No politics section in today’s online Herald, of course nothing of merit to report at all so replace it with fluff and other passing issues. Are their shills struggling to create content and spin around the latest blatant ‘ f you’ to the electorate by the NACT.
Further to this did I miss the Digipoll the Herald usually runs to coincide with the start of the new parliamentary session or did they not bother this year? Also (though it’s hard to believe it’s possible) TVNZ’s political coverage seems to be even more useless than it used to be.
Police bosses are considering laying off staff and closing some stations in an effort to save $360 million over the next three years.
The staff cuts would include police officers and non-sworn staff.
Commissioner Peter Marshall is not commenting on the proposal, but says frontline policing resources will not be reduced.
Oh good, frontline services will improve with a slashing of support! Yeah Right….
Hi Carol Re asset sales and the general picture worldwide:
The decline phase of I.C. (Industrial Civilisation) sounds momentous eh!? continues to collapse to a simpler less rich for the 99% level while the 1% aided by the likes of shonkey and dunny paper shore up their nests with aquiring real assets rather than paper junk!
More Proof the World Is Going to Hell
Get a Proper Job, Says Michael C. Ruppert
By Andy Capper
money is only a symbol for what energy can do.
Michael C. Ruppert: The only education worth taking a loan out for now is a practical trade. Do something that will help you stay alive. Industrial society is collapsing and there will be no recovery. We are past peak oil and nobody can deny that.
There is a 96 percent correlation between GDP growth and greenhouse gas emissions, which means there can be no [economic] recovery without burning oil and coal. China is scrambling all over the world for coal because their factories are closing down because they rely on coal for energy.
There are reports that the British police are starting to militarise. More weapons and armoured vehicles (like the Jankel Guardian pictured below) are being acquired, and officers are receiving SAS training tactics. The mainstream press says this is to protect people from a Mumbai-style terror attack, but the concern at ground level is that when the UK’s economy really hits the skids there is going to be a new form of extreme rioting that the country has never seen before.
That is going to happen all over Europe. There is a catch-22 in progress for police departments who are being cut back globally due to budget issues, in places by as much as 50 percent, yet still have the mandate to keep order.
Richard Boock posts the obvious truth about the keyman
“every time Key opts to avoid what the rest of us regard as the blindingly obvious, he becomes a little more of a hollow man; a PM without answers, a leader without a vision. A bloke who’s just realised the world he once knew doesn’t exist anymore. And that it won’t be returning.
A complete banker, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
A work of beauty, that article. Thanks for linking it…
Yes, some folk will point to Key’s comments over the Government’s “sinking lid” policy for pokie machines. They need to think more about that. If the numbers of machines are being forced to decrease nationally, yet SkyCity’s are allowed to increase, then not only is Key selling policy advantages to the casino, he’s also selling a competitive advantage. The rules will be bent in return for a favour. Not much different from the days of brown paper bags filled with money, really.
I was having a real rant about this to my partner. Great to see it articulated so clearly.
Can anyone tell me why Statistics NZ’s series on work stoppages stops in December 2010. There is no 2011 data. Have they stopped collecting or posting the data? Or am I missing something?
May be quake related. Stats NZ building was stuffed quite early on and seem to remember that loads of info and data were trapped in red zone and not backed up off site.
We don’t know how lucky we are as workers in NZ and it’s easy to forget gains hard one by our forebears through unions and sacrifice. Without them we would no doubt be in a similar situations to the people outlined below…
My wife is from eastern Europe and her family still live there so often I here first hand how bad things are getting employment wise.
Her father who is relatively high up the chain as a head engineer at a heating plant was told if he takes a holiday this year not to come back because he won’t have a job to come back to, It seems that the company owner is insisting that all workers give up their paid holidays for the foreseeable future.
Her Mother works for a company doing work related to EU funds she is a project manager on @ 500nzd per month working 60 hour weeks, Her boss recently awarded himself a $100,000 euro bonus on winning a multi million dollar contract
The other common theme is that people just aren’t getting paid at all or only a fraction of what they should be.
