[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.
Recently more than 150 post-graduate students and young scientists presented an open letter to the Green Party via The Spinoff, encouraging them to reconsider their position on genetic modification. Their target is tackling climate change issues.[1] Can any party continue to be dismissive about genetic modification (GM) contributing to ...
by Deirdre O’Neill Under Thatcher and then Blair and continuing up until our contemporary moment, the working class has seen its culture slowly and progressively destroyed. The change from an industrial society to a service society produced a marked shift in focus from the working class as the backbone of ...
Since 2013, the Australian government has detained refugees without trial in Pacific gulags, where they are abused, tortured, and driven to suicide. The policy is not just an abuse of human rights and possible crime against humanity; it has also had a corrosive effect on the states Australia uses as ...
It seems fair to say that we currently live in a problematic political moment in world history. Democracies are in decline and dictatorships are on the rise. Primordial, sectarian and post-modern divisions have re-emerged, are on the rise or have been accentuated by political evolutions of the moment such as ...
Last month, Greenpeace head Russel Norman surrendered his speaking slot at an EPA conference to student climate activist Sorcha Carr, who told the EPA exactly what she thought of them. It was a bold move, which confronted both regulators and polluters (or, as the EPA calls them, "stakeholders") with the ...
The core principle supposedly underlying New Zealand's electoral finance regime is transparency: parties can accept large donations from rich people wanting to buy policy, but only if they tell the public they've been bought. Most parties abide by this, so we know that TOP was wholly-owned by Gareth Morgan, and ...
Today is a Member's Day, probably the second-to-last one of the year, and its a big one, with the Third Reading of David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill. last Member's Day it was reported back from committee, after MPs voted narrowly to make it subject to a (rules TBA) ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThe growth of the human population over the last 70 ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...
by Don Franks In 1957, E M Forster wrote, of his greatest work: “The India described in ‘A Passage to India’ no longer exists either politically or socially. Change had begun even at the time the book was published ( 1924) and during the following quarter of a century it ...
The Referendums Framework Bill was due back from select committee today. But there's no report on it. Instead, the bill has been bounced back to the House under Standing order 29593) because the Committee didn't bother to produce one. They probably tried. But given the membership of the committee (which ...
Two years into New Zealand’s Labour-led government, the long-delayed Zero Carbon Bill became law on 7 November. Passed essentially unanimously, the lengthy public debates and political manoeuvring faded away until the final passage was even anticlimactic: Flipping through the @nzstuff@DomPost I was starting to wonder if I’d dreamt ...
Now the Zero Carbon Bill is law, what's next? Obviously, the ETS changes currently before select committee are going to be the next battleground. But we're also going to get a good idea of where we're going, and if the progress the Zero Carbon Act promises is good enough, during ...
Grant PearceThe effects of the current Australian bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland (and also again in California) are devastating and far-reaching. To date, the fires have resulted in several lives being lost and many homes and properties destroyed. Here in New Zealand, the impacts have been only ...
A passing comment in a post the other day about the labour force participation rates of older people prompted me to pull down the fuller data and see what we could see about various participation rates over the decades since the HLFS began in 1986. As it happens, the ...
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...
"I saw a newspaper picture,From the political campaignA woman was kissing a child,Who was obviously in pain.She spills with compassion,As that young child'sFace in her hands she gripsCan you imagine all that greed and avariceComing down on that child's lips?" ...
Dr Matt Boyd, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick WilsonThe Global Health Security Index which considers pandemic threats has just been published. Unfortunately, NZ scores approximately half marks (54/100), coming in 35th in the world rankings – far behind Australia. This poor result suggests that the NZ Government needs to ...
The Zero Carbon Act is inadequate, with a weak methane target designed to give farmers a free ride. But it turns out it could have been worse: Climate Change Minister James Shaw was so desperate to get National on board, he wanted to gut that target, and leave it in ...
The Herald reprints an Australian story on a couple of tragic deaths in Bali from drinking cocktails that had methanol in them. The story argues that methanol is likely the result of home distillation. But what the young tourists were experiencing was far from a hangover. They’d consumed a toxic cocktail ...
Last month, the police announced a trial of specialist roaming armed units, which would drive round (poor, brown) areas in armoured SUVs, armed to the teeth. When they announced the trial, they told us it was about having armed police "ready to attend major incidents at any time if needed". ...
Spain went to the polls today in the second elections this year, after the Socialists (who had come to power in a confidence vote, then gone to the polls in April) rejected the offer of a coalition with the left-wing PoDemos, and instead decided to gamble n a better outcome ...
A couple of days ago I attended (and spoke at) the University of Waikato’s “LearnFest” event. There were lots of talks and sessions on very diverse aspects of teaching, mostly at tertiary level. One was by Myra Williamson from Te Piringa Faculty of Law here at Waikato, on Contract Cheating ...
There will be a transit of Mercury – the planet Mercury will pass across the face of the Sun – taking place at sunrise in New Zealand on Tuesday, 12th November. It was by observing such an event 250 years ago that James Cook and his scientist colleagues were able ...
Since becoming the world’s first openly transexual mayor and member of parliament, Georgina Beyer has been recognised as a trailblazer for trans rights. Daphna Whitmore talks with her about where she sees the current trans movement We start out talking about legislation the government put on hold that would have ...
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ...
National Messiah? Chris Luxon identifies himself as an evangelical Christian. If he is genuine in this self-characterisation, then he will take every opportunity his public office provides to proselytise on behalf of his faith. He will also feel obliged to bear witness against beliefs and practices he believes to be ...
