through wage subsidies, income support and worker redeployment, or ...
The Government and the hospitality industry have worked together to produce guidelines to assist with managing and reducing transmission of COVID-19, Health Minister David Clark announced today. The guidelines developed between the Government, Hospitality New Zealand and SkyCity Entertainment Group, set out how the new restrictions on physical distancing and ...
Four stage Alert System for COVID-19 announced New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 2 – Reduce Contact New Zealanders over 70 and those with certain medical conditions told to stay at home as much as they can to reduce risk of contact with the virus Workplaces to implement ...
Pacific Media Watch Launched by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), “Tracker 19” is a tool made for an unprecedented global crisis. So named in reference not only to Covid-19 but also article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this project aims to evaluate the pandemic’s impacts on global ...
A recurring theme in contemporary literature is of the plague that appears suddenly from nowhere and takes hold of the world, destroying or severely damaging life in the process. In 2003 acclaimed author Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake was ...
The Covid-19 crisis in media has claimed NZ’s biggest magazine publisher, Bauer Media.Bauer Media NZ is closing its doors permanently and with immediate effect due to the severe economic impact of Covid-19, staff have just been told via a Zoom meeting.CEO Brendon Hill was emotional as he informed staff of ...
NZ Gov't must lower road freight use because truck drivers will widely carry Covid 19 virus to our communities through open assess community transmission, and using rail less staff are used to move the same freight by comparison. Facts; Our Government ...
The government needs to step up and pay the next rates instalment to councils on behalf of property owners and businesses as part of its economic support package. People are facing unprecedented financial stress directly due to the measures implemented ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentEnforcing the lockdown, civil liberties Peter Dunne (Newsroom): Democracy on hold Heather Roy (Democracy Project): The Long Road Back to Full ...
More than 40 million masks are on the way to help protect frontline health workers after weeks of confusion and fear about the supply of Covid-19 equipment. ...
Tempers fray in Italy, Spain as lockdown fatigue sets in; Trump reveals modelling of up to 240,000 US deaths; US stocks slump on death fears and awful factory output statsDeath fears dominate: US President Donald Trump warned of up to 240,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the world's biggest economy, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya M. Smith, Professor in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University Within our extended primate family consisting of lemurs, monkeys, and apes, humans have the largest brains. Our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, weigh about two-thirds as much as us, ...
Here come the discounted share issues; Kathmandu plans $315m rights issue at 51 percent discount; Rod Duke says 'no thanks'; Treasury hikes borrowing plan by $12b to $25b in two weeks; Pay cuts for Mediaworks and Fletcher staffRaising cash: In a move that is likely to be widely replicated in ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
This is the question burning in most New Zealanders' minds: What are the key indicators for decision making? How many new cases are required for the lockdown to continue? How many deaths? What is the plan when the lockdown ends? We understand that the ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Rising tide of hardship putting strain on services, big wage cuts coming at Fletchers, and fears many hospitality businesses won’t be viable after lockdown.We’re beginning to get a picture of how the Covid-19 economic shock will hit those living in ...
Businesses in lockdown are looking to a previously little-considered clause in many commercial lease contracts which makes it legal to not pay some or all of their rent. For thousands of business landlords and tenants all over New Zealand, April 1 was crunch day. April Fools was the first commercial ...
Was an epidemiologist excoriated for going off script or not being on top of the literature? David Williams reports It wasn’t exactly flattening the curve. A scientific spat over Covid-19 reached peak contrarian yesterday thanks to the country’s contrarian in chief, Mike Hosking. Following his (Hosking: “Very good”) Stuff opinion ...
When we rethink our economy and how we support citizens, we must end the 19th Century bias against those in relationships, writes the University of Auckland's Susan St John It is vital that all new welfare policies to cushion the Covid-19 downturn are consistent with desirable reform principles. But to ...
Jill Herron speaks with two stranded Czech travellers whose working holiday is over but who, like thousands of other foreign nationals, have nowhere to go. Roman Cermak is worried about his mum who works as a nurse in the Czech Republic. He’s also worried about his elderly grandmother as his ...
In the days ahead we face a choice as a nation - to behave out of fear, or out of courage, writes Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod. Which will it be? Here’s a joke for our times: What should we do if we know the aliens are coming? Lower the interest rates. Perhaps ...
Having dealt with anxiety and body blows in her hockey career, Black Stick Rachel McCann has created a podcast that could help those struggling to find positivity in lockdown. During these long, monotonous and uncertain days of the Covid-19 lockdown, Black Stick Rachel McCann’s passion project could come into its own. ...
Anna Locker-Lampson is hoping against hope that the first readers and writers festival in Waipawa will go ahead. Between the Lines, the inaugural Readers and Writers Festival at Waipawa in the Central Hawkes Bay, is scheduled for July 23-26. We have yet to cancel. It’s with an undying optimism that ...
Pacific nations have rolled out strict responses to Covid-19, with several remaining Covid-19-free, Teuila Fuatai reports With no confirmed Covid-19 cases, Sāmoa is among several Pacific nations attempting to balance strict public health measures and regular activity. A two-week state of emergency, which reduced trading hours and public gatherings, is ...
Despite a surge in pre-lockdown adoptions, the SPCA is still housing plenty of animals and wondering what the future holds as families and owners feel the strain, reports Bonnie Sumner. When the national lockdown announcement was made on March 23, people began turning up to their local SPCA centre ...
Beyond the direct impacts on demography and genome, pandemics have had dramatic and far-reaching impact on human societies over history. What will be Covid-19's be? As governments around the world try to contain the pandemic of Covid-19, they often draw on experiences of past epidemics. The swift and (so far) successful ...
Under Covid-19, how our crime situations develop will depend heavily on how our institutions and societies respond, writes Professor Elizabeth Stanley We talk a lot about fear in criminology. More precisely, we reflect on how our political, legal, economic and socio-cultural systems create conditions in which we fear certain people ...
History warns that we should be wary of the misuse of power in the name of public health, writes Scott Hamilton.In the winter of 1913 a group of Māori appeared in the office of Arthur Manning, the mayor of Hamilton. The visitors had tight faces and dirty clothes. They had ...
The more people take part, the better it will be at spotting potential clusters of Covid-19. Siouxsie Wiles explains.You might have heard the prime minister and the director general of health mention in recent days something called FluTracking. What’s it all about? Here’s what you need to know.The FluTracking project ...
Auckland post-punk four piece Swallow the Rat embarked on a US tour just as Covid-19 started to really spread. Guitarist Brian Purington, originally from Austin, Texas, tells the story of a tour interrupted – and how he became one of New Zealand’s first 500 cases of Covid-19.Brian Purington and his ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling As new, stricter measures intended to limit the spread of coronavirus were announced in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, many turned to Google to work out what they meant in practice. According to Google Trends, some of ...
By RNZ News New Zealanders in their 20s are the age group with the biggest numbers of Covid-19 and are “the vector for transmission”, says Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Ardern has thanked NZ for its efforts, but says it is still too early to say if the level four ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristy Hess, Associate Professor (Communication), Deakin University The coronavirus pandemic has spawned a lexicon of its own. We have had to quickly incorporate words like “self-isolation” and “social distancing” into our everyday language to navigate it. “Essential service” is another one. In ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin I was concerned to read last night that Greta Thunberg and her father almost certainly have Covid19; however, because of very restrictive testing criteria used in Sweden, they have not been tested. And I heard yesterday, on a Radio New Zealand news bulletin, a story about ...
Support services have raised alarm bells over the lockdown, saying it could spark more cases of family violence in New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said this afternoon that nearly half of the $27 million allocated for NGOs and community ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Blay, Research Fellow – workforce, Western Sydney University The number of people going to hospital with the coronavirus is expected to rise, putting a strain on our health and aged care services and their workforce. Australian undergraduate student nurses and those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Haiqing Yu, Associate Professor, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute The growth in COVID-19 cases in Australia appears to have slowed across all states, through a combination of tighter border control and spatial distancing. With the number of new cases each day growing at a ...
The third in our new series of charts, graphics and data-visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in ...
The Government must stamp out Covid-19 but also answer questions, writes David Williams OPINION: It’s a national emergency, almost all Kiwis are locked down, and all arms of government must work as hard as they can to find, stamp out and eradicate Covid-19. But that doesn’t absolve those taxpayer-paid bureaucrats and ...
Paengawhāwhā (April) also known as Kaipō or Whetūkaupō (Deneb star) is the eleventh month of the Māori year and is a productive time. Get planting!Kia ora e te whānau, ngā mihi mahana o te marama a Paengawhāwhā.March and August are often our most challenging lunar cycles from my observation, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martina Doblin, Senior Research Fellow, Plant Functional Biology & Climate Change, University of Technology Sydney As the climate warms, the land we use for growing energy-intensive crops such as wheat and corn is becoming less productive. We need to find ways to ...
Helping Low Income Families cope in this time of crisis is critical to their survival says Peter Malcolm Spokesperson for Income Equality Aotearoa NZ Inc—“Closing the Gap” Families on low incomes need and deserve all the financial help they can ...
With neither a bang nor barely a whimper, barely one week ago New Zealand put being a long established and respected Parliamentary democracy on hold to become a virtual Police state in the ongoing fight against Covid-19, writes Peter Dunne We have settled into a life regime more restrictive ...
Almost a week into the level four lockdown and people are probably starting to feel a little cooped up. To help with this, some subscription services and brands have begun to make their products temporarily free. Here are just some of the things currently on offer.For those with the privilege ...
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...
The housing market continued to perform well through the pre-lockdown period, with properties in all 16 major centres growing in value for the fourth consecutive month. The QV House Price Index data rose 6.1 percent in the year to March, with the average house price rising to $728,276. However, last ...
The District Court continues to operate during the AlertLevel 4 period to deal with priority proceedings as the need arises. For this purpose, there will be District Court Judges and Ministry of Justice staff available. The Chief District Court Judge ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Breunig, Professor of Economics and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University How would you feel if you were having a Zoom meeting with your accountant and they asked “how would you like to ...
Kathmandu has moved to strengthen its finances to counter the impact of the Covid-19 virus. The outdoors clothing retailer will raise $207 million through a sale of new shares, some of which will go to large investment funds, with the balance offered to existing shareholders. Group chief executive Xavier Simonet ...
The country's banks are likely to take a significant hit to their profits from the Covid-19 virus, according to a new report. Business advisory firm KPMG's latest quarterly Financial Institutions Performance Survey for the final three months of last year showed bank profits had already fallen nearly 7 percent, $1.1 ...
Child Poverty Action Group applauds the Prime Minister's move to go hard and early to curb the spread of Covid-19. And we believe the Government needs to take the same approach when it comes to supporting those doing it tough during this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a paper written in late March to outline the rationale for a short, sharp lockdown. The full ...
Anna Rawhiti-Connell's ode to Director-General Ashley Bloomfield - the balm for our furrowed brows When children ask me what I did during the great pandemic of the 2020s, I will tell them I participated in idolatry so egregious that the Golden Calf would’ve blushed a dusky shade of metallic rose. Every ...
The Single Object is a series exploring our material culture, examining the meaning and influence of objects that surround us in everyday life. Artist Bronwyn Holloway-Smith shares her obsession with the 30,000km long Southern Cross Cable that connects New Zealand to the internet and the rest of the world, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Collins, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University To the young and healthy, our new “social distancing” rules may look unnecessarily draconian. If you’re in a demographic that’s low risk for coronavirus, it may be difficult to see the benefit of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Mette Hotker, Lecturer in Social Planning, RMIT University Most Australians know you never end up winning on the pokies. What Australians might not know is that the odds of winning a case against a poker-machine proposal in their local neighbourhood are ...
Sports journalist Jim Kayes was a weekend host for the canned Radio Sport channel - and reckons its demise and cuts to sports reporting nationally can in part be put down to snobbery and neglect. It was never my plan to cover sport but a busted knee saw it happen. ...