Unfortunately with no protection, no help and desperation people are to scared of losing what little income they have they put with this shit. I get the impression tensions are rising and the shit may really hit the fan over the next few years with corruption endemic and poverty ever increasing.
Also of interest French banks are moving there labour force over to her country as someone will do for $250 nz per week that someone in France was doing for $1500 nz and thanks to the wonders of the internet and call centre tech to the average customer you would assume you were dealing with someone in France.
Whilst everyone looks over their neighbour’s fence and belatedly wakes up to the Asset Sales debacle, we miss the dissembled denial of everyones’ right to a safe and just society. There are thousands of books that have been written which speak most plainly how freedom of the press is all that stands between society and slavery.
Freedom of the press: perpetrate creation and maintenance of stereotype; support free market ideology; embark on trial-by-media circumventions of justice; publish distract and delay, designed to be addictive, badly researched, unprofessional, opinion as fact, racist delusions on a daily basis.
Yeah, don’t really think our media needs any more “freedom”. They seem to be complaining that one of them might have to find some courage, stand up for what a real fourth estate might be and risk going to prison.
I can see it now, the office-bound hero abandoned by shameful doe-eyed collegues and editors- in-chief, betraying them and shrugging their shoulders; all of them more interested in selling the story of the persecuted journalist than the story the journalist was chasing. Bunch of jackles and weasels the lot.
With our imaginary fourth estate gone, finally, and good riddance, something new can take it’s place, most likely beginning in the blogosphere; but if laws change to stop that, then maybe a return to printing presses and community meetings.
I completely agree what we currently consume is the editorial equivalent of fast food. I sincerely wish people would walk away from the neon lit queues of factless fodder and head home to a table laden with the real food our forebearers had so earnestly fought for. Even if most of the ideas they were fighting and fighting for, were themselves myths and lies.
That does not alter the stark reality that this shift is designed to silence those who may speak out. It is not about the Journalist. They gave up any right to be respected long ago. It is absolutely about the whistleblower. The single voice that has the strength to speak truth to power.
The threat of exposure and the ensuing melee inevitably extinguish the career the health, at times the family and even the very life of the whistleblower. This course of events has regularly been shown to be a very effective muzzle in despotic regimes and free democracies alike. The idea that secrecy is only for Governments has been and continues to be a core poison to the consumers of real and true democracy.
Truth is now a minuscule smattering of seeds left on a vast banquet table of frozen TV dinners.
Seeds that every corporate owned government on this planet work so diligently against propogating. Simple seeds that they never again want to see planted in the rich soil of freedom.
Advertisers began pulling their support immediately after the comments. Limbaugh apologised over the weekend for the attack, but immediately ran into more trouble as critics charged that his apology was insincere.
“I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress,” he wrote on his website. “My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologise to Ms Fluke for the insulting word choices.”
Fluke told ABC’s The View that Limbaugh had been trying to silence her. She rejected the apology: “I don’t think that a statement like this, issued saying that his choice of words was not the best, changes anything. Especially when that statement is issued when he’s under significant pressure from his sponsors, who have begun to pull support from his show.”
Hopefully he’ll be taken off air, given his track record.
Affco workers air safety concerns
Posted at 11:45am Tuesday 06th Mar, 2012
Meat workers at the latest Affco plant to be locked out are concerned new workers’ safety is being put at risk to undermine the union.
Talley’s locked out 200 workers at the Rangiuru freezing works near Te Puke at 5am, taking the total number of locked out meat workers nationwide to 1000.
There are 150 workers striking in solidarity with the workers outside the plant with over 750 striking at the company’s seven other North Island plants. The company locked out 750 workers last Wednesday and previously said it wouldn’t lock out any more workers.