I'm going to make a Reckless Prediction™ that the Tories have 'topped out' in the 'poll of polls' / Britain Elects multipoll tracker at about 38%, and in the next week we will start to see Labour creep up on them.In fact, we might just be seeing the start of ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Lizzie Marvelly: “I may have missed this… has @afterellen gone all terf-y? Or am I reading something incorrectly? “ https://twitter.com/LizzieMarvelly/status/1191840059105742849 After Ellen is a lesbian website that is unashamedly pro-lesbian, as you’d expect. So why is Ms Marvelly so bothered about lesbians having their ...
Did you know there once was a time when it was illegal to be a gypsy (aka Romani) in Britain?That was between 1530, when the Egyptians Act was passed, and 1856, when it was repealed.Amongst other things, the act forbade the entry of 'Egyptians' into England, ordered those already there ...
Some days I sit and think, “what will I write…?” What do you say when you get to 1000 posts? Maybe you just start where you are, diverge to where this all began, then offer a collection of reader’s favourite posts, and a few of your own? (And throw in ...
Counter-Puncher: The “activists” and “radicals” (his own words) from the Indian community who took such strong exception to Shane Jones’ remarks about Immigration NZ’s treatment of arranged marriages, may end up bitterly regretting their intervention. Jones is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to his critics.SHANE ...
In the spirit of Remember, remember the fifth of November, let's keep this in mind FOREVER.
Oh dear. Extraordinary interview on PM with Andrew Bridgen and @EvanHD just now. Bridgen was defending Jacob Rees Mogg’s Grenfell comments. Evan asked him if JRM had meant to say he would have left ...
Collision Course? In conditions of ideological white-out, the international bankers’ “Woop-Woop! Pull Up!” warning may have come too late to save global capitalism.WHAT DOES IT MEAN when international bankers are more willing to embrace radical solutions than our politicians and their electors? At both the International Monetary Fund and the ...
Pertussis (whooping cough) is a conundrum. It is a disease that was described hundreds of years ago and the bacteria that causes it (Bordetella pertussis) isolated in 1906. We have had vaccines for about 80 years but this disease is defiant in the face of human immunity. I wanted to ...
The Zero Carbon Bill has just passed its third reading, uanimously. In the end, National supported it - but we all know they'll turn around and gut it the moment they regain power. Meanwhile, I guess ACT's David Seymour didn't even bother to show up. I am on record as ...
Dr Lindsay Robertson, Dr Jerram Bateman, Professor Janet HoekMembers of the public health community hold divergent views on how access to vaping products or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products should be arranged. Some believe ENDS should be as widely available as smoked tobacco and argue for liberal ...
When the Police were trying to cover up for the National Party over Dirty Politics, they went all-in with their abuses of power. They illegally search Nicky Hager's house, violating his journalistic privilege and invading his privacy. They unlawfully acquired Hager's bank records. They did the same to left-wing blogger ...
Last month, in response to a wave of protests by Extinction Rebellion, the British government purported to ban their protests from the whole of London. It was a significant interference with the freedoms of expression and assembly, and another sign of the country's decline into tyranny. But now, a court ...
Last year, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security reported on significant problems with the intelligence warrant system. While they were unwilling to declare any warrant "irregular" (meaning unlawful) due to the recent law change, they were also not willing to give the system a clean bill of health. Now, they've ...
The National Party has come out in support of encouraging greater vaccination uptake. But it sure isn’t the way I’d do it. National’s suggested docking the benefits of those on benefit whose kids aren’t keeping up with their vaccinations. Some in National have suggested extending that to payments under Working ...
Feeding The Flames: It is simply not enough to demand an end to “corruption”, or “inequality”, or the overbearing influence of the authorities in Beijing. These are just “lowest common denominator” demands: the sort of slogans that pull people onto the streets. They are not a plan.WHERE’S THE PLAN? Across ...
The labour market statistics have been released, and unemployment has risen to 4.2%. There are 115,000 unemployed - 11,000 fewer than when Labour took office. In that time the minimum wage has gone up by $2 an hour, which shows that the right's fears about increases causing unemployment are simply ...
The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has called for submissions on Andrew Little's tyrannicalTerrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill. Normally I encourage participation in the democratic process. I am not doing so in this case. Instead, I encourage all of you to boycott this submissions process, and to post ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzIf tiny concentrations of carbon dioxide can hold enough heat ...
Aviation is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and within it, one of the fastest sources is elite travel: billionaires flitting around the world in their private jets, spewing excessive pollution into the atmosphere just so they can avoid mixing with us dirty peasants. But in ...
That's what we face if we don't stop climate change, according to a warning from 11,000 scientists:The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists. “We declare clearly and unequivocally ...
by Phil Duncan Here’s just a few of the kind of threats issued day in and day out against gender-critical women – feminists, marxists, etc – overwhelmingly by MEN (albeit men identifying as women). “Kill all Terfs”. “Shoot a Terf today”. “All terfs deserve to be shot in the head”. ...
This is the third of the synopses of parts of the opening chapter of John Smith’s Imperialism in the 21st Century (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2016). The synopsis and commentary below is written by Phil Duncan. Unlike the humble cup of coffee and t-shirt that we looked at in ...
Tom MooreTraditionally a food source and cutting tool, freshwater mussels/kākahi are now widely valued as water filters that help clean our waterbodies and maintain ecosystem health throughout Aotearoa. The improvement they provide in water quality can make it easier for other animals to live in streams and rivers, as ...