The number of Māori academic staff remains disproportionately low at New Zealand universities. Simon Day spoke to three newly appointed Māori professors at the University of Otago about why putting te ao Māori at the centre of their work is so important. Māori participation in tertiary education is steadily increasing. According ...
Wellington, 1 April - Rushing to deal with new vaping legislation during an unprecedented economic lockdown is not just folly, it is anti-democratic, according to a public submission by the New Zealand Initiative. While most businesses and public services ...
As the Covid-19 pandemic takes its toll on the New Zealand economy, Greenpeace is pushing back on industry lobbyists and politicians arguing for weakening and delaying environmental protections. The environment group says that now more than ever, we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute; Professor of Development Geography, University of Melbourne Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown for India’s 1.3 billion people. With just four hours’ notice, the government instructed everyone to ...
In the new series Final Mix, music journalist Yadana Saw chats with local musicians and listens to their latest tracks in the ultimate testing ground: the car. The first episode is with cross-Atlantic country maven Tami Neilson.“There’s before, and then there’s after.”It’s a prophetic lyric on Tami Neilson’s new album ...
With broader testing criteria coming into place, the Government is expecting to discover more Covid-19 cases within the community, Marc Daalder reports The Ministry of Health admitted on Wednesday afternoon that it was likely missing cases of Covid-19 spreading within the community because testing criteria were too narrow. "We still ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is slamming today’s announcement of $25 million — $10 million for local iwi groups and $15 million for Whānau Ora providers — and says that funding based on skin colour at a time when the nation needs to come ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. There were 61 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, up from the previous day's 58 new cases. Details of how many tests have been completed are now being ...
A non-profit group is signing up qualified health professionals - retired, out of the workforce or part-time - to join a kind-of Home Guard to fill areas of need in the health system during the pandemic. As we enter week two of the Level 4 Covid-19 alert, we need to preserve ...
Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Rāapa/WednesdayToday we’re practising our pronunciation of the letter ‘r’ and in order to do that, we’re going to practise Māori place names. These are probably the words we’ve been taught to pronounce incorrectly the most, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Kearnes, Professor, Environment & Society, School of Humanities and Languages, UNSW Public health messages about COVID-19 have been inconsistent and changed rapidly. Many have called for a unified source of expertise to guide responses to the crisis. However, with the federal, ...
Open mike 06/02/2015 
Open mike is your post.
With normal democratic procedures in abeyance, there were two ways to go. First, it was open for the government to dissolve itself and invite the National Party to join a ministry of national salvation. That would have lessened the democratic deficit of the times by having a team of rivals without ...2 hours ago
Dr Kirsty Ross Children and young people can respond differently in times of distress. This also varies by age and developmental stage, with younger children having more magical and imaginative thinking, and older children having more awareness and knowledge of the issues our communities are facing (which brings up ...3 hours ago
46 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Global response of evapotranspiration ratio to climate conditions and watershed characteristics in a changing environment Greenhouse effect: the relative contributions of emission height and total absorption Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Climate change induced a ...16 hours ago
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...18 hours ago
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...22 hours ago
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...23 hours ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 24 hours ago
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...1 day ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...2 days ago
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...3 days ago
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...4 days ago
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...4 days ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...5 days ago
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...5 days ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...6 days ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...6 days ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...1 week ago
According to Newshub, Simon Bridges is open to joining a “grand coalition” with Labour as we hunker down to go into a month long lockdown. The idea is sound. Before now, the role of the opposition was to scrutinise and oppose. In the context of what almost amounts to a ...1 week ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or ...1 week ago
A few days ago I was starting to write something about the pandemic, which now seems unconscionable. It took the form of a letter to an agony aunt:“Dear Deidre, I have an ugly confession. I am quite excited by Covid-19.”This is how the piece went:“I’m not a psychopath, honest. Although the ...1 week ago
I am a pundit, somebody who opines and comments on the news. There are no real qualifications to punditry though having a rudimentary way with words and good general knowledge helps. That is one reason there is a constant oversupply of would-be pundits and why it is quite hard to ...2 weeks ago
COVID-19 has plunged Aotearoa New Zealand (indeed, the world) into territory that, while maybe not totally unprecedented, certainly hasn’t been seen during the lifetimes of most of us here today. Our borders are closed to non-citizens, we’re being told not to gather in groups of more than 500 outside/100 inside, ...2 weeks ago
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...2 days ago
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...5 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...1 week ago
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...17 hours ago
Pacific Media Watch Launched by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), “Tracker 19” is a tool made for an unprecedented global crisis. So named in reference not only to Covid-19 but also article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this project aims to evaluate the pandemic’s impacts on global ...16 mins ago
The Police Commissioner and the heads of Civil Defence and NZ Customs are fronting in the third Epidemic Response Committee meeting. ...19 mins ago
A recurring theme in contemporary literature is of the plague that appears suddenly from nowhere and takes hold of the world, destroying or severely damaging life in the process. In 2003 acclaimed author Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake was ...43 mins ago
The Covid-19 crisis in media has claimed NZ’s biggest magazine publisher, Bauer Media.Bauer Media NZ is closing its doors permanently and with immediate effect due to the severe economic impact of Covid-19, staff have just been told via a Zoom meeting.CEO Brendon Hill was emotional as he informed staff of ...48 mins ago
More than 40 million masks are on the way to help protect frontline health workers after weeks of confusion and fear about the supply of Covid-19 equipment. ...2 hours ago
Tempers fray in Italy, Spain as lockdown fatigue sets in; Trump reveals modelling of up to 240,000 US deaths; US stocks slump on death fears and awful factory output stats Death fears dominate: US President Donald Trump warned of up to 240,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the world's biggest economy, ...2 hours ago
Today marks a week in lockdown, with the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern praising most of NZ’s ‘amazing’ response. ...2 hours ago
Here come the discounted share issues; Kathmandu plans $315m rights issue at 51 percent discount; Rod Duke says 'no thanks'; Treasury hikes borrowing plan by $12b to $25b in two weeks; Pay cuts for Mediaworks and Fletcher staff Raising cash: In a move that is likely to be widely replicated in ...3 hours ago
Businesses in lockdown are looking to a previously little-considered clause in many commercial lease contracts which makes it legal to not pay some or all of their rent. For thousands of business landlords and tenants all over New Zealand, April 1 was crunch day. April Fools was the first commercial ...4 hours ago
Was an epidemiologist excoriated for going off script or not being on top of the literature? David Williams reports It wasn’t exactly flattening the curve. A scientific spat over Covid-19 reached peak contrarian yesterday thanks to the country’s contrarian in chief, Mike Hosking. Following his (Hosking: “Very good”) Stuff opinion ...5 hours ago
When we rethink our economy and how we support citizens, we must end the 19th Century bias against those in relationships, writes the University of Auckland's Susan St John It is vital that all new welfare policies to cushion the Covid-19 downturn are consistent with desirable reform principles. But to ...5 hours ago
Jill Herron speaks with two stranded Czech travellers whose working holiday is over but who, like thousands of other foreign nationals, have nowhere to go. Roman Cermak is worried about his mum who works as a nurse in the Czech Republic. He’s also worried about his elderly grandmother as his ...5 hours ago
In the days ahead we face a choice as a nation - to behave out of fear, or out of courage, writes Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod. Which will it be? Here’s a joke for our times: What should we do if we know the aliens are coming? Lower the interest rates. Perhaps ...5 hours ago
Having dealt with anxiety and body blows in her hockey career, Black Stick Rachel McCann has created a podcast that could help those struggling to find positivity in lockdown. During these long, monotonous and uncertain days of the Covid-19 lockdown, Black Stick Rachel McCann’s passion project could come into its own. ...5 hours ago
Anna Locker-Lampson is hoping against hope that the first readers and writers festival in Waipawa will go ahead. Between the Lines, the inaugural Readers and Writers Festival at Waipawa in the Central Hawkes Bay, is scheduled for July 23-26. We have yet to cancel. It’s with an undying optimism that ...5 hours ago
Pacific nations have rolled out strict responses to Covid-19, with several remaining Covid-19-free, Teuila Fuatai reports With no confirmed Covid-19 cases, Sāmoa is among several Pacific nations attempting to balance strict public health measures and regular activity. A two-week state of emergency, which reduced trading hours and public gatherings, is ...5 hours ago
Despite a surge in pre-lockdown adoptions, the SPCA is still housing plenty of animals and wondering what the future holds as families and owners feel the strain, reports Bonnie Sumner. When the national lockdown announcement was made on March 23, people began turning up to their local SPCA centre ...5 hours ago
Beyond the direct impacts on demography and genome, pandemics have had dramatic and far-reaching impact on human societies over history. What will be Covid-19's be? As governments around the world try to contain the pandemic of Covid-19, they often draw on experiences of past epidemics. The swift and (so far) successful ...5 hours ago
Under Covid-19, how our crime situations develop will depend heavily on how our institutions and societies respond, writes Professor Elizabeth Stanley We talk a lot about fear in criminology. More precisely, we reflect on how our political, legal, economic and socio-cultural systems create conditions in which we fear certain people ...5 hours ago
The Government must stamp out Covid-19 but also answer questions, writes David Williams OPINION: It’s a national emergency, almost all Kiwis are locked down, and all arms of government must work as hard as they can to find, stamp out and eradicate Covid-19. But that doesn’t absolve those taxpayer-paid bureaucrats and ...17 hours ago
With neither a bang nor barely a whimper, barely one week ago New Zealand put being a long established and respected Parliamentary democracy on hold to become a virtual Police state in the ongoing fight against Covid-19, writes Peter Dunne We have settled into a life regime more restrictive ...17 hours ago
Life and health insurers are trimming their policy offerings in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, because some risks linked to the virus are deemed too great. Partners Life founder and risk expert Naomi Ballantyne said it was important consumers knew what they were covered for, particularly if they were ...18 hours ago
The housing market continued to perform well through the pre-lockdown period, with properties in all 16 major centres growing in value for the fourth consecutive month. The QV House Price Index data rose 6.1 percent in the year to March, with the average house price rising to $728,276. However, last ...18 hours ago
Kathmandu has moved to strengthen its finances to counter the impact of the Covid-19 virus. The outdoors clothing retailer will raise $207 million through a sale of new shares, some of which will go to large investment funds, with the balance offered to existing shareholders. Group chief executive Xavier Simonet ...18 hours ago
The country's banks are likely to take a significant hit to their profits from the Covid-19 virus, according to a new report. Business advisory firm KPMG's latest quarterly Financial Institutions Performance Survey for the final three months of last year showed bank profits had already fallen nearly 7 percent, $1.1 ...18 hours ago
Anna Rawhiti-Connell's ode to Director-General Ashley Bloomfield - the balm for our furrowed brows When children ask me what I did during the great pandemic of the 2020s, I will tell them I participated in idolatry so egregious that the Golden Calf would’ve blushed a dusky shade of metallic rose. Every ...19 hours ago
Sports journalist Jim Kayes was a weekend host for the canned Radio Sport channel - and reckons its demise and cuts to sports reporting nationally can in part be put down to snobbery and neglect. It was never my plan to cover sport but a busted knee saw it happen. ...20 hours ago
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This weeks best quote:
[Gerald Celente in an interview with Sydney radio show talking about the election of the Syriza party and how it is portrayed in the media]
“So anytime there is a new party…you read the financial times for example, they look at the new party in Greece and they call them Left wing radical parties…Who are the people in power? How about status quo madmen criminals!”
cd someone plse rush/courier a special war-pimp-award to rawdon christie..
..in an interview with key..this fawning-fool was so jonesing for war..
..even key seemed embarrassed at this/his strident over-egging of the case for the inevitability’ of this fools-rush-in –
– to a war that has absolutely nothing to do with us..
..and which has no u.n.-mandate..(as just one of a list of reasons to stay away..)
..and a problem that should be solved by the regions oil-rich/armed-to-the-teeth regimes of corrupt-dictators..
..not us..