The Rangiuru site president for the Meat Workers Union is Kaipara McGarvey, 47, from Tuhoe, and he is a lamb cutter. “This dispute isn’t about pay or anything like that, it’s about getting rid of the union,” he says. “Talley’s is a well-known anti-union company and we all feel it’s pretty low that they’d stoop to putting new workers’ safety at risk just to undermine us.”
Rakai Tamihana, 39, from Nga Tamanuihiri, is a boner in his third season. He joined the union when he started in 2010 and was quickly approached by the company. “The company pressured me out of the union and put my safety at risk to undermine union workers,” he says. “They took me into a room and offered me $1000 and three per cent pay rise to pull out; then they put me on the slaughterfloor without any training where I got an electric shock from the railing.
“I felt like a guinea pig – they only put me there to create division with the skilled workers who were all in the union.”
Rariri Potaka, 48, from Ngati Waitaha, has worked at the plant for 18 years. He is a supervisor (leader hand) on mutton slaughter.
“I was threatened with disciplinary action for refusing to put a new starter who had only been at the plant four hours on the chain,” he says. “Mutton slaughter is a dangerous job and we don’t wear protective clothing or mesh gloves because of contamination issues. I was willing to put my job on the line so I wouldn’t risk the workers’ safety.”
Potaka says new staff are labourers and usually work up to skilled jobs through years of training.
For those that can get past the fact this is about something on Kiwiblog and involves Judith Collins this is well worth noting.
It also involves Charles Chauvel:
It is clear that this is a much better bill. There are significant modifications to the proposed surveillance device regime, better regulation of the more intrusive forms of surveillance that were originally proposed, a reduction in the warrantless surveillance period, better rules over the retention of data, stronger reporting requirements for surveillance device warrants, and better controls over examination and production orders.
So it is absolutely the case that Parliament did what it is expected to do via the select committee process on this measure. It did look at the detail. The parties worked together and they did produce a better bill.
High praise for the side of parliament we don’t hear much about – where much of the actual work is done.
Charles also says:
The Minister and I met yesterday. She wrote to me today, and I accept her good-faith attempt to try to resolve these problems, and in passing I should say that, in respect of at least two other measures I can think of, I appreciate the approach she has already shown in this portfolio.
She is willing to stand back and take a look at whether a measure is really necessary and whether or not it really commands stakeholder support, and if it does not she is willing to give it another look, and that is something that ought to be said for the record.
And David Parker:
I repeat the thanks that have been expressed by my colleague Charles Chauvel for the way in which the National Party conducted itself at the Justice and Electoral Committee. The committee was chaired by Chester Borrows.
The Search and Surveillance Bill is one of the most complex and difficult pieces of legislation that I have considered in any select committee since I have been in Parliament. It is one in which the select committee took very seriously the proper balance between the protection of civil liberties and the necessary powers to be afforded to State agencies to investigate criminal conduct.
Sounds like it’s well done by all involved, on a very tricky and contentious bit of legislation.
DPF calls it Rare Praise. I hope we can get to see this approach as normal.
In response to the concerns of some groups, the 7-year threshold means that examination orders are not available to investigate such crimes as protesting, trespass, disorderly behaviour or unlawful assembly. -Judith Collins
such crimes as protestingThat’s a hell of a freudian slip.
Iran – Next In Line For Western ‘Intervention’?
Media Lens, March 01, 2012
What would it take for journalists to seriously challenge government propaganda? A war with over one million dead, four million refugees, a country’s infrastructure shattered, and the increased threat of retail ‘terror’ in response to the West’s wholesale ‘terror’? How horrifying do even very recent experiences have to be, how great the war crimes, before media professionals begin to exhibit scepticism towards Western governments’ hyping of yet another ‘threat’. Why is warmongering the default mode for the corporate media?
[deleted]
[lprent: We’re not a cut’n’paste site. We’re interested in what you have to say and you appear to be somewhat laconic. It’d pay not to be in the future. We boot people who are incapable of expressing themselves.