And to think he gave all the potential goodwill away with that moronic, cult-like statement (repeated ad nauseam by many National hardliners) that Key is quite simply “the greatest PM we ever had”…Installation complete: this was nothing ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is back in the House today for its second reading. While this isn't the final stage, its still effectively D-Day for the bill. Because today, at around 5pm, is when we're going to find out if it has a majority, whether National will support it or ...
Winston Peters is in court today, suing a bunch of former Minister and civil servants over their pre-election leak of his superannuation repayment. He's characterised the leak as malicious, and said that it is repugnant that his information was passed on to Ministers to use for political advantage. And he's ...
Murray CoxDo I have to finish my favourite genome? That’s an often-asked question. Geneticists generally strive to produce high-quality genomes that sequence every last gene, making full use of the state-of-the-art technologies coming on stream. Sequencing DNA means determining the order of the four chemical building blocks – called ...
Transformative Politics: The idea is to turn each recipient into an unwitting accomplice in their own transformation. From interested observer to hyped-up activist, sharing our messages promiscuously with ‘friends’. You’ll be part of an ever-expanding circulatory system, Jennifer, for the ideas that will win us the election.”JENNIFER SKITTERED her chair ...
The boycott is a fundamental tool of protest. By choosing who we buy from, we can send a message, and hopefully change corporate behaviour. Historically, boycotts have been effective, for example over apartheid in South Africa and Israel, in forcing divestment from Myanmar, and in ending bus segregation in the ...
Jan Rivers spoke at the Abortion Legislation Select Committee in favour of the bill, but in opposition to calls from other submitters to exchange the word ‘woman’ for ‘person’ throughout the bill. Jan is a supporter of the feminist group Speak Up For Women and has recently written an excellent ...
I checked my traffic stats:I was intrigued by 'monica29' - who was this very dedicated individual? I clicked on the link, to be greeted with ...Ho, hum.Spreadin' the word, spreadin' the word. Doesn't matter who hears it, as long as it gets out there. ...
There have been three polls since the election was announced, and I will shamelessly steal YouGov / UK Polling Report's Anthony Wells' summary of them:Survation – CON 34%, LAB 26%, LDEM 19%, BREX 12%, GRN 1% Ipsos MORI – CON 41%, LAB 24%, LDEM 20%, BREX 7%, GRN 3% YouGov ...
The following article is translated from Lutte Ouvrière, the weekly newspaper of the organisation usually known by the same name in France. When, for the second time this year, Chilean President Piñera announced an increase in the price of Metro tickets from 800 to 830 pesos, students in the high ...
Today, a worker contacted me asking if she could go to the police over her employer stealing thousands of dollars from her in unpaid wages. The employer also did not pay this worker’s taxes or student loan which amounts to tax fraud. As a workers rights activist, who founded the ...
Signed, Sealed, Delivered, They're Yours: Is there any person more vulnerable than a jilted lover on the rebound? Or, anything more certain than that the charmer, the predator, the glib spinner of lies and promises will seek such broken people out? Yes, of course, he will love every one of ...
Though Jonathan Romain is a fairly high profile Rabbi, writing in several papers and popping up on TV and the radio, this story doesn't seem to have made it to the Guardian yet, so I'll take the unusual step of linking the Stephen Pollard edited Jewish Chronicle:Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain ...
There's an election afoot, and that is when noted opinion formers such as myself get to make wild fools of ourselves by pretending we have the faintest idea what will happen.So, here is my absurdly optimistic prediction:Labour - 285Conservative - 262SNP - 53Lib Dems - 20PC - 5Ireland - 18 ...
Image Credit:Increase Social Media Traffic & Website Traffic 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 ...
Belinda CridgeI was reading my son a story last night. A great tale of derring-do of five mountaineers scaling the Matterhorn for the first time. One in the party had tried six times previously and failed, this was the last attempt before winter closed another season. They tried a ...
As introduced, the Zero Carbon Bill included an expansive secrecy clause, which would have covered virtually all decisions by the Climate Change Commission over our most important policy area. The Ministry for the Environment admitted this was a mistake (or as they put it, an "oversight"), and the select committee ...
Rachael Shaw, Victoria University of WellingtonWhen we think about animals storing food, the image that usually comes to mind is a squirrel busily hiding nuts for the winter. We don’t usually think of a small songbird taking down an enormous invertebrate, tearing it into pieces and hiding these titbits ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First backs the public to decide on the End of Life Choice Bill via a referendum at the 2020 General Election. The Bill, with New Zealand First’s referendum provision incorporated, passed its final reading in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Justice New Zealand First is proud that a key Coalition Agreement commitment which will provide for a more transparent and effective criminal justice system has been realised. Legislation to establish the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body focused on identifying and responding to possible miscarriages of ...
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...
Darroch Ball, New Zealand First List MP A Member’s bill has been proposed that would provide income tax exemptions for all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel while on operational deployment overseas. The Income Tax (Exemption for Salary or Wages of NZDF Members on Active Deployment) Amendment Bill proposed by New Zealand First ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have brought common sense to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which passed its final reading in Parliament today. Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says months of hard work went into negotiating a balanced ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First has listened to calls to recognise paramedics as registered health professionals under the Health Practitioners’ Competence Assurance Act (the Act).Today, the Coalition Government announced plans for paramedics to be registered as health practitioners under the Act, and the establishment of a ...
We began the week by commemorating the New Zealand Wars and celebrating a major increase in the number of teachers. Then, we were busy supporting offenders into work and getting our rail back on track after years of underinvestment. And that's just the start! ...