..rawdon christie was carrying on like he was humping keys’ leg all during the interview..
..it was quite unseemly..
Brillant description +1
They can both go and join their family at the frontline. Go!
Agents and actors pushing the paycheck agenda
Q. Why watch ?
i don’t ‘watch’ it..per se..
it mumbles away in the background..as i rush around the world hunting for interesting news-items..
..and i flick between that and three..using an aversion-impulse to dictate when that happens..
..(three has so so so much sport…and they just repeat the same stuff..over and over..
..one provides the mindless-pap..
..and too much of either sees me heading to the other..)
(..and i find ‘interesting’ things like this..)
“..’It’s always the hippies’ fault’: Why the left treats its idealists all wrong..
..While the right lionizes its idealists –
– the left blames and scoffs at its own..”
(cont..)
http://www.salon.com/2015/02/05/its_always_the_hippies_fault_why_the_left_treats_its_idealists_all_wrong/
(..and this one is fun/a laff..)
“..Find the #1 Song on the Day You Were Born..”
(ed:..mine is a vile piece of dreck ..
(cont..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/find-the-1-song-on-the-day-you-were-born/
Mine was nae so bad – A Hard Day’s Night by some minor Mop-Top Scouser group.
i dunno how i am going to break the news to my daughter..
..barry manilow..(!)..
“(ed:..mine is a vile piece of dreck ..”
Uptown funk – Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars, seeing how you analyse and post like you were born yesterday 😉
http://nztop40.co.nz/
Johnny Angel – nice
Couldn’t be happier
Get Back – band from my dads Liverpool, with Billy Preston. HappE daze
Heartbreak Hotel. I don’t mind that.
key is ‘tossin’ and turnin’..
..(make of that what you will..)
Again Key demeans New Zealand; on this latest occasion spittling Crosby Textor construct all over Waitangi Day. Waitangi Day blithely given up to nouveau riche gaucheness and the game ‘PMONZ crawls up POTUS’. Seems there is nothing, no institution, no convention, no standard of behaviour MrSelfieKey will not molest.
Well, this is interesting , even although C/T already have a big foot in the door here in NZ.
A Crosby/Textor Media Statement dated 4 February 2015, tweeted by Andrea Vance last night http://t.co/eyGHq9DeDy
As it is relatively short, here it is in full:
Kiri Hannifin and Jo de Joux today announced the formation of Hannifin de Joux, an integrated public affairs and campaign consultancy that will form a strategic partnership with CrosbyITextor Group in New Zealand.
The unique part of the Hannifin de Joux service is political, corporate and public sector campaign management.
CrosbyITextor is the world’s leading market research, strategic communications and campaign management agency. The company has offices in Australia, the UK, Italy and the UAE.
“Our collaboration with CrosbyITextor enables us to share their global best practice with local clients. It means we can provide our clients with sophisticated and targeted strategies based on the solid foundation of market research and insights,” says Ms de Joux.
The creation of political strategists Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor, the CrosbyITextor Group draws from an unrivalled bank of campaign experience and expertise to advise corporate clients, investors, industry associations and governments worldwide.
Ms Hannifin and Ms de Joux have extensive knowledge of New Zealand politics and strong track records providing advice across a range of issues at the highest levels of government and the public sector.
Jo de Joux is a seasoned campaigner, having managed four consecutive election campaigns for the New Zealand National Party.
Kiri Hannifin, a former political advisor to Helen Clark’s government, has been working in and around government for nearly 20 years in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
More information on Hannifin de Joux and CrosbyITextor can be found at http://www.hdj.co.nz and http://www.crosbytextor.com.
And the replies to date to Andrea Vance’s tweet of the media statement for your amusement https://twitter.com/avancenz/status/563244850829463552
Well Kiwi’s need to be persuaded that we need to go to war that is not mandated by the UN, hate Catton and intellectuals or actually anyone with a voice, get rid of (or even better NationalLite) Labour, Keep National in power, destroy Winston and Greens and Maori and Mana, keep Northland, Keep Herald and MSM in line, Keep Act and Peter Dunne afloat but with no power, make NZ part of the TPPA, sell assets off without anyone stopping it, Get Slater back inline, and the sleeze sites in business, try to resurrect Key and Collins careers and reputation, destroy the burgeoning left wing blogs and news sites like The Standard, TDB, No right turn etc, to have abolute control the media, keep investigative journalists silenced in NZ, deport Dotcom, make the police and SIS tow the National line, keep Jason Ede and Slater sedated against biting the hand that created them, etc
Be prepared, NZ is no longer an offshoot of Crosby/Textor OZ offices. Their slime trail around the Beehive is about to reach new levels…
Saying that all is not well in Abbot land too, maybe the slime has reached critical levels there as well…
Well said.
Is Jo de Joux related to Phil de Joux?
These links will answer your question, Incognito, but will probably give you more to worry about.
This is from November 2011by David Fisher.
“Key’s inner circle of advisers is headed by Joyce, who led National’s campaign in 2005 and 2008. The National Party’s campaign manager is Jo de Joux.
She had a strong role in the Mana byelection campaign last year, which gave rising National star Hekia Parata the chance to show her potential.
The links between the party machine and the Prime Minister’s inner sanctum are close. De Joux’s husband Phil is Key’s deputy chief of staff. His immediate boss is chief of staff Eagleson, who caused a stir last year when it emerged he was partying in Las Vegas with lobbyists. He has been a strategically important manager for Key.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10767258
Also worth reading from Otago Daily Times titiled “Is democracy under threat?” written by Bruce Munro on Sun, 18 May 2014
“Updated this month, the ”Approved visitor list to Parliament” has mushroomed from 25 people last year to 63 now.
The list of those given their own swipe card to enter Parliament without the usual security checks is heavily, but not exclusively, populated by professional paid lobbyists seeking to influence politicians to the point of view of their organisation or client.
Among those on the list are Business NZ chief executive Phil O’Reilly; Sky Television’s Tony O’Brien and Chris Major; Air New Zealand’s Phil de Joux, who used to be John Key’s deputy chief of staff; Anadarko’s Anita Ferguson, who was Steven Joyce’s press secretary; and Fonterra’s Nicola Willis, who was an adviser and speech-writer for Mr Key. There is also New Zealand Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly and secretary Peter Conway, and Food and Service Workers Union’s James Sleep.
Making up almost a third of the list are a group going by various job titles, including third-party lobbyists, public lawyers and government relations consultants. They include Saunders Unsworth’s Barry Saunders, Charles Finny and Mark Unsworth; SenateSHJ’s Scott Campbell; Silvereye’s Jo Coughlan, who was a press secretary to the National government’s minister of foreign affairs in the mid-1990s; Franks and Ogilvie’s Jordan Williams, who was spokesman for anti-MMP lobby group Vote for Change; and Webling Media’s Brent Webling, who was press director for former minister of justice Simon Power and whose clients include food industry lobby group the Food and Grocery Council.”
Ta. It is clear that they like to keep it ‘in the family’. So, we can fully expect more DP. Now all we’d need is a bit of Freed to top it off; I can’t wait.
Thanks for that anwer, TMM.
The current Approved Visitor List to Parliament on its website updated as of 11 November 2014 still includes both Jo and Phil de Jeux, with the organisation listing for Jo showing as NZ National Party and that for Phil as Air New Zealand.
So they both still seem to have free access to the Beehive.
Claire Trevett has a story in today’s Herald clearly designed to demote Andrew Little and put him down. But the comments following it are fascinating – they look to me like they’re 20 to 1 in favour of Andrew Little and telling CT to stop being such a Nat biased journalist. Here’s the link :
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11396754
Not a particularly well written article. Trevett seems to be reaching desperately and unreasonably to tie Little in to her treatise about flags and nationhood, but without success. You’re dead right about the comments, Jenny. It’s great that the readers can spot the weakness of the argument, rather than simply put their views on Little, Labour or flagwaving.
I’ve never rated her seriously, too flakey. The big political story is Key & the Police. Must buy the Sunday Star Times, I hear they have crunched a few details that don’t stack up surrounding Key’s handling of Sabin.
Next week Key will call on the services of snake oil Joyce during question time to try drag him out of the hole he has dug this week.
Yep! I reckon Key may have a bad dose of the flu shortly before question time which will sadly prevent him fronting up in person.
On TV3 news at 6pm there was a brief comment from Bush, that the police did not drop the ball when it came to informing the minister of police about Sabin. I assume it was Tolley, even though Woodhouse became minister of police early in October 2014.
How did Bush inform the minister of police?
A file
Verbally
When?
When a case is ongoing and there is a new minister of police.
Does Bush need to reinform his minister and keep them up to date, even though the commissioner is in charge of day to day operations?
I will be most interested to see how this plays out between the police and the government.
Note: I think Woodhouse was a cop.
Thanks Treetop. Tomorrow’s post!
I will look forward to your post.
Depending on who knew what and when, and Who did or did not inform whom and when, Who is telling the truth or who is lying, One or more of these characters in the short chain of command in this murky, dodgy, conflicted of interest involving possible political fraud on the country and very expensive saga has to be sacked or must resign:
Police commissioner or
Tolley or
Woodhouse or
Eagleson or
Key!
‘The Strange Case Of The Elusive Five Eyes’!
and we are all meant to believe that tolley didn’t tell key..?
..harawira joked that we cd have a general election soon..
Thanks for that Treetop. I was planning to bring it up too.
An interesting timeline mickysavage:
As far as we know, the police began the investigation early August 2014. However they would probably have known that an investigation was going to commence a few weeks in advance of that time. Let us say around mid July?
You will recall that both Cunliffe and Key took some time off prior to the start of the campaign – Cunliffe took a few days which greatly exercised the MSM, and Key took 10-12 days and flew to Hawaii. (Key’s overseas holiday didn’t bother the MSM at all – funny that.) The dates of Key’s holiday was between the 11th July and 21st July – 10 days.
So, is this what happened?
1) a senior police officer contacted Anne Tolley and gave her the heads up.
2) because Key was out of the country she passed the information on to Bill English or Steven Joyce – or both.
What happened after that we don’t know, but there is no way in a million years John Key was not informed by one or other – or both of them – as soon as he returned.
So, when Key claims that he knows other people knew about the investigation earlier but he was not informed until much later, he was actually referring to the earlier July/August time-span even though he knows everyone thinks he’s talking about the Nov/Dec period. He can then say he’s not lying with a straight face.
I mean he’s done it before! SIS-OIA -Slater-Key on holiday in Hawaii – I know nuffink… anyone?
@Anne:
Well, if English and/or Joyce received that serious information, but did not let Key know, then either one or both of those must be sacked or should resign immediately. There IS no excuse!
Correction, there is no evidence of Woodhouse being in the police. His background is accountancy, and health administration.
We might be meant to be reading this Trevett piece as satirical!
…Unless you are Labour leader Andrew Little. Little appeared to be taken by surprise when he was asked for his views on titular honours and the flag this week.
The week before, he had set out his determination to focus on big issues, not “small beer” issues.
He apparently felt it meant he could only ever bang on about jobs and houses.
She seems to be a jonolist talented at writing either satirical or farcical items! I fear that this one is from the farcical side. Sheesh. How did she get to be political editor or sub or deputy – do they pick Hairy’s ones from names in a hat?
Can’t readily identify as satirical or farcical Grey’. Guess I’ll go with farcical – as to writing/writer both. Satire does not flow from the pen of a jonolist whose raison d’etre is to fellate TheGodKey. We are well familiar if unimpressed with Trevett’s styles. Sloppy exhortations to sweat the small stuff are unintelligible. As you were Trevett.
I think it’s more likely to be irrumation by the GodKey that she’s hoping for.
I learnt two new words today :
Irrumation from you and Tetrapyloctomy from OAB.
Thanks. Hopefully irrumation does not sometimes result in tetrapyloctomy.