If you are going to quote something, then use blockquote or italics to make it clear what is yours and what is someone elses. Only quote small relevant section(s) and as you did, put a link in. Then people can go to the link if you have interested them enough. And read the policy. ]
The question has been quietly asked in Chch about the efforts of rescuers following Feb 22 and whether mistakes had been made that resulted in deaths. It is hoped the Royal Commission is considering this (which is not an attack on the rescuers, merely a legitimate questioning of the methods, policies etc which guided them).
“Treasury says the government’s corporate tax take may miss forecasts for the rest of the financial year, leaving the Crown vulnerable to a bigger-than-expected annual deficit. : Todays NZ Herald
Hang on, Key and Co have done all they can to shrink Government and lay the conditions they believe support the business sector. When are the corporates going to contribute their fair share?
And from this http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/nz-corporate-tax-dwindle-2012-214756006.html
“…and the Debt Management Office has slipped behind the run-rate needed to meet this year’s bond programme to raise $13.5 billion”. We ae having sporting slang now being applied to the govts finances. Next there will be the required run rate graph, when we are well behind the required rate worry as then it will be obvious that no one will want to loan to us and our only option will be asset sales …… mmmmm
I gather this deficit is whythere is such a slash and burn attitude towards govt departments- refer to the rumoured cutting of the police budget and the resulting loss of front line staff- Cannot wait for SST outbusrts to follow 😉
Unpaid interns are among the 800 extra doctors the Government says it has hired since taking office, with a union calling the figure “misleading”.
The Resident Doctors Association says Health Minister Tony Ryall’s figure for the number of doctors hired since National took office in 2008 includes house surgeons, house officers, probationers and interns.
The union’s national president Curtis Walker said it was wrong for the figure to include interns, who were in their last year of training at university and were not registered doctors.
“To include interns as new doctors is incorrect and misleading to the public,” he said.
So those frontline staff are actually unpaid students, thanks Tony Pink Tie!
The Resident Doctors Association says Health Minister Tony Ryall’s figure for the number of doctors hired since National took office in 2008 includes house surgeons, house officers, probationers and interns.
I was reading Ryall’s excuses in the Herald last night.. Disgusting!
But seriously, what has happened in the past when a ship has arrived from a port that didn’t have union workers affiliated to the NZ Labour party ? Has it been unloaded or do these guys really have the mafia style control they think they have ?
Once upon a time workers had a legal right to withdraw their labour. A right which still exists in the rest of the “free” world.
In NZ even the industrial action taken by Sam Purnell in Wellington for a 40 hour week would be illegal today.
Why should they work a ship loaded by scabs?
A ship which is itself manned by scab labour. Undercutting NZ rates of pay and taking NZ jobs. Without even getting into the safety issues and risks attached to Flag of Convenience shipping.
May I suggest the best course of action would seem to be for the unions and their associates to setup their own port. Purchase their own port infrastructure and staff it. They would then have full control over which ships come and go via that port.
Isn’t work a transaction between the owners of financial capital and the owners of work capital, based on an agreement? If that agreement is changed don’t both parties have the right to withdraw from the transaction? – Owners of financial capital can sack bad workers, or if they can’t pay for work agree on terms to cancel the contract (redundancy). If the owners of work capital find the agreement is being broken by the owners of financial capital they have the right to withdraw their work in the same way. It’s not a subordinate relationship – it’s an agreement.
As for a setting up their own port, why don’t the owners of financial capital do their own work then they wouldn’t have to worry about agreements with the owners of work capital? Better still why not both sides come to an agreement to set up a cooperative?
Yes there is an agreement between the owners of capital (the port) and the owners of labour (the workers). It’s called an employment contract. It’s the thing the employment court has ruled on.
Now if the employment contract explicitly said the workers were withing their rights to pick and choose which vessels they work on based on the work place associations of the people that loaded them – then I suspect the employment court would have ruled in their favour.
If the owners of labour (the workers) don’t like the work they are required to do under their contract then they can certainly withdraw their labour. But to do that, they need to actually withdraw their labour – resign. They can’t simply tell the owners of capital (the port) that they have made up a new employment condition and expect it to stand. This is evidenced by the employment court ruling that they must get back to work… or I guess resign.