In October I was sworn in as the Mayor of Lower Hutt.It’s the privilege of my life to serve Hutt people as their Mayor. There is something really special to be able to serve the community where I was raised, and where I live. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters met with Korea Racing Authority Chairperson Nak Soon Kim in Seoul today to discuss closer cooperation between the New Zealand and Korean horse racing industries. As part of the visit to the Seoul Racecourse, Mr Peters witnessed ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $10 million to establish Otago as the centre of New Zealand’s creative digital industry over the next ten years, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “The initiative will bring us closer to the vision of ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)’s skills and employment programme will help young Otago people into long-term forestry careers, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. Te Ara Mahi will invest $63,000 in the 2020 school year to support eight 17 and 18 ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) will support local plans to revitalise and stimulate economic development opportunities in Otago, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The four Regional Economic Development Ministers have approved an in-principle investment of $19.9 million towards the region’s ...
Mark Patterson, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is pleased to have received the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) report on the Coalition Government’s Mycoplasma bovis eradication efforts, which shows significant progress in the fight against the disease. New Zealand First Spokesperson for Primary Industries, Mark Patterson, says the report’s findings ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Hon David Parker, Minister for Trade and Export Growth The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing to support economic growth opportunities for Otago’s engineering and manufacturing sectors, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Trade and Export Minister David Parker announced today. Almost $20 million ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his South Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, discussed in Seoul today opportunities to work more closely in the Pacific and the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Mr Peters and Minister Kang confirmed New Zealand and the ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Hon Nanaia Mahuta, Minister for Māori Development The three marae in the historic Parihaka Pa complex in Taranaki have been upgraded to high speed broadband with the support of the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Connecting the ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence Minister of Defence Ron Mark will today launch the Advancing Pacific Partnerships 2019 Defence Assessment during a speech at Te Papa. The Assessment outlines how Defence will partner with our Pacific Island neighbours and invest in Pacific regional security architecture. The Plan aligns with the Coalition ...
A new Provincial Growth Fund investment could create about 80 new jobs in Gisborne over the next two years, turning a local small business into a “beacon of employment” in the process. Regional Economic Development Parliamentary Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau said the PGF’s Te Ara Mahi funding stream would provide $1.6m ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters will travel to the Republic of Korea and Japan next week. “The Republic of Korea and Japan are two of New Zealand’s closest partners in the region with whom we share common values and ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced today that New Zealand is leading a police support mission in Bougainville as the region prepares to vote in a non-binding referendum on its political future. “New Zealand has accepted an invitation ...
The Government has confirmed its third major mental health facility upgrade since the Budget, this time at Palmerston North Hospital. The Prime Minister and Health Minister today visited MidCentral DHB to announce that $30 million has been allocated to upgrade its acute mental health facility. It follows earlier announcements in ...
The roll out of the National Bowel Screening Programme has reached the halfway mark, with 10 out of 20 District Health Boards now part of the programme. MidCentral DHB, which covers Palmerston North, Manawatu and surrounding districts, this week became the latest to DHB to offer free bowel screening to ...
The Government welcomes PHARMAC’s decision to fund a vaccine to protect young people from meningococcal disease from 1 December this year. “Meningococcal disease is a serious threat which people at higher risk should be protected from,” says Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter. “The combined pharmaceutical budget was increased by ...
Groups involved with innovative fisheries research projects are encouraged to apply for government support in the latest funding round from the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures programme. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash says the SFF Futures funding is designed to be flexible enough to support small or large projects across a ...
The Government has fixed an issue affecting how Immigration New Zealand has processed visa applications for culturally arranged marriages, which will now see a consistent process applied which ensures people with legitimate arranged marriages can visit New Zealand while also preventing any rorting of the system. Earlier this year Immigration ...
The Royal Commission into the Attacks on Christchurch Mosques will report back on 30 April 2020 to give it more time to hear submissions and consider information, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Royal Commission was originally scheduled to report back to Government by 10 December 2019. “There has ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Washington DC today to attend a ministerial meeting focused on defeating ISIS, and to continue pursuing New Zealand’s trade opportunities. Mr Peters will participate in a meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers from key countries contributing to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. ...
The recently crowned Bird of the Year, the hoiho/yellow eyed penguin, is getting a much needed helping hand alongside more than 168 other community conservation projects announced Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage today. 168 community conservation projects throughout New Zealand are benefiting from $8 million in government grants, including $500,000 ...
Controls on assault rifles and semi-automatic firearms are to be broadened to include some types of pistols, under changes to a bill currently making its way through Parliament. Police Minister Stuart Nash has tabled a Supplementary Order Paper to the Arms Legislation Bill, which is currently before a Select Committee ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark will travel to Singapore today to conduct a counterpart visit and to co-chair the third annual Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting with his counterpart, Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen. “Singapore is one of our most important defence partners in the region, and our ...
Nelson’s Salisbury School is to be rebuilt, creating a modern and suitable learning environment for students at the residential special school, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The school for girls aged 8-15, in Richmond, was earmarked for closure by National until the process ...
The panel undertaking a comprehensive review of the Resource Management Act has identified the main issues to be addressed and options for reform and is calling for feedback to inform its final report. In July the Government announced the comprehensive review of the resource management system, including the RMA - ...