Claire Trevett can’t be as bad as that fucking idiot Paul Thomas. Every thing he writes is pro establishment inanity. I wrote a couple of replies to his latest piece of crap, to remind him that yes journalists and activists are mistreated pretty overtly in GodKeyZone. Nicky Hager, Bradley Ambrose, Jon Stephenson have been hassled by cops, spied on, and had stuff confiscated. Judith Collins and Cam Slater try to destroy careers of principals, teachers, and scientists who don’t toe the government line. Paula Bennett has no problem releasing personal details of beneficiaries who complain about government policy. National are a bunch of power abusing bullies, and any journalist with a brain and a conscience would recognise that.
Trevitt did exactly the same to Cunliffe early on in his leadership.
So the polls have been favourable about Little, “quick what can we focus on to make him look bad???? Oh yes knighthoods, etc, etc,”
She selectively pays attention to any detail, no matter how minor to attack the leader of the opposition and make him look incompetent.
That the Deputy Political Editor of the largest daily paper in NZ pays attention to issues that are red herrings (knighthoods, flags) when there are far more significant issues speaks volumes.
Trevitt is shameless writing on behalf of John Key and the National Party.
Yes Anker shameless for Hairy to call her Dep Ed, never Deep Throat! Just part of the Beehive Circus Troupe. Her role is to run up to a plank with Key on one end, jump on the other end, and fly him high into the air to a position of elevation for the delectation of the masses.
grey..trevett is as funny as a door-handle…
@pu
Is that why she got called a knob?
Trevitt has long been a shill for team key, she gets to go on Shonkeys junkets like the PR poodle she is.
Christie is even worse with his smugness and lickspittle behaviour.
What a pack of synophantic knobs they all are.
TC 100 +
‘
Yeah, typical Trevett. It does seem to highlight one thing: Little needs to be more aware of what’s going on around him and prepare for such questions. John Key has, for more than six months, been lying non-stop about sending troops into the Middle East. Now, after his trip to the UK for a little girl’s birthday party and a meeting with the “Five Eyes Club”, and especially since the arrival here of a top UK Tory, John Key is moments away from finally telling the truth: our soldiers are off the help kill Arabs. The MSM has been pumping out helpful horror stories with nightmare scenarios next to TINA solutions all provided by approved sources and designed to build tension as the sabre rattling reaches its crescendo. Of course useful idiots in the media like Trevett are going to be wandering around asking questions about nationalism and flags and colonial links to New Zealand’s English masters. That should have been obvious and prepared for, IMHO.
On the other hand, it does reveal something about Little which I find appealing: he is unable to spontaneously rattle off ambiguous political platitudes concerning matters he hasn’t properly considered. This, however, is a vital skill for a politician in today’s world. As much as I regret saying it, Little could do with some impromptu theatre training in order to provide the MSM soothing balm for feeding out to the sheeple.
Impromptu theatre training. Just the thing for pollies. Now they are on show so much with vids and paper and vid together. They have to think on their feet and keep the patter going and Labour needs to break through the gold curtain (not the iron one).
Also listening to some of the comedians talking about their start and experiences they would be good exemples and teachers, they know all about hecklers. I believe that the northern English working mens clubs are the pits. One comedian said they sit on their hands and look stonily at you with a ‘make me laugh then, I dare you’ hostility.
Hi Jenny- did you mean ‘denigrate Andrew Little’ rather than ‘demote Andrew Little’? I didn’t get the impression from Trevett’s article that she was trying to undermine him as Leader of the Labour Party. Or was that in fact your take on the article? I think Andrew Little is very secure as Leader.
To music4menz – yep – denigrate would have been a better word. I agree, Andrew Little is looking (and sounding) very good as Leader, and apparently the caucus has agreed “to draw a line under 2014” and get going again !
On the subject of this:
I’m certain I watched on 3 news a clip about Little’s speech about sovereignty and Key responding by saying sovereignty was ceded in 1840.
And now I can’t find it anywhere on the 3 news site.
Did anyone see it? Anyone got the clip?
nil desperandum carborundum!
http://www.fastcompany.com/3034895/strong-female-lead/the-one-word-men-never-see-in-their-performance-reviews
Will erase that word from the upcoming performance review round.
Stroppy staff, well directed, are the ones that broker the hard problems across difficult people. Need more of them.
By-and-large workers here prefer to lay down and be walked over than to stand up and fight. Announcements of workplace closures are more likely to be met with tears and counselling than with “No, we’re not accepting this shite”. It is like two generations have been enfeebled.
It doesn’t have to be like this. There are all kinds of ways of fighting back. Closure threats, for instance, can be met with occupations. Occupations challenge the property rights of bosses. Occupying means workers – the people who have created the new, expanded value from which profit comes – asserting their right to work. In effect, it is saying “We produce the wealth, we don’t recognise your ‘right’ to take away our jobs and income; given that you obviously can’t run the workplace, we will.” Occupations are a much more advanced form of struggle than strikes because, instead of just going home, or standing around outside the workplace, we are inside and running it.
Occupations become schools for workers’ control and workers’ management of workplaces and, if undertaken across the society, for a new form of society altogether. One in which those who produce the wealth own and control the means of production, along with developing new means of distribution and exchange.
Occupations help transform workers’ sense of their own capabilities and their political consciousness:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/when-workers-occupy/
Phil
Sounds good. Corporations need to have some sort of corporate and social responsibility. In the absence of that, there needs to be a way that makes it harder to just sack people and close plants down.
It is too easy for corporations to sack people on mass and they are doing it too often.
Those two forms of responsibility are mutually exclusive.
+1
Yes I thought the accepted norm was to say corporate and corruption. Why do people persist with such out of date modes of speech.
a useful resource for those wondering just who the bastards are..
“..There are now 2,089 billionaires in the world: This is who they are, where they live – and how they made their fortunes..
..Annual Hurun Global Rich List now gives all the world’s richest people a score-
– for how ‘self-made’ they are..”
(cont..)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/there-are-now-2089-billionaires-in-the-world-this-is-who-they-are-where-they-live–and-how-they-made-their-fortunes-10026128.html
From your link, I found this list of 10 jobs in Britain that make people scared to go back to work.
1. Media and publishing (86 per cent)
2. Marketing, advertising and PR (80 per cent)
3. Creative arts and design (75 per cent)
4. Teaching and education (71 per cent)
5. Science and Pharmaceuticals (69 per cent)
6. Information Technology (63 per cent)
7. Property and Construction (62 per cent)
8. Health and Social Care (62 per cent)
9. Accounting, banking and finance (60 per cent)
10. Recruitment and HR (59 per cent)
I found the list interesting. While numbers 1 to 4 seem understandable, others seem a little intriguing/unexpected.
In New Zealand I reckon it’s top 3
1. Media Advisor to Labour Party
2. Labour MP
3. Labour Party spin doctor.
The nasty bull shit buggers are in your crooked National party, you idiot!
Have you read the Dirty Politics book yet?
http://www.craigpotton.co.nz/store/dirty-politics
How is the management of the Sabin scandal and Key’s relentless litany of laughable lousy lies going? Any more to come?
Calm down Princess. The election result should have shown you that few gave a toss about Hagar and his criminal use of stolen information. The latest polls seem to confirm it, so save your tantrums, you’ll do yourself a mischief.
@ Real blue “Calm down Princess”.
Cut the crap and your biggety blue balderdash and tell us WHEN did Key REALLY get to know about the police investigation of Sabin?…2011? April 2014? Before the election or Only on 1st Dec? Time for Key and the ‘Real’ blue team to come clean and fess up honestly to the country. Don’t you think so, Real blue?
@ Clem
All sides in the political landscape are controlled
People want to believe the system is for changing but it’s not
saveNZ I assume that you understand the difference between sack and make redundant. There is a big difference.
“Closure threats, for instance, can be met with occupations. Occupations challenge the property rights of bosses. Occupying means workers – the people who have created the new, expanded value from which profit comes – asserting their right to work. In effect, it is saying “We produce the wealth, we don’t recognise your ‘right’ to take away our jobs and income”
Hilarious.
Of course most corporations choose to close businesses when there is wealth being created. /sarc
Since NZ is full of SME’s. Lets use a local example.
You own a coffee shop, all is going well until a new, better one opens down the road.
You have everything you own in this business, you invested 250k in the fitout of the place, which you borrowed, and you signed a 10 year lease on the building as you thought it a great location. Because you are a new business and not a franchise you had to personally guarantee the lease (Not uncommon). say there is a 6 month guarantee.
But now revenue / profits have tanked. You are working there 7 days a week, but you simply cannot afford to keep the business running – its costing you and every week you are further into a financial hole.
So you sadly decide to close. You owe 000’s and have nothing to show for it. You also are without a job.
But, no – the ‘workers’ decide they have a right for that job and that wage. So occupy the store and decide to run it. quote: “given that you obviously can’t run the workplace, we will.”
So – How exactly do they pay for the rent, materials etc – you cannot put it on the owners account – he has closed accounts with suppliers. You have no legal right to be there, you are using equipment that is not owned by you. Who is responsible to pay the wages, PAYE, ACC, Kiwisaver, suppliers when there is a shortfall?
In short your entire solution is ridiculous.
Try reading the material about the factory occupation at Vio.me in Thessaloniki; you might learn something.
Phil
hi james, a few things potentially come to mind.
when the business is taken over by the workers (shall we say 10 employees, part and full time), under a different business model (shall we say cooperative), novelty will engender enthusiasm and loyalty.
eg rather than the previous boss buying lemons for $4-$6 a kilo, the kitchen hands parents donate the lemons.
a surplus table is started where people bring their surplus produce fruit and veges in to share. this prompts a local school to set up a vege garden and donates the salad leaves three times a week.
the chefs sister in law is a bookkeepper (i love that word ookkee), she takes on the books for gratis.
the second chefs mum wants to be part of the action and does the laundry for nothing.
…..
i would heartily reccomend looking up the moosewood kitchen for an example of getting part of the way to what i describe.
hope this helps bro.
i am now off to cook for people who want to go out to just the business you describe.
cheers.
Thats all very well and good. But what about the BIG items that you miss?
Who has the responsibility to pay the rent / wages / acc / kiwi saver etc if there is not a profit at the end of the week?
What about the money to pay for the items that are not donated?
Who pays for the equipment that is not owned by the “workers” who are occupying?
Takes more than donated lemons – but that is a problem with ideas like this that sound great until you look at any of the detail?
The point is – this approach is working in other parts of the world.
And if the business still fails, it is not without passing on some new skills and benefits to the unemployed workers.
James has got a panic pulse going that workers are figuring out that they don’t need marching orders from business owners, and that these businesses can be run better democratically, not as dictatorships.
+1
Whats your situation CR?
Are you a worker? If so, are you planning to start a worker run business?
Why are you demanding to know if anyone is a worker?
Do you run your pseudo healthcare business as a democracy?
The government steps in and buys the building and declares that the taxes that the businesses pay is enough to cover basic maintenance. This gets rid of the rentiers that are destroying businesses through their greed.
The equipment is leased, or second hand, donated.
And they could read the part of Maeve Binchys Scarlet Feather where the young chefs are working to get a business going and then suffer malicious damage and burglary. How they get out of it successfully after a meeting of decision where all committed because they had personal goals that could be met by the business succeeding.
Actually I will put it in even more simple terms…
First month of occupation…
Revenue is $7.5k
Outgoings $10k
Who pays the missing $2.5k?
The workers and their families have come up with $50K to recapitalise the business, no sweat. Not only that, the worker-owners have agreed to all accept the minimum wage for the first 3 months until their turn around plans take effect.
Outgoings are lower than the $10K you state because the rent break which was negotiated, is in effect.
So why is the cafe unsuccessful? The main thing I see about the story is that another cafe opened up nearby. But isn’t that normal for cafes to open in areas where there are other cafes?
“…rather than the previous boss buying lemons for $4-$6 a kilo, the kitchen hands parents donate the lemons.”