Resign? It’s just as easy to say that if Employers can’t manage a dispute they could sell up to more competent providers of capital or the management could resign – It depends on whether the workers and businesses would prefer that to renegotiating the agreement. Generally I’d expect both employers and workers would work on the principle that they would prefer an agreement with the current workers/businesses Often it suits no-one for any other outcome.
The only reason the employers are trying this on is because of high unemployment, in a tight labour market I doubt you’d see the same thing happening. And before you say it… yes workers should maintain the principle of negotiating a fair agreement in a tight labour market, and in the past there have been some occasions when they haven’t. This is not a case of holding port management to ransom – it’s fighting to maintain conditions from a base of proven productivity.
And in terms of the Wellington port workers & the Employment Court (a different, albeit related issue), I don’t see that workers are being unreasonable.
This morning, Maritime Union Wellington secretary Mike Clark said workers would comply with any court ruling. “You can’t disobey a court order.”
You can’t call their tactics fair and honourable when they are overturned by a court as being illegal. The union have lawyers – they must have know they were acting illegally.
How would we be talking about the port if their actions were thrown out in a court – we would call them scum…
I didn’t call the actions fair or honourable, I said not unreasonable…and who’s ‘we’? I don’t think I’ve read you using the word ‘scum’ in the context of poor employers. And It’s not a word I use.
The situation with the Auckland port management actions is completely different, btw.
Those who are too incompetent and gutless to start a real business for themselves want to control someone else’s….
Jeez, I’d Love to hear you say that to the next engineer or doctor you meet.
Sure, if I meet a Doctor that decides that they won’t treat me because I’m not a union member or an engineer who refuses his services because I’m not a union member then I’ll certainly tell them they have crossed the line. I’ll find another doctor or another engineer. In the case of the doctor I’d also lay a complaint.
Doctors take an oath to preserve life – they put that ahead of all else. Engineers are required to act within established standards and guidelines…
I’m not sure what your point is – the port workers have in this case decided that their employment contract terms can be varied based on something the port has no control over – how is that even comparable to an engineer or a doctor ?
So when did the doctors union insist that doctors classify patients according to their union affiliations…. of that’s right – DR’s are smart and don’t make up the rules as they go along…. The patient comes first – their disputes second. Shame you couldn’t find a better way to make yourself look like a tool.
Bringing the doctors union into this really isn’t helping the port workers…..
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And if you said this life ain't good enoughI would give my world to lift you upI could change my life to better suit your moodBecause you're so smoothAnd it's just like the ocean under the moonOh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from youYou got the ...
Aotearoa remains the minority’s birthright, New Zealand the majority’s possession. WAITANGI DAY commentary see-saws manically between the warmly positive and the coldly negative. Many New Zealanders consider this a good thing. They point to the unexamined patriotism of July Fourth and Bastille Day celebrations, and applaud the fact that the ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump’s administration over Gaza and Ukraine; on the ...
Up until now, the prevailing coalition view of public servants was that there were simply too many of them. But yesterday the new Public Service Commissioner, handpicked by the Luxon Government, said it was not so much numbers but what they did and the value they produced that mattered. Sir ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guests and ...
In a moment we explore the question: What is Andrew Bayly wanting to tell ACC, and will it involve enjoying a small wine tasting and then telling someone to fuck off? But first, for context, a broader one: What do we look for in a government?Imagine for a moment, you ...
As expected, Donald Trump just threw Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's illegal theft of land, while ruling out any future membership of NATO. Its a colossal betrayal, which effectively legitimises Russia's invasion, while laying the groundwork for the next one. But Trump is apparently fine with ...
A ballot for a single member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Employment Relations (Collective Agreements in Triangular Relationships) Amendment Bill (Adrian Rurawhe) The bill would extend union rights to employees in triangular relationships, where they are (nominally) employed by one party, but ...