An important safety valve has been added to New Zealand’s criminal justice system with the third reading of the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill today. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) will investigate claimed miscarriages of justice. “We’ve seen how our justice system can very occasionally get things spectacularly wrong, ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters welcomes the tabling of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) 2019 Annual Report in Parliament today. He says the 2019 Annual Report marks the point when New Zealand’s racing industry’s decline was arrested and a turnaround started. RITA’s 2019 Annual Report recorded an industry net profit ...
The New Zealand Government is today sending 21 firefighters to help fight the ongoing catastrophic Australian bushfires. “The fires in Australia are in some of the toughest, most challenging conditions ever,” says Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin. “As of yesterday morning, there were 100 active bushfire-related incidents across Queensland and ...
More frontline support for schools through a new education agency, as part of a redesigned Ministry of Education More support for principals and school boards including through a new centre of leadership and local leadership advisor roles New independent disputes panels for parents and students Management of school property ...
The Government’s reform of the Tomorrow’s Schools system is a watershed moment in education and an opportunity to create meaningful change for ākonga Māori and their whānau, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis said today. “Last year through Kōrero Mātauranga | Education Conversation, Māori teachers, parents, ākonga, whānau, hapū and iwi ...
Infrastructure Minister is welcoming the first of many updated project pipelines from the newly established New Zealand Infrastructure Commission today. The New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga, has released an expanded pipeline of major capital projects – another crucial step towards delivering better infrastructure outcomes. “The first iteration of the ...
Tougher gun laws designed to improve public safety through firearms prohibition orders are proposed in a new document released for public input. Police Minister Stuart Nash says firearms prohibition orders (FPOs) would give new powers to Police to ensure high-risk individuals come nowhere near firearms. “We have already prohibited the ...
Andy Coupe has been confirmed as TVNZ’s new Board Chair. “Mr Coupe has strong commercial and capital markets experience and TVNZ has benefited from his technical knowledge of business and finance, as well as his extensive governance experience,” the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Kris Faafoi said. Andy ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today officially opened a separated pathway, following the completion of the Kaiwharawhara Stream bridge, which will improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians along Hutt Road. The $6.8m Hutt Road project provides a separated path for cycling and pedestrians, the replacement of informal parking ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of career diplomat Si’alei van Toor as New Zealand’s next Ambassador to Russia. “I’m pleased to appoint Ms van Toor to this position. She brings a wealth of experience to the role having previously served as Senior Trade Adviser to the ...
The Treasury’s 2019 Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) will be released on Wednesday December 11, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Coalition Government will publish the 2020 Budget Policy Statement at the same time, outlining the priorities for Budget 2020. Further details on arrangements for the release will ...
A new initiative to better support small businesses through hands-on mentoring and advice has been launched by the Minister for Small Business. The first event in the Kiwi Business Boost series of regional workshops and online tools has been launched in Wairoa by Stuart Nash. “The Business Boost initiative combines ...
The latest Quarterly Connectivity Report shows that more and more New Zealanders are moving to Ultra-fast Broadband (UFB), with Rolleston having the highest uptake at 74 per cent, as at the end of September. “This means that nearly three quarters of Rolleston’s households and businesses have moved to ultra-fast services. ...
The passing of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill will help ensure a safe planet for our kids and grandkids, the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw said today. The landmark legislation which provides a framework to support New Zealanders to prepare for, and adapt to, the effects ...
The review of Oranga Tamariki practice around the planned uplift of a Hastings baby in May shows significant failings by the Ministry and that the planned and funded changes to shift from a child crisis service to a proper care and protection service need to be accelerated, Children’s Minister Tracey ...
Education Minister Chris Hipkins has wished students the best of luck for this year’s NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exams which start tomorrow. Around 140,000 students will have participated in 119 NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exams by the end of the exam period on 3 December. “I want to ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of Bede Corry as New Zealand’s next High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. “The appointment of a senior diplomat to this important role underlines the significance New Zealand places on our relationship with the United Kingdom,” said Mr Peters. “The United ...
An innovative approach to boosting the number of frontline Police has seen 20 new officers graduate from one of the uncommon training wings in Auckland. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the graduation of 20 constables today means that 1,765 new Police officers have been deployed since the coalition government took ...
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says the 1.2 million hours of community work completed by offenders in the last financial year has helped local communities right across the country. “Community work sentences are a great way for people to pay something positive back to society. There is a massive benefit to ...
"A pathway for Police in leadership with Iwi Māori, to achieve the aspirations of Māori whānau." Police launch of Te Huringa o Te Tai, Pipitea Marae, Thorndon Quay, Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou. Hello everyone, warm greetings to you all. ...
Working New Zealanders are getting more in their back pockets under the Coalition Government’s economic plan. Stats NZ data today shows average weekly ordinary time earnings are up by $83 since the Government took office. This shows that working New Zealanders are getting higher take-home pay, and that employers are ...
The Government is supporting schools to cut down their energy consumption and reduce environmental impacts, with a quarter of all schools having their lights replaced with LEDs, a sustainability contestable fund and a plan to improve the environmental sustainability of all schools in the future. Education Minister Chris Hipkins and ...
Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis heads to China on Friday to lead the New Zealand Government presence at the China-New Zealand Year of Tourism closing ceremony. The ceremony will take place at Canton Tower in Guangzhou on Sunday 10 November. “The Year of Tourism has been mutually beneficial for both New ...
Should we plan for drought or deluge and how is CO2 released from the ocean’s floor? Several climate change projects were given a boost in the latest Marsden Fund investment of $83.6 million, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods said today. “Climate change is long-term challenge that requires out-of-the-box ...