LOL! That is classic and just goes to show the mentality of some on the left. Scale that thinking up to a Steel mill. Perhaps the workers parents could donate some scrap metal for them to smelt.
This is predicated on the false assumption of the far Left that everyone is entitled to a job. That assumption in turn means that employers have a duty to provide jobs. Nonsense. that’s simply not how the world works.
i can understand rights such as Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness but there is no such thing as a Right to a Job.
Article 23 of the UDoHR, which New Zealand has signed and has already set precedent in our courts, says you haven’t the first idea what you’re talking about.
It’s right there in black and white:
Article 23: Fisiani’s ignorance is limitless.
Let me quote you article 23 read it carefully.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
I am correct. Everyone has a right to work and seek work. Of course they do. I never claimed that. No one has a right to a JOB. Do you not know the difference?
Tetrapyloctomy, sweety.
I accept your hirsute pedantic apology.
hi gosman, i will leave the steel mill to someone with relevant experience.
reading thru the comments i am coming to the conclusion that the naysayers have decided it cant happen and want to shoot any idea to bits.
what dreary company.
i would rather work towards making something happen using the skills, talents, and imagination of enthused company.
has it occurred to y’all that profit could be measured in a myriad of non-financial ways.
i have come to know when there is a will there is a way.
also has any of you naysayers checked out the moosewood kitchen example?
Having worked in a poorly run steel mill (with scars to prove it), where a few blokes have been killed, I have to say that
a) gosman is a [expletive deleted]
b) workers couldn’t run it any worse than the previous bunch
c) it’s now gone out of business, mercifully.
James, apart from being a dick
(Seriously, who signs a 10 year lease nowadays – are you fucking mad?)
1) The workers and their families pool together $50K to recapitalise the business
2) They pick up the commercial kitchen and equipment for a tiny fraction of their original cost
3) A state bank offers them 1% pa financing because they are starting a workers co-operative
4) The lease is renegotiated with the landlord, including a 3 month rent free period.
5) Suppliers are more than happy to open accounts for the new business as the worker-owners are happy to pay on 7 day credit terms for the first year of business.
6) The workers and their families turn the place into a fun, family, foody place to hang out, far more social than the corporate cafe down the road.
Rather than sit around waiting for the current business that employs them to go broke, why don’t the workers just start their own cafe anyway?
Why is this not already happening on a wide scale?
Have some of you here who are promoting the benefits of worker control actually been involved in a successful example of such a initiative?
If not, when are you going to do so?
As you are arguing, the benefits are obvious?
IMO, because people have been conditioned into believing that they need to work for others rather than working with others. This is compounded by our atomised society making it difficult to find people of like mind to work with and other difficulties.
How about you ask these guys?
All looks good Draco, there is help available then.
And interesting to see the link to the UN report that rates NZ as already the number one on the co-operative economy index, and links that to the fact that we are also number one in the Social Progress Index…
But I don’t agree at all that NZ workers are ‘conditioned’ and this prevents them starting their own businesses / Co-ops.
Are you a worker Draco? Would you say that of yourself?
How many other workers here would say that they have been rendered psychologically incapable of doing anything else than be a serf?
“And interesting to see the link to the UN report that rates NZ as already the number one on the co-operative economy index,”
Is that something to do with Fonterra?
If the govt put the same degree of infrastructure and support into worker co-ops as it does other business models, I think more workers would be in to it. As it is, most people wouldn’t know how to go about this.
What resources are available to non-cooperatives that co-operative run businesses cannot access?
I am not aware of aware any govt. infrastructure and support that is not available to businesses merely on the basis they have co-operative ownership Weka?
And there are vast amounts of information, support, assistance, and mentoring available to new business, from both Govt. and Private sector.
The internet age has made that all so much more readily available than ever before.
There is no reason at all why capable workers should not be able to easily shift to ownership of their own labour through a number of business models.
Come on, those of you workers who back your ability to run a business at least as well as the boss who is currently making profit out of your labour should just do so.
I’ve seen this concept raised so many times as a positive theory on this blog, I’d love to see someone posting a concrete example of it happening in the real world.
Of all the ways to ‘revolution’ I can think of, large scale worker control of business would be the most realistic and practical form of it?
There are lots of co-operative models that have no problem taking advantage of the infrastructure in place in NZ. Fonterra is a good example. Partnerships are similar in concept to co-operatives and again they seem to have no problem. I think th left just likes to put obstacles in the way that they can blame on someone else so they don’t have to actually do anything substantive. Keep belly aching that it is the fault of the nasty 1%.
🙄
That would explain why per capita GDP is always higher under Labour led govts in NZ, the books always balance, and incomes rise faster.
Please try and not be so full of shit, Gosman.
LOL
Fonterra had specific laws passed for it so that farmers could operate as a guild which is illegal for anyone else.
Need to identify the obstacles so that they can be effectively removed.
Gosman and lost sheep, can you please find the sections on worker cooperatives in the following govt run business support websites? I’ve looked and can’t find them.
http://www.business.govt.nz/
http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/individuals/brochures/start-your-own-business.html
It was the realisation of that conditioning within myself that allowed me to identify it. It was the get an education, get a job rhetoric that I got from my parents and others that led to it. I’ve seen and heard similar at university and polytechnics. It’s subtle and I suspect that most people don’t even realise that that’s what they’re doing but it’s most definitely there.
Probably not many, there’s very few people who are as introspective as I am.
And do remember that it’s not the only barrier either. Getting ahead requires access to resources and a large number of people don’t have that access.
I appreciate the honesty of that reply Draco, and agree completely with your comments on the subtlety of social pressure.
I forget who said it, but there is a quote that goes something like ‘the most difficult part of obtaining freedom is coming to believe that you have the right and the power to claim it’.
It was John Galt.
heh..!
Actually, according to Google, no said it.
couldnt agree more draco.
every thursday night at scouts this is demonstrated to the youth.
we are far more effective when we cooperate than when we compete.
i suppose this gives a tory the chance to spit ‘communist’.
In addition to draco’s conditioning argument, the other point is that the workers are intimately acquainted with the problems and issues of that cafe. They know the customer base and they have all the data they need to optimise the layout and routines of that kitchen, simply because they’ve put in, if you will, several months or years of workplace dynamics research on that specific site.
They might not have agreement on what the right location for another cafe is, but they know how to adapt that cafe to its current market location.
Set up a competiting café up near by . It will be trying to attract the same customers.
Alternatively they can choose to buy out the existing owner. If the business was really doing that badly then the owner is most likely open to getting out quickly and they can pick up the equipment cheaply. Not as cheaply as stealing them by occupying the place admittedly but they will be doing the moral and legal right thing.
🙄
“most likely”.
More weasel words.
Because someone who can’t adapt their business to the changing environment is never in denial about it /sarc
So how about you McFlock. Are you a worker?
If so, would you actively seek to own your own business or help form a co-op to start or take one over?
Are you for real, Sheep? You think something gives you the right to pry into people’s occupations as though that will what? What exactly are you trying to say?
That the left has no business experience? That worker owned co-operatives don’t exist? That you have to jump through hoops for Sheep before you’re qualified to make observations?
You know what, it looks like a zombie, it shuffles like a zombie, and it moans like a zombie. Looks like it eats Sheep’s brains too.
Doesn’t describe me. I worked in, managed, started, and built businesses my entire life apart from a few stints at university, time in the army, and a year as a farmhand. One of those uni stints was getting a MBA (ie a master of business administration) at Otago.
As an intelligent person of business (ie not a sheeple like some of the blowhards I see from the right) I am always acutely aware of just how much businesses depend on the government built and operated infrastructure that no business interested in making a profit would run in a way that benefits its society in the long term.
That government input is required for everything from having a working legal system to having available skilled employees to useable roads. I’m also aware how much that modern economies depend on having a lot of well paid employees who then power economies. Having people marginalised and not used to the extent of their abilities because some rent-takers and crony capitalists find it convenient is simply daft and short-sighted.
Having a feudal style of politics and economy (in the way that the USA is rapidly heading) with wealthy parents sucking tithes off the poor and pumping it into advantaging their own children isn’t the way to help anyone apart from a few mindless knucklehead kids.
That is the end point of the process that I usually what I see unthinking fools like The Lost Sheep advocating. Of course they never seem to take the time to think it through.
Sorry LPrent, what specific process did I advocate without thinking?
Spare me the mock outrage about privacy OAB.
FFS it is an anonymous blog where no one is under any compulsion to answer anything!
What I am saying is very clear.
Many on times on this blog, and in the real world, I have heard people advocating the benefits of worker control of business.
I agree completely with that concept, having done so myself, and given that it is so easy to run a business, I genuinely do not understand why many more workers do not take that step themselves.
This being a worker oriented blog, I thought at least I’d get a little bit of positive feedback by advocating that this is a very practical and possible initiative workers can take to regain control of their productive effort.
And the problem with saying all that is?
Where are your grounds for believing that, in your words, “many more workers do not take that step”?
The fact is they do. Which renders your entire argument moot, or deliberate mendacity.
Who can tell?
From reading this blog OAB, I got the impression that there was a general agreement that the current economic situation was heavily dominated by Capitalists who exploited workers labour?
And many workers are not happy with that situation, and, there is a general agreement here that workers would be perfectly capable of running businesses successfully themselves?
Have I got it right so far?
So by that definition, not nearly enough businesses are under ‘worker’ control.
And so to follow the logic through…..it being entirely possible for more workers to take control of their own productive effort – they should do so.
FFS. I’m on a so called ‘workers’ blog, advocating workers wresting control of their own lives from capitalists, and some of the workers champions are finding that offensive?
No paranoia here then.
No, you haven’t got it right so far.
Working for giant corporations really sucks if you are just a replaceable cog in the machine. But if you’re seen as a valued asset it is completely different. Management can get away with treating people like crap in times of job scarcity, weak unions, and skewed labour laws.
After a decade of working for others, for wages well below market rates, and in jobs far below my capabilities, my self confidence was at a low ebb. After a bit of encouragement from someone who could see what was happening, I started working freelance and it’s been 100% better in every way (except having to do my own taxes).
Your weakest reply yet OAB
lost sheep I just gave you an example of why “more people don’t work for themselves”. It’s a matter of experience, education, and confidence.
But for people in less-skilled segments of the labour market it is better to join a union to improve their bargaining power. And the best thing for such workers is to have a voice in the board room.
Why is that a relevant response to my comment? Does my employment status in some way affect whether or not my comment was realistic?
If you can reasonably demonstrate the relevance and good-faith purpose behind your request that I share personal details, I will answer your question.
Here’s an idea. Instead of stealing someone elses property maybe the workers could have pooled their resources together in the first place and set up their own business.
Here’s an idea. Instead of stealing the surplus value from others’ labour, maybe the owner could buy some slaves?
hi ropata im back from work, did i miss anything?
having a life, perhaps?
no fears there, i have an enviable life/work balance.
Gossie, creative destruction is an integral part of capitalism. So is seizing opportunity when opportunity arises.
Surely you haven’t already forgotten that hanging out with us socialists, have you?
‘
So, John Key is about to send New Zealanders off to participate in the unlimited slaughter of innocents on behalf of US corporate interests. Unlimited because there is no exit plan. Slaughter because that’s what war is. And innocents because, well, they just get in the way of John Key’s simpering lick-spittle acquiescent colonial cringe. Fingers crossed John Key doesn’t have to deal with anything too complicated when the body bags start coming home.
I don’t think he’s doing it on behalf of US corporate interests. He’s doing it on behalf of *NZ capitalist interests*. Just like Helen Clark sent a contingent from the NZ Army to Iraq in time to meet the deadline for NZ companies to bid on ‘reconstruction’ contracts.
The NZ government represents the interests of NZ capital. Usually those interests coincide with those of US capital, but not always. And when they don’t, NZ doesn’t join in.
Actually, NZ capital is especially aggressive. In the late 1800s NZ was called “The Prussia of the South Pacific”. It was always trying to grab this or that island. Nothing whatever to do with the US or Britain. In fact, NZ capital was so aggressive that the Brits had to restrain it from time to time.
During WW, NZ did manage to invade and take over (western) Samoa and what a horror story that was.
See: Samoa – what New Zealand did: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/samoa-what-new-zealand-did/
The left in this country is, in my view, far too nationalist. We always blame someone else – like America – when actually the problem is often our own ruling class. It’s them we have to fight first and foremost.
Phil
I don’t think he’s doing it on behalf of US corporate interests. He’s doing it on behalf of *NZ capitalist interests*. Just like Helen Clark sent a contingent from the NZ Army to Iraq in time to meet the deadline for NZ companies to bid on ‘reconstruction’ contracts.
The NZ government represents the interests of NZ capital. Usually those interests coincide with those of US capital, but not always. And when they don’t, NZ doesn’t join in.
Actually, NZ capital is especially aggressive. In the late 1800s NZ was called “The Prussia of the South Pacific”. It was always trying to grab this or that island. Nothing whatever to do with the US or Britain. In fact, NZ capital was so aggressive that the Brits had to restrain it from time to time.
During WW1, NZ did manage to invade and take over (western) Samoa and what a horror story that was.
See: Samoa – what New Zealand did: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/samoa-what-new-zealand-did/
The left in this country is, in my view, far too nationalist. We always blame someone else – like America – when actually the problem is often our own ruling class. It’s them we have to fight first and foremost.
Phil
‘
Fair nuff – but – what is the difference between NZ capitalist interests and US corporate interests?
Yes, I am aware of what New Zealand did to Samoa. shame on us. And yes again: I agree that the working class in New Zealand has a staunch, if somewhat myopic, nationalism about it. Nothing wrong with maintaining a strong emotional attachment to New Zealand and being ready to fight on its behalf but, as you suggest, its wise that we know exactly who the enemy is and what the battle is really all about, Without a rational approach to counter the myopia, emotions are far too easily stirred up by whomever is paying the Crosby/Textors of this world. Those sorts of New Zealanders in our midst far prefer to see the working classes in different nations fighting amongst themselves while each country’s treasury and resources are looted.
Nice web site, by the way. While somewhat familiar with some Marxist terms I’m feeling the need to get a better grasp of his work. Got a “Dummies Guide To” link at all?
QFT
It’s important that progressive people in New Zealand gain familiarity with the background in Syria and Iraq in order to organise effectively against NZ state intervention in this part of the world.
To help, we’ve put up links to all our material on Redline about Syria. It can be accessed through: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/on-syria/
Phil
Thanks, Phil. I’m going to go through your posts when I have a bit of quiet time in the evening.
After watching Years of Living Dangerously, a good, but in parts flawed look at climate change, I was interested in Thomas Friedman’s segments regarding the impact the Syrian drought (2007-2010) had on creating the conditions for unrest. A few of the episodes interviewed Syrian rebels that were essentially traditional farmers, who were unable to provide for their families because the drought had made their generationally farmed land arid. The government ignored their calls for assistance.
There is a good brief article on his website Wikileaks, drought and Syria.
I will admit very scant knowledge of the ongoing Syria conflict, but if being unable to provide for your family is why so many got involved, I can understand that compulsion.
Labour puts up a cordon of black-suited thugs to block out protest sign.
Do they think this is the way to protect Andrew Little?
Waitangi, 6 February 2015
On television this morning, Labour leader Andrew Little was being interviewed. As all too often, sadly, his words were vague and fairly confused: he failed to condemn John Key’s disgraceful and inappropriate misuse of his Waitangi platform to push for New Zealand to join in the “fight against ISIS”. Instead of saying something principled and intelligent, Little babbled about “effectiveness” and lack of mission clarity. He could have mentioned the fact that the U.S. and U.K. governments have armed and rhetorically supported ISIS in its murderous insurrection in Syria, that New Zealand has endorsed all of this bloody dealing, and that stopping THAT support would be the most immediately effective means of combating ISIS.
While Little droned on, behind him, protestors were holding up a sign that read “MAORI SOVEREIGNTY IS GOOD FOR ALL NZERS”. I know that’s what it read, but viewers watching this morning’s interview were prevented from reading the words because a phalanx of black-suited thugs deliberately stood in front of the sign.
I could identify one of the thugs: it was Palmerston North’s undistinguished M.P. Iain Lees-Galloway. I don’t know if the other thugs were Labour Party apparatchiki, but I strongly suspect they were.
A couple of women, clearly frustrated and disgusted at Lees-Galloway and his fellow censors, were politely remonstrating with them, and perhaps asking the police to move them away. No matter how polite they were, the police did nothing.
Why is the Labour Party trying to block democratic, peaceful protestors?
And why don’t the television crews simply walk past the likes of Lees-Galloway and his black-suited mafia lookalikes and interview the protestors?
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/waitangi-live-little-wants-explore-maori-self-governance-6228885
Little’s interview in that link is clear and useful. Can’t see the problem.
Can’t see the problem.
That is the problem, sadly. If you know nothing about what the United States has been doing in Syria for the last three years, then you will not be aware of the hypocrisy of Key’s words yesterday, or of the failure of Little to put that hypocrisy into any kind of context.
If you do a little reading, weka, and actually school yourself up on the situation, you WILL see a problem with what Little said, and with what he failed to say.
Actually, make that a LOT of reading.
Little isn’t talking about Syria or the US or FJK, or anything other than Māori sovereignty and that NZ needs to look at self-governance in the context of modern nation stated. Not a blacksuit or protestor in sight.
Which leaves us with a bunch of slurs from whatever it is you saw that you haven’t linked to. As TRP points out below, you are notoriously uneven in your accuracy, so your comment just came across as pretty useless for anything other than demonstrating what you think of Little and a Labour MP.
Maybe instead of being a patronising fuckwit you could do some research of your own.
1.) Little isn’t talking about Syria or the US or FJK, or anything other than Māori sovereignty….
The link I provided is not that clear, sorry. Here’s one from an interview he did on RadioLive this morning….
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/AUDIO-Andrew-Little-on-Waitangi-day-and-ISIS/tabid/506/articleID/70576/Default.aspx
Little DID talk about ISIS this morning, even though he failed to say anything that made much sense about it. And you’re quite right—he did not talk about Syria. That’s the problem—he’s too frightened to state the glaringly obvious, because the government would immediately whip up an hysterical political firestorm about how Labour supports Assad.
2.) Not a blacksuit or protestor in sight.
The blacksuits were in sight this morning for anyone watching television, as Little droned on confusedly about why it’s maybe not a good idea to get into the “fight against ISIS.” The protestors were pretty much blocked out by the blacksuits.
3.) Which leaves us with a bunch of slurs from whatever it is you saw that you haven’t linked to.
I reported factually about the deliberate blocking off of peaceful protestors in a public forum, by a cordon of Labour Party men. The only possible “slur” in my reporting was my labeling of Lees-Galloway and his cronies as “thugs”. If they are were not behaving as thugs, what word would YOU use to describe people who deliberately stand in front of peaceful protestors in a public space?
4.) As TRP points out below, you are notoriously uneven in your accuracy, so your comment just came across as pretty useless for anything other than demonstrating what you think of Little and a Labour MP.
Could you cite an example of my being inaccurate, let alone “notoriously” inaccurate on this or any other forum? I described exactly what Lees-Galloway and some other men did to block off some peaceful, silent protestors this morning. Are you trying to say they did not do that? You might disagree with my interpretation of what Lees-Galloway and his cronies did; I think their behaviour was sinister and profoundly anti-democratic, whereas you evidently think it’s acceptable for a political party to use people to shut down law-abiding protestors. I obviously don’t approve of such anti-democratic behaviour, but my description of the action was perfectly true. Not according to YOU, however. So please tell us: how exactly was my report of Lees-Galloway’s actions “uneven in accuracy”?
By the way, my friend, here’s a little advice: on this blog, starting a sentence with the formula “As TRP points out” is a sure-fire way to instantly discredit oneself. Your co-opting of our favorite Party apparatchik is about the funniest mis-step since…. well, since THIS howler, when a bloke cites Winston Peters to bolster his case….
“could you cite a case of me being inaccurate…?”
Comedy gold!
So can you?
Thought not.
Ha ha ha, keep ’em coming, Moz, this is quality stuff! We’ve really gotta get you on the telly. I’m thinking a sitcom, maybe a monkey sidekick? All we need is a catchphrase and a title. The rest just writes itself.
So you have nothing. As usual.
ffs, you do a rant, and provide a link that doesn’t show anything of what you are ranting about. A few people point out that you’re not making sense. You ignore this and continue with the rant. And now you want to claim you were being accurate?
“The link I provided is not that clear, sorry.”
No. The link is perfectly clear, it’s Andrew Little talking about Māori sovereignty. What isn’t clear is your post, and subsequent comments when you already knew the link didn’t match your story.
You’ve been called many times on how you write up the ‘transcripts’ off things like RNZ, so don’t make out you are not aware of this reputation.
At this point in the conversation I don’t give a shit about your views on Little and Lees Galoway, because you’ve demonstrated that what’s important is your view rather than communicating what happened with accuracy or respect for the people reading here. By all means keep justifying and defending, but your original comment is full of slurs, not just one slur but many. That wouldn’t be so bad (this is ts after all), but there is nothing in your comment that has substance beyond “I don’t like what Little and LG just did”.
“If they are were not behaving as thugs, what word would YOU use to describe people who deliberately stand in front of peaceful protestors in a public space?”
I don’t know, because I have no fucking idea what you are talking about. All it’s assertion, done badly, and with so mych ego shit in it it’s too hard to see what’s real. Up your game, mate. You’re better than this and IMO Waitangi Day is not the day to do this shit.
1.) ffs, you do a rant
I described, clearly and unambiguously, the anti-democratic actions carried out by Andrew Little’s self-styled security corps. I labeled those fellows “thugs”, which you might disagree with—but I see you have not come up with any better description of them.
Little DID talk—foggily—about ISIS and our response to the “threat” it poses. You can pretend he didn’t if you like—it’s your credibility on the line.
2.) You’ve been called many times on how you write up the ‘transcripts’ off things like RNZ, so don’t make out you are not aware of this reputation.
This has been done to death many times on this forum. Yes, sometimes I’ll miss out something from one of my rush transcripts, and sometimes I might emphasise the stupidity and inarticulateness of, say, Hekia Parata, a little too much for some people’s liking. But inevitably, those objections have been shown to be politically motivated—the shenanigans started with poor old Lanthanide, who objected to my transcripts because they showed up the moral idiocy of not only a bewildered politician, but also of his own thinking…..
Others to jump on the “inaccurate transcripts” bandwagon were such nasty and disreputable customers as McFlock, Populuxe and of course Te Reo Putake, formerly known as The Voice of Reason. In every case, the “inaccurate transcripts” line was used as a way to attack me in the absence of their being able to muster a convincing argument against me. Their absurd and wildly exaggerated shouting about the “inaccuracy” of my transcripts started almost as soon as I started to post up stories about the U.K. regime’s persecution of Julian Assange—articles by people like Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Daniel Ellsberg. My posting of those articles enraged McFlock, Populuxe and Te Reo Putake, because they contradicted and thereby exposed their own credulity and viciousness in that shameful matter.
Of course, I like everyone else make mistakes—this morning’s dud link for the Andrew Little interview is a case in point. However, to magnify and absurdly jump up and down about the odd missed word, as Te Reo and his chums have done consistently, is neither fair nor reasonable.
3.) …IMO Waitangi Day is not the day to do this shit.
So ordinary citizens should not say anything on Waitangi Day. I presume, then, that you are also opposed to Andrew Little and John Key talking about anything on Waitangi Day?
Not even going to bother reading that. If you won’t listen to what other people are saying, then there is no point. I read your first comment, followed the link and there was nothing in that video that matched what you are claiming. All the mess that has followed is a consequence of you thinking your views are more important than communicating effectively. If you had stopped and listened to what TRP and myself had said, you could have clarified and relinked. But instead you are just reposting the same old shit.
lol – nice to know I’m still loved.