Leaders of 16 countries negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have announced the completion of negotiation on the text as well as agreement on virtually all market access issues between 15 countries. The leaders said they will work with India to resolve its outstanding concerns in a way that ...
Civil Defence Minister Hon Peeni Henare says World Tsunami Awareness Day today (5 November) is a chance for all New Zealanders to learn more about the tsunami risk in our regions and the right actions to take to stay safe. “All of New Zealand’s coastline is at risk of tsunami. ...
New Zealand’s more than 1000 paramedics are to have their role as key frontline health professionals formally recognised and regulated in the same way as doctors and nurses, Health Minister David Clark says. The Government has agreed to regulate paramedics under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003. “Paramedic leaders ...
Changes to insolvency law announced by the Government today will include requirements to honour up to 50 per cent of the value of gift cards or vouchers held by consumers, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi says. “When a business is insolvent, these consumers are often left out of ...
Police acknowledge the two reports released today by the Independent Police Conduct Authority in relation to misconduct by a now former Police officer and the unlawful detention of a young person. ...
A “best of luck” message should be extended to the good people of Tāneatua, who have waited patiently for a new police station. Our experience suggests that if or when they get their new police station, they should check the fine print regarding hours of operation. We make this suggestions ...
After Massey University in Wellington cancelled Feminism 2020 last month, the controversial event has found a new home in the parliament banquet hall. The controversial Feminism 2020 event cancelled last month by Massey University is scheduled to be held instead in the parliamentary banquet hall this Friday night. Billed as “the ...
The Migrant Workers Association says it is wrong to ask immigration officials to treat couples in culturally arranged marriages differently from other partnership cases. ...
A single public broadcaster would be too powerful and bad for democracy, National leader Simon Bridges says, after news of a proposal to replace RNZ and TVNZ. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ward, PhD candidate, University of Sydney The ABC has announced it will not provide live radio coverage of the Olympics for the first time in 67 years for budgetary reasons, and because Australians now have the “increased ability to access Olympics ...
For Amy Russell, ceasing deforestation of her lower limbs was a declaration of independence.When I wrote on The Spinoff recently about going barefoot everywhere, and then about being a fat runner, I got a lot more positive feedback than I expected, and a lot less criticism. So I thought clearly ...
Lecretia Seales would have been "incredibly proud" of last night's End of Life Choice vote, her husband says, while doctors continue to voice their opposition. ...
Dr Susan Wardell, a His Dark Materials fan who grew up to be a social anthropologist, reviews the much-anticipated sort-of sequel, The Secret Commonwealth.Is the world fundamentally dead, or alive? Philip Pullman asks in this new book, a thinly-veiled philosophical interrogation of “progressive thinking”. The book is rich in both human ...
The newly launched Sustainable New Zealand Party’s first and biggest challenge is to prove that it is in fact sustainable, and not just another flash in the new party pan. ...
The fate of RNZ and TVNZ may soon be in the hands of Cabinet ministers; and the chair of the Medical Association says it will be difficult to put safeguards in place to prevent people from being subtlety coerced into euthanasia. ...
New Zealanders now have the casting vote on whether to make euthanasia legal, after Parliament voted 69 votes to 51 in favour of the End of Life Choice Bill. ...
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 content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Euthanasia Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Euthanasia bill proves there’s power in a party-of-one Sam Sachdeva ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Wasef, Postdoctoral research fellow, Griffith University These days, not many Aussies consider the ibis a particularly admirable creature. But these birds, now colloquially referred to as “bin chickens” due to their notorious scavenging antics, have a grandiose and important place in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ward, PhD candidate, University of Sydney The ABC has announced it will not provide live radio coverage of the Olympics for the first time in 67 years for budgetary reasons, and because Australians now have the “increased ability to access Olympics ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Mosley, Research Fellow, Systems Neuroscience Laboratory, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting one in 350 Australians. It’s caused by the loss of cells deep within the brain that produce a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Degeneration ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael James Walsh, Assistant Professor Social Science, University of Canberra The concept of “home” refers to more than bricks and mortar. Just as cities are more than buildings and infrastructure, our homes carry all manner of emotional, aesthetic and socio-cultural significance. Our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lin Crase, Professor of Economics and Head of School, University of South Australia The deal to crank up Adelaide’s desalination plant to make more water available to farmers in the drought-stricken Murray-Darling Basin makes no sense. It involves the federal government paying ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Andreallo, Lecturer in digital culture, University of Sydney When thinking of sexbots, companionship might not be the first word that comes to mind. But sexbot advertising promises more than sex toys. It is also selling emotional intimacy: robots marketed as if ...
Ahead of the 50 Shades of Green march on parliament today, Jon Pemberton – chairman of the Ag Proud NZ Trust – urges members of the rural community to avoid confrontation and focus on rebuilding the relationship with our urban friends. “Ag Proud NZ understands ...
Paula Bennett and Anne Tolley are financially off the hook after Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters accepted they did not leak his private information. ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Another unexpected OCR move, NZ First Foundation donations under scrutiny, and End of Life Choice bill passes pending referendum.Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr seems intent on giving as many surprises as possible with the OCR. After slashing it in August when it was ...
The fate of RNZ and TVNZ may soon be in the hands of Cabinet ministers, with a proposal to disestablish both broadcasters and create an entirely new public media entity. ...
Electricity retailing is about to be changed by artificial intelligence and the move away from fossil fuels. Watch a video interview with Simply Energy's Murray Dyer. ...