Did you invent a “transcript” again, moz?
To be fair to poor, bewildered Moz, he presumably saw an earlier clip than the one that is in the link. But he is wrong to characterise the Labour MP’s as thugs and Winston also told them the ‘protesters’ to do one. The one photo I’ve seen seems to show middle class pakeha holding the banner, so probably not all that authentic anyway.
…poor, bewildered Moz
I described something—a cordon of black-suited men blocking off a protest sign—that no one can dispute happened. Could you explain your use of the prejudicial epithet “bewildered” please?
But he is wrong to characterise the Labour MP’s as thugs
They were deliberately blocking off a sign held by peaceful protestors. They are anti-democratic thugs.
…and Winston also told them the ‘protesters’ to do one.
Winston Peters! And John Ansell! And Allen Titford! And Matthew Hooton! And Blubberguts Slater!
The one photo I’ve seen seems to show middle class pakeha holding the banner, so probably not all that authentic anyway.
I neither stated nor implied that the protestors were Māori. Is it Labour policy now that only Māori are “authentic”?
Poor Moz, life really is passing you by, isn’t it? I’m not Labour, bud, and I can laugh at middle class tossers trying to keep the spirit of Rick from the Young Ones alive whenever I feel like it.
Ps, this morning’s word ‘o’ the day is hyperbole. Look it up if you have time.
(Me, I don’t have any more time. Off to Wembley Park, Whanganui to huff and puff around the football field in the NZ Masters. Wish me luck Standardistas, I’ll need it!)
Poor Moz, life really is passing you by, isn’t it?
And there’s that trademark abuse again! As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, this does nothing for your credibility, my friend.
“and I can laugh at middle class tossers trying to keep the spirit of Rick from the Young Ones alive whenever I feel like it.”
Me too. Among the nuggets of informed opinion, The standard gives me a daily dose of guffaws and chortles, though I doubt very many are middle class, in fact, some are quite classless if you know what I mean.
Thanks for the link Morrissey, great stuff Andrew, thoughtful, talking about complex issues is not easy in a “soundbite driven media society”
The trouble is: Andrew Little did not talk about the issues, he avoided them. He is mealy-mouthed and afraid to speak plainly. It’s an on-going problem with Labour leaders, I’m afraid.
Wow. Labour leader fail to consult notoriously innacurate blog poster before speaking to media. So that’s where we’ve been going wrong these last few years. I’ve let McCarten know and no doubt he’ll be in touch pronto, Moz. Stand by your phone!
….notoriously innacurate blog poster
How is what I described at all inaccurate? Did Lees-Galloway and others in black suits deliberately block out that protest sign or not?
You have recently, I note, been taken to task by Paul over your strategy of launching into demeaning personal attacks. It’s an unpleasant habit that does nothing to enhance your credibility.
Ha, nice backtracking. This morning they were thugs, now they’re merely blocking the view. 🙄
“Backtracking”? Everything you say is couched in the most demeaning and negative fashion possible. I conceded that the word “thug” is a value-laden term. I think it is appropriate for people who illegally block the right of peaceful protestors to hold up a sign, but some people might disagree with that.
I do not “backtrack” or resile from what I wrote this morning: it is quite clear and beyond refutation what Lees-Galloway and his cronies—yes, that’s another value-laden word—were up to.
What do YOU call people who illegally stop citizens from protesting in a public place?
Woah, wait a minute,
“What do YOU call people who illegally stop citizens from protesting in a public place?”
and you have used the term “illegally” a few other times when referring to this incident.
How does being ‘blocked’ from view during an on camera interview suddenly equate to people being “illegally” stopped from protesting?
Were the protesters you referred to manhandled away?
Were they evicted from the grounds of Waitangi?
Or did some suits simply stand between them and the camera?
Rude, certainly, but illegal?
At /open-mike-06022015/#comment-964190 You wrote “but viewers watching this morning’s interview were prevented from reading the words because a phalanx of black-suited thugs deliberately stood in front of the sign.”
How is this an illegal act?
Do you concede that your language use is getting a bit extreme in describing a situation which is no different to almost every other TV broadcast ever held at Waitangi?
…you have used the term “illegally” a few other times describing this incident.
I used the word advisedly, and accurately.
How does being ‘blocked’ from view during an on camera interview suddenly equate to people being “illegally” stopped from protesting?
You put the word “blocked” in scare quotes as if it didn’t actually happen. It did happen, and it was illegal, just as it would be illegal for me to accost you and prevent you from carrying out an entirely legal action, such as walking down the street or looking at a sign on a shop-front. The Labour Party is not the police force. They had no right to prevent those protestors from showing that sign.
Were the protesters you referred to manhandled away?
Were they evicted from the area?
or did some suits simply stand between them and the camera?
Rude, certainly, but illegal?
Rudeness is not the issue here, the issue is that they formed a physical barrier, and illegally prevented the protestors from making their protest in a public place. The action of Lees-Galloway and his cronies was illegal.
How is this an illegal act?
Nobody—certainly not the Labour Party—has the right to stop a citizen legally stating an opinion in a reasonable, orderly way, in a public place.
Do you concede that your language use is getting a bit extreme in describing a situation which is no different to almost every other TV broadcast ever held at Waitangi?
If there was a problem with order, it was the job of the police to sort it out. The Labour Party is not permitted to employ anyone to stop people protesting. Protestors, just as much as politicians, have the right to be seen, and heard, in a public forum.
The ‘blocked’ was meant to be in quotation marks as it was taken directly from your comments. My apologies for that error.
Please don’t take this the wrong way Morrisey, or think I am telling you to be quiet but maybe take a break and go for a walk or something, fresh air is a good thing and it helps with perspective.
Well, we must be listening to a different Andrew Little, I am constantly reassured how “on the nail” he is , and find him very refreshing when listening to any other “soundbite, poll driven “politician.
You think he was “on the nail” when he was making his wandery, confused remarks about ISIS?
I think it is black and white thinking that got us into this mess, the issue is one to grapple with, not dog whistle
I think it is black and white thinking that got us into this mess,
What on earth do you mean by “black and white thinking”?
the issue is one to grapple with, not dog whistle
And Little will not grapple with the issue. If he did, he would raise the issue of our government’s continued support for ISIS in its bloody campaign in Syria.
Haven’t seen the video etc but when my leader is being interviewed I would not want to have other messages becoming distractions to his message.
What would we have said had the interruptions come from youth doing hand signs, or people saying ‘Hi, mum” or celebrity gate crashers?
It could be argued that the ones breaking protocol, being nuisances, being unhelpful, being invasive, those at fault might be the sign holders. As in the case of the t-shirt protester in Australia, or others who are rude, boundaries can be crossed where even Popes have their tolerance stretched.
As I say, I’ve not seen the situation. All I am doing is saying there could be, and usually is, another point of view. And ‘thugs’, morrissey, might be just too strong a word. Do you have another agenda involving Little or Lees-Galloway?
Black suits can be, by the way, a sign of respect shown by visitors wearing their best formal clothes.
I also acknowledge the sign holders who have strong views and feel they need to get their message across. Their particular issue was referred to positively by Little in his korero, was it not?
when my leader is being interviewed I would not want to have other messages becoming distractions to his message.
Then “my leader” needs to conduct interviews in a studio, and not in a public space.
What would we have said had the interruptions come from youth doing hand signs, or people saying ‘Hi, mum” or celebrity gate crashers?
The protestors were doing none of those things. They were quiet, orderly and dignified.
It could be argued that the ones breaking protocol, being nuisances, being unhelpful, being invasive, those at fault might be the sign holders.
No, that could not be argued. The protestors were quiet, orderly, dignified throughout.
And ‘thugs’, morrissey, might be just too strong a word.
Do you have another agenda involving Little or Lees-Galloway?
I have often criticised Little before today—not for being “colourless” as some trivial media naysayers have done, but for the very qualities he showed today: a failure to speak plainly and honestly. I have taken little notice of Lees-Galloway before his disgraceful performance this morning. Maybe I shouldn’t blame him however; perhaps he was merely carrying out orders from one of those clever Labour Party tacticians who have done so much to make Labour a respected political voice for the last six years.
Black suits can be, by the way, a sign of respect shown by visitors wearing their best formal clothes.
In this case, however, they were a sign of disrespect and contempt for the rights of people to demonstrate in a public place.
I also acknowledge the sign holders who have strong views and feel they need to get their message across. Their particular issue was referred to positively by Little in his korero, was it not?
If Little was sincere about that, he would have told Lees-Galloway and the others in that cordon to sit down.
Thanks for the reply, Morrissey.
You say “Then “my leader” needs to conduct interviews in a studio, and not in a public space.’
I would ask where the studio is upon a marae? Also, politicians are most often interviewed in open, public spaces. That is generated by being where the politicians actually are, and by the needs of the interviewers.
And you say, “In this case, however, they were a sign of disrespect and contempt for the rights of people to demonstrate in a public place.”
They were a sign for you, Morrissey, but they would have worn the clothes out of respect for the place and occasion. This is the heart of my disagreement with you. An action takes place which you disapprove of, and everything becomes coloured by that- black in this case.
I am glad that the sign carriers were quiet and dignified. To have been other wise would have reflected upon their message. So, too, does exaggeration (black suits, thugs) reflect upon your message.
1.) I would ask where the studio is upon a marae?
There were any number of rooms available if, as seems to be the case, Little wanted to exclude any possible demonstrations by ordinary citizens. He chose to do the interview in public territory.
2.) I am glad that the sign carriers were quiet and dignified.
I am pleased that you recognize that. Perhaps next time you will think carefully before equating democratic, responsible, law-abiding demonstrators with “youth doing hand signs, or people saying ‘Hi, mum” or celebrity gate crashers… breaking protocol, being nuisances, being unhelpful, being invasive, … rude”.
3.) …exaggeration (black suits, thugs)…
The men in the cordon were wearing black suits, which is what I described. How is that “exaggeration”? You may reasonably disagree with my labeling those men as “thugs”—so what would YOU call people who—illegally—block off signs held up in a public forum?
@ morrissey..
..two questions:..
..why did you link to something showing not what you describe..?
..in fact contradicting what you claim..
..and..are you sure u aren’t getting confused with the interview with key..
..where two large burly men wearing small backpacks..
..stood backs to camera..blocking protestors/a sign/banner from view..
..if not..cd u plse link to the footage u describe….
..’cos if u do..and it is as u say..
..i also will link to it..
1.) Why did you link to something showing not what you describe..? in fact contradicting what you claim..
I clicked on the link, as it was the first one that came up after I googled “andrew little waitangi isis” this morning. You’re correct that it doesn’t exactly show what I described, but how does it “in fact contradict” what I claimed?
2.) ..and..are you sure u aren’t getting confused with the interview with key….where two large burly men wearing small backpacks….stood backs to camera..blocking protestors/a sign/banner from view….if not..cd u plse link to the footage u describe..
No, Phillip, I am not confused between Key and Little. I didn’t see Key’s interview, but I did see Little’s, and I did see a phalanx of Mafia types, including Ian Lees-Galloway, deliberately masking out the protestors’ sign. It was on either Television One or TV3 this morning, live. I think it was TV3.
have u looked for it..?
..and..
“..I clicked on the link, as it was the first one that came up after I googled “andrew little waitangi isis” this morning…”
..pretty bloody sloppy..eh..?..
pretty bloody sloppy..eh..?.
“Sloppy”? Boolean algorithms? Surely you jest, Phillip.
you don’t think that is sloppiness on yr part..?
..these are yr ‘standards’..?
..seriously..?
..u go blah! all over the page..making allegations of thuggery against a sitting mp/the apparant connivance of little to such thuggery..
..and then u can’t b fucked finding the clip that proves yr point..