Tomorrow the Australian minister for agriculture is in Christchurch to lobby for a ban on words like “milk” and “meat” from the labels of meat and dairy alternatives. Shama Sukul Lee, the founder of alternative meat startup Sunfed, says the campaign is not about the consumer: it’s driven by a ...
Tomorrow the Australian minister for agriculture is in Christchurch to lobby for a ban on words like “milk” and “meat” from the labels of meat and dairy alternatives. Shama Sukul Lee, the founder of alternative meat startup Sunfed, says the campaign is not about the consumer: it’s driven by a ...
It’s setting up a high school and John Key is an investor, but leaked documents show the $380m education startup locks parents into tough contracts worth tens of thousands of dollars.A tutoring company with former prime minister John Key on its board is charging parents as much as $60,000 to ...
"It's highly concerning that Parliament has voted for the End of Life Choice Bill to become law, pending a referendum," says Renée Joubert, Executive Officer of Euthanasia-Free NZ . ...
The End-of-Life Choice Society is pleased MPs have recognised that the majority of voters across a wide spectrum of society want a law change to allow the terminally ill to die free of intolerable pain and suffering, its president Dr Mary Panko said ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brian Oliver, Research Leader in Respiratory cellular and molecular biology at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and Senior Lecturer, School of Medical & Molecular Biosciences, University of Technology Sydney New South Wales and Queensland are in the grip of a devastating ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toni Noble, Adjunct Professor, Institute for Positive Psychology & Education, Australian Catholic University More than 600 schools have been closed, and some damaged, in recent days as bushfires rage across Queensland and New South Wales. Some students have been urgently evacuated while ...
Early on Thursday NZ time, the Trump impeachment inquiry kicks into high gear, as the previously closed-door proceedings are replaced with televised public hearings. Here’s the lowdown.What’s about to happen?Just over seven weeks since Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grace Moore, Senior lecturer in English, the University of Otago, New Zealand, University of Otago Bushfire writing has long been a part of Australian literature. Tales of heroic rescues and bush Christmases describe a time when the fire season was confined only ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya M Howard, Senior research fellow, University of New England It’s five years since government worker Glen Turner was murdered by a farmer in a confrontation over land clearing laws. Media reporting after his death frequently propagated the image of the “poor ...
The option of requesting assisted dying for people with terminal illness as provisioned by the proposed End of Life Choice Bill has all but divided the country. ...
The Deputy Prime Minister's case against two top civil servants, two former ministers, and a ministry has wrapped at the Auckland High Court, with the judge is reserving his decision. ...
The extension of the Royal Commission report to 30 April 2020 means all other government responses to the mosque attack should be equally delayed, according to the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO). ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia Australians woke to the news last weekend that a 19-year-old Warlpiri man had been shot and killed by a police officer in Yuendumu, 300km north-west of Alice Springs. A confrontation ...
Excessively stringent freshwater policies that won’t achieve significantly better water quality outcomes will cost New Zealanders more than $80 billion over the next thirty years, says DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle. “The water quality limits ...
Yesterday the government announced their reform of 1989’s Tomorrow’s Schools legislation. Claire Amos, a school principal in Auckland, reflects on what it all means. When the first draft of the Tomorrow’s School Report landed back in December 2018, I reflected that “the only real concern is that we are not brave enough ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Macquarie University It has been called “the robbery of the century”. Martin Shields and Nicholas Diable, two British investment bankers, are on trial in Germany for helping structure a massive tax evasion scheme, known as cum-ex ...
A group of about a dozen MPs from Labour and National have addressed a last-minute protest at Parliament, on the day the End of Life Choice Bill is due to pass its final reading. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Mathews, Professor, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology Two judges in the High Court of Australia this morning referred Cardinal George Pell’s application for special leave to appeal his convictions to a full bench of the High Court. While not ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has opened for submissions on Supplementary Order Paper No 408 to the Arms Legislation Bill. Submissions can be made online and close on Friday 29 November 2019 at midnight. Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 408 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stanley Shanapinda, Research Fellow, La Trobe University Yesterday, New South Wales and Queensland issued fire warnings classified as either “catastrophic”, “severe” or “extreme” – and these conditions will remain in the coming days. The Bureau of Meteorology’s fire danger rating for Wednesday, ...
Newly launched carbon offsetting company Carbonclick want to make it easier for businesses and consumers to save the planet. CEO Dave Rouse and CPO Jan Czaplicki explain that while carbon offsetting isn’t the solution to global warming, it’s necessary.We have pumped our skies full of greenhouse gases for over 200 ...
Premiering tonight on TVNZ DUKE, Tara Ward explores the salty depths of Spiky Gold Hunters. Spiky Gold Hunter is Country Calendar for hard arses. DUKE’s new documentary series follows six Kiwis as they search the Foveaux Strait for kina, a job with great financial reward but huge risk. These divers work ...
The Reserve Bank announced on Wednesday that it hold the Official Cash Rate at 1 percent when bank economists had widely predicted and recommended a 25 basis point cut. ...
It’s time for our leaders to harness their power to take action on meaningful and sustained welfare policy changes, so that all children can have the opportunity to live good lives and to experience a happy, healthy childhood, says Child Poverty ...
Winston Peters' lawyer appears to have accepted in the High Court that two former National ministers he is suing for $450,000 for breaching his privacy were not the source of the leak or responsible for it. ...
Open mike 06/02/2015 
Open mike is your post.