..and just post ‘the first thing that comes up on google’..?
..so sloppy u need paper-towels…
Morrissey, the link you provided had an interview with Little. A wharenui in the background, two people standing in the porch. No mafia, black suits, dark glasses, thuggery, stand over tactics, deliberate blocking, masking, not even Ian Lees-Galloway.
Sorry I’ve been wasting your time writing about something that doesn’t seem to have…….. happened.
Sorry I’ve been wasting your time writing about something that doesn’t seem to have…….. happened.
It happened all right. Little spoke, and his “minders” put up a cordon to prevent the Maori Sovereignty sign being seen.
And in real world news, Andrew Little has raised the possibility that Labour would allow maori self governance:
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/waitangi-live-little-wants-explore-maori-self-governance-6228885
Ps, Moz, Iain LG is a long way from “undistinguished”. He has held Palmy against a concerted effort from the Tories for 3 elections and for one term was the only provincial Labour MP. He successfully promoted David Cunliffe for the leadership, and was elected as junior whip. He clearly has Andrew Little’s ear as well. Even more significantly, he has also built a formidable local electorate team that is easily the best in Labour for canvassing and publicity and is a model for how to campaign successfully. Even John Key acknowleged his work, commenting to Banksie in the teapot tapes that he was unbeatable in the seat.
Didn’t Ian Lee’s Galloway also work hard on private members bills around alcohol???
which then got taken up and became law.
Sorry I am very sketchy about these details. But I remember at the time being impressed by him.
Yep. And secured cross party support for plain packaging of ciggies (though Tariana Turia took the credit). Future leader material.
oh FFS.
Says the guy who told us DC was the answer to all our problems!
So can we infer from your comment at 11.1.1 that ILG will be?
apparently “Waitakere Man” is a smoking voter 🙂
He also turned off many workers who enjoyed 3 or 4 handles of beer after work
, by pushing a bill to cut alcohol limits for drivers. National were forced to lower the limit against their will, something that wasn’t lost at the booths.
Eh? NZ lining up with the rest of the developed countries in their driving/alcohol limits was not an issue for anybody at the election. I like a beer or three myself, but I cut my consumption to match the new limit if I’m driving. Simples.
I note that brewers are brewing to the new laws. My favourite brewery now puts out a 2.4% golden ale which is very enjoyable but far less destructive than my favourite tipple of theirs which is 7%- basically three times the strength. My own Friday night drinking mates hoe into the 2.4% with no complaint.
Yes my local watering hole has started putting out a superb 3% pilsner, usually have 3℅ triple hops pilsner at home, 2 stubbies = 2 standard drinks. Friends visiting know where they stand if driving afterwards.
Better than the 6.5% IPAs that I prefer at Galbraiths
I get taxis and I am within staggering distance of home.
something like one third of pedestrian fatalities here are/were pissed..
..and norway..(i think)..has just started breathalysing pedestrians..
..’stagger’..while u still can..
According to Superfreakonomics, “on a per-mile basis, a drunk walker is eight times more likely to get killed than a drunk driver.”
Got me started on NZ craft ales, did Galbraiths, on a rare visit to Auckland. Very enjoyable pub. Stayed just up the hill so I couldn’t roll home.
And I’ll bet they charge you as much, if not more, for the ‘New legal limit’ beer.
No thanks. I’d rather take the Full tasting and Full Alcohol beers home, to enjoy them where I won’t be ripped off over the price of Beer, finger foods or soft drinks/water. The last time I went to the Pub they wanted $9.00 for a stubbie of Heineken, I said no went to the Supermarket and bought a dozen for $23.00 and went home.
My pub $8-9 for 500ml craft beer. of whatever strength. Brewed next door. 15 minutes walk. Fish and chips on the way home.
Skinny,
So you condone drunk driving then, as long as you’ve had a hard day at work?
I had a close look at skinny’s numbers with the same concern. Four 500 ml handles at 4% equals six standard drinks which would put an 85kg male on the doubtful limit after two hours drinking at the old 80 mg limit.
http://sciblogs.co.nz/visibly-shaken/2010/04/13/drinking-and-driving-how-much-is-too-much/
There was nothing wrong with the old limit. Drinking sensibly with a bite to eat, knowing your limits up to the legal limit. Very few road deaths were recorded up to and under the old limit. Tourist’s account for far more road fatilites. Alcopop’s and the young not a good mix. Fast cars green drivers, the list goes on.
the solution to all this is a sobering-drug..
..much like there is now a strain of cannabis u can smoke if u have smoked pot that is too strong 4 u..
..or if u need to be straight to do something..
..and it makes u straight again..
..we need something like that for alcohol..
(brand-name..?..’sober-up!’..)
Cocaine will do that for you. You can drink a bottle of vodka and the next morning do a line of coke and go to work totally straight as an airline pilot or whatever. Drugs are good!
yeah..but cocaine can also take you over..
..back before drugs were that common..
..i had a mate..who was a skinny/weedy/hairy/unpreposessing individual..
..and what he used to do was to go into pubs..
..and would challenge the big-drinker of the pub..
..to a drinking contest..with a large wager involved..
..he wd taunt/laugh them into a contest..
..and he would then drink them thru the floor..
..but the thing was..he was also a fan of methamphetamine..
..so would be loaded up on that..
..and so would win..
I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the old limits. They were difficult to exceed by accident. The new ones aren’t, and therefore raise more revenue.
I see the NZ National Debt is close to going over $100 Billion… I wonder what our credit limit is
If, IF, and when Labour comes in, the corporatised media and banksters will be screaming about the debt and pushing Labour to impose austerity.
i think it’s now indexed to troop deployment quotas 🙁
Ricky Gervais nails social media; it’s bollocks:
gervais posts crap-clip:..’it’s bollocks’..
“Ricky Gervais nails social media; it’s bollocks:”
Really? I thought he was saying, in his own sweet way, thanks social media, you’re actually quite helpful to me as a famous person.
with spoons
This link has got it all. A look at how multistorey housing can look good even in close confines. Set on a beautiful river and not dominated by huge hotels blocking the scenery. A pleasant looking architectural style for accommodation adopted as a standard for a large area, doesn’t have to look like our property developers South Auckland edifices with porticos you might stab yourself under, which seem an impediment to feelings of happiness and enjoyment of home when viewed from outside.
And on top of it all a large proportion of the music makers of the area acting out a flashmob event of the Blues Brothers theme, accompanied by drums on land and river.
at that party for sell-outs held at shane jones’ taxpayer-funded pad..
..(where jones..sporting cheap/tacky looking..but no doubt expensive) sunglasses..
..insulted his second centre of northland poverty in two days..
..sneering that he was ‘going to the seychelles’..(great hotel-room porn there..)..
..and that he wd ‘rather do that than campaign in dargaville’..(accompaied by a snort of derision..)
..yesterday it was moerewas’ turn to get the jones-sneer..)
..anyway..at that party..a large number of the local poverty-stricken should have gathere/massed at the gate..
..and stared silently in at the festivities/sell-outs..
..(shearer might even have been able to be persuaded to come out and bang out a protest song or two on his gee-tar for them..
..it’s lovely how/when he does that..eh..?..)
“….rather than campaign in Dargaville…”
One in the eye for those who think that Jones was/is the key for Labour to win the Dargaville’s of this country.
then afterwards the sell-outs roll back into their comfortable/taxpayer-funded lives..
..so far from struggle st..from those they claim to represent..
..they can’t even hear the crying/see the pain of the hungry children…
..the rustlings as the homeless turn in their hard-sleep..
(c.f..labours’ ’14 election-policies for the poorest:..
..treat them hard/give them s.f.a..
..arbeit will make them frei..
..will cure their poverty..)
Wondering about Northland. Is there anything to stop people on the Maori roll transferring to the general roll and back again after the by election?
I read a previous commentator say that the only time you are permitted to change rolls is at a set time every 5 years.
Correct, and the last option was offered in 2013:
http://www.elections.org.nz/events/past-events/maori-electoral-option-2013
This is – anecdotally – one reason for the high number of disqualified votes in Maori electorates: many people wrongly assume they’re on one roll or the other and thus use the wrong voting form (I’m not sure of the technicalities, just reporting what I’ve heard.) There’s a real lack of information for people at election time about needing to check which roll they’re on, or when they’re able to make the decision to change rolls.
A man is taking steps over low paid jobs.
Don’t have much to add to this, except to verbally support him and wish him luck.
I think you posted the wrong link BassGuy
that link goes to Samsung SyncMaster 2333sw Problems
A cryptic comment on the reliability issues of contemporary mass-production certainly 🙂
Oops. I think I need a drink….
This one isn’t about monitor troubles.
”I just feel my generation, that had all the benefits, has let this generation down.”
yup
Try again I can already detect a screwed monitor!
i was listening to a Kiwiana goes pop cd I bought and heard Dave Jordan’s State House Song. I was thinking what a negative put-down. by someone who thinks that houses grow on trees.
So I looked him up. He had a reasonable start, teachers college, teacher, uni, overseas – just a little ignorant of reality. He married overseas, the wife returned to Brazil after he got mutiple sclerosis and so had to fend for himself. Finally some friends provided him with a home till he died.
So he knew the importance of a stable secure home himself when he needed it. Pity he ever wrote his put down about state houses.
These are the mean words to the song.
http://folksong.org.nz/dave_jordan/state_house_song.html
I’m certain I watched on 3 news a clip about Little’s speech about sovereignty and Key responding by saying sovereignty was ceded in 1840.
And now I can’t find it anywhere on the 3 news site.
Did anyone see it? Anyone got the clip?
Not video, but here’s a report including quoting Key,
Mr Key says he doesn’t think there is room for Maori to have self-rule or self-governance in some areas of the country.
“The Crown’s view is that sovereignty was ceded in 1840, but ceded to a modern New Zealand that was built for all New Zealanders,” he told reporters at Waitangi.
http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=201528
Typical for Key, his statement doesn’t make much sense.
Have to agree with Key on that. Don’t want to see a divided New Zealand.
I heard that the the Ngāi Tūhoe tribe already independently manage some of their tribal affairs. So, need not necessarily divide the country. No harm in discussing and exploring the possibilities and see how and if it can be mutually beneficial. There may be other countries with precedents.
Would be interesting to see ACT’s and Seymour’s view on this, as well as that of the Maori MPs, Parata etc in the National party.
Good point Clemgeopin, I guess I fear the prospect of huge tracts of DOC land turning into the wild west or something.
Why do you fear that? Have you looked at the agreement between Tūhoe and the Crown over Te Urewera?
that’s the mad money quote.
I couldn’t find the video of Andrew Little on the TV3 website. I wonder if the leaders office have someone monitoring that kind of thing.
as for sovereignty- we are happy to cede some to farmers in Canterbury or to a casino in Auckland or to a movie company…
surely that bonkers quote has been quoted by one of the major news organisations????
Key wants to change the flag but not the system the flag represents – he doesn’t want NZ to be a republic.
Typical.
All style, no substance. A “prime minister” who can’t even run a department. Had no idea what the DPMC was up to, tourism is run by MBIE, and he fobbed the security services onto Finlayson.
Maybe this is why Key wants our flag changed?….to get rid of NZer’s sense of sovereignty?
A Very interesting discussion and debate on Crosstalk and relevant to NZ and TPPA ie issues of financial control imposed and loss of sovereignty/democracy and dictatorship by wealthy bankers and corporates in Europe …and now revolt in Europe …and maybe internationally it is just beginning as the German analyst/ commentator suggested
‘Euro-revolt?’
“Euro-revolt! First Greece and now maybe Spain. Grassroots democracy from the left appears to be making a comeback in Europe. This is interesting in itself because the political right is doing the same. Can Europe’s elitist political status quo be maintained?”
CrossTalking with Iain Begg, Robert Oulds, and Ernst Wolff.
http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/229023-euro-greece-spain-comback/
yes- the flag change is exactly that – a corporate buy out made official. under the TPPA.