The End of Life Choice Bill passed its third reading last night, 69 - 51. Thanks to a compromise with NZ First - which looks to have been necessary on the final numbers - the commencement of the bill will be subject to a referendum. Given the ugliness of the ...32 mins ago
Recently more than 150 post-graduate students and young scientists presented an open letter to the Green Party via The Spinoff, encouraging them to reconsider their position on genetic modification. Their target is tackling climate change issues.[1] Can any party continue to be dismissive about genetic modification (GM) contributing to ...4 hours ago
by Deirdre O’Neill Under Thatcher and then Blair and continuing up until our contemporary moment, the working class has seen its culture slowly and progressively destroyed. The change from an industrial society to a service society produced a marked shift in focus from the working class as the backbone of ...18 hours ago
It seems fair to say that we currently live in a problematic political moment in world history. Democracies are in decline and dictatorships are on the rise. Primordial, sectarian and post-modern divisions have re-emerged, are on the rise or have been accentuated by political evolutions of the moment such as ...23 hours ago
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...2 days ago
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...2 days ago
2 days ago
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ... 4 days ago
And to think he gave all the potential goodwill away with that moronic, cult-like statement (repeated ad nauseam by many National hardliners) that Key is quite simply “the greatest PM we ever had”…
Installation complete: this was nothing ... 1 week ago
Today, a worker contacted me asking if she could go to the police over her employer stealing thousands of dollars from her in unpaid wages. The employer also did not pay this worker’s taxes or student loan which amounts to tax fraud. As a workers rights activist, who founded the ...2 weeks ago
Image Credit: Increase Social Media Traffic & Website Traffic 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 ... 2 weeks ago
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First backs the public to decide on the End of Life Choice Bill via a referendum at the 2020 General Election. The Bill, with New Zealand First’s referendum provision incorporated, passed its final reading in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for ...3 hours ago
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...6 days ago
The Government has confirmed its third major mental health facility upgrade since the Budget, this time at Palmerston North Hospital. The Prime Minister and Health Minister today visited MidCentral DHB to announce that $30 million has been allocated to upgrade its acute mental health facility. It follows earlier announcements in ...47 mins ago
Police acknowledge the two reports released today by the Independent Police Conduct Authority in relation to misconduct by a now former Police officer and the unlawful detention of a young person. ...15 mins ago
A “best of luck” message should be extended to the good people of Tāneatua, who have waited patiently for a new police station. Our experience suggests that if or when they get their new police station, they should check the fine print regarding hours of operation. We make this suggestions ...16 mins ago
After Massey University in Wellington cancelled Feminism 2020 last month, the controversial event has found a new home in the parliament banquet hall. The controversial Feminism 2020 event cancelled last month by Massey University is scheduled to be held instead in the parliamentary banquet hall this Friday night. Billed as “the ...34 mins ago
The Migrant Workers Association says it is wrong to ask immigration officials to treat couples in culturally arranged marriages differently from other partnership cases. ...36 mins ago
Sanford's full year profit has failed to meet expectations as the company says climate change is the biggest risk it faces to its business. ...46 mins ago
The housing market's revival continues with the national median house price ticking over $600,000 for the first time. ...1 hour ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ward, PhD candidate, University of Sydney The ABC has announced it will not provide live radio coverage of the Olympics for the first time in 67 years for budgetary reasons, and because Australians now have the “increased ability to access Olympics ...1 hour ago
Mysterious foundation loaning New Zealand First money; and Auckland ports' move to Whangarei: explained ...4 hours ago
New Zealand’s MPs yesterday stepped towards history as they debated the bill, which would hand the final decision on assisted dying to the public. ...4 hours ago
The fate of RNZ and TVNZ may soon be in the hands of Cabinet ministers; and the chair of the Medical Association says it will be difficult to put safeguards in place to prevent people from being subtlety coerced into euthanasia. ...4 hours ago
New Zealand baggage handling equipment maker Glidepath has been sold to a French company. ...4 hours ago
Philip Matthews celebrates two remarkble - and remarkably different - portraits of the great Colin McCahon. ...6 hours ago
Electricity retailing is about to be changed by artificial intelligence and the move away from fossil fuels. Watch a video interview with Simply Energy's Murray Dyer. ...6 hours ago
Arranged marriages where partners had the freedom to say no may not be included under a new partnership visa fix. Dileepa Fonseka explains. ...6 hours ago
National's education plans has some good stuff, but the promises that will resonate most could have come from Labour. ...6 hours ago
David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill won over Parliament where other MPs had failed - but the real fight may just be beginning. ...7 hours ago
The University of Auckland's Dr Louise Humpage makes a plea to Jacinda Ardern to ban private fireworks once and for all. ...7 hours ago
Elite female sporting events will ultimately speak for themselves to fans who need convincing they are worthwhile watching. ...7 hours ago
A new Māori policing strategy, designed to get reoffending numbers down, has been met with skepticism. ...7 hours ago
Despite its best efforts to lower power prices, the Government might see a retail rate hike just six months before next year's election. ...17 hours ago
The price of avocados has been smashed to their lowest in almost three years, and the price of other fruit and veges are also falling. ...22 hours ago
The Reserve Bank announced on Wednesday that it hold the Official Cash Rate at 1 percent when bank economists had widely predicted and recommended a 25 basis point cut. ...22 hours ago
The Reserve Bank has held the Official Cash Rate steady at a record low 1 percent. ...22 hours ago
Winston Peters' lawyer appears to have accepted in the High Court that two former National ministers he is suing for $450,000 for breaching his privacy were not the source of the leak or responsible for it. ...22 hours ago
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.