This is a guest post by George Weeks, reviewing a book called ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin AshtonBook review: ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin Ashton (2015) – and what it means for Auckland. The title of this article might unnerve any Greater Auckland ...
This story was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been ...
In this world, it's just usYou know it's not the same as it wasSongwriters: Harry Edward Styles / Thomas Edward Percy Hull / Tyler Sam JohnsonYesterday, I received a lovely message from Caty, a reader of Nick’s Kōrero, that got me thinking. So I thought I’d share it with you, ...
In past times a person was considered “unserious” or “not a serious” person if they failed to grasp, behave and speak according to the solemnity of the context in which they were located. For example a serious person does not audibly pass gas at Church, or yell “gun” at a ...
Long stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, February 13 are:The coalition Government’s early 2024 ‘fiscal emergency’ freeze on funding, planning and building houses, schools, local roads and hospitals helped extend and deepen the economic and jobs recession through calendar ...
For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
“The ACT Party can’t be bothered putting an MP on one of the Justice subcommittees hearing submissions on their own Treaty Principles Bill,” Labour Justice Spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
The Government’s newly announced funding for biodiversity and tourism of $30-million over three years is a small fraction of what is required for conservation in this country. ...
The Government's sudden cancellation of the tertiary education funding increase is a reckless move that risks widespread job losses and service reductions across New Zealand's universities. ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Ngāi Tahu wants to introduce contamination charges to address contamination in Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere, the High Court has been told.In the second week of the two-month case against the Attorney-General over wai māori (freshwater), Dr Elizabeth Brown, the Rangatira of Taumutu, which sits on the lake’s edge, told Justice Melanie ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra ASIO chief Mike Burgess has warned that over the next five years Australia’s security environment will become more dynamic, diverse and degraded, with “more security surprises” in the second half of the decade than in ...
There is certainly plenty of room for better police training for dealing with protest activity that starts with a rights-based approach to ensuring people can fully exercise their human rights. ...
“We are thrilled that this Bill is making its way through the House and looks set to become law,” said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University Gumbariya/Shutterstock The Reserve Bank’s decision to cut interest rates for the first time in four years has triggered a round of celebration. Mortgage holders are cheering the fact their monthly repayments are now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Housing supply in Australia will be a key battleground in the election campaign. With home ownership more and more out of reach for young and not so young Australians, red tape and low productivity are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Korolev, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, UNSW Sydney The United States and Russia agreed to work on a plan to end the war in Ukraine at high-level talks in Saudi Arabia this week. Ukrainian and European representatives were pointedly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University BaLL LunLa/Shutterstock Sleep is the holy grail for new parents. So no wonder many tired parents are looking for something to help their babies sleep. A TikTok trend claims ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ranjana Gupta, Senior Lecturer, Accounting Department, Auckland University of Technology Jirsak/Shutterstock The profit made on every breakfast bowl of weet-bix is tax exempt, giving Sanitarium Health Food Company, owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, an advantage over other breakfast food companies. ...
A closer look at some of the homegrown talent currently commanding television screens around the globe. The new season of The White Lotus hit our screens this week, and with it a familiar face in New Zealand actor Morgana O’Reilly. To secure a role in one of the world’s most ...
"This is a crisis of the Government’s own making and the unit is another sign of desperation," said PSA acting national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francesca Perugia, Senior Lecturer, School of Design and the Built Environment, Curtin University Australia’s housing crisis has created a push for fast-tracked construction. Federal, state and territory governments have set a target of 1.2 million new homes over five years. Increasing housing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ash Watson, Scientia Fellow and Senior Lecturer, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock When we’re uncomfortable we say the “vibe is off”. When we’re having a good time we’re “vibing”. To assess the mood we do a “vibe check”. And when the atmosphere in ...
What’s up with the man from Epsom? The leader of the Act Party has been in plenty of headlines in the last two weeks, ranging from a controversial letter to police on behalf of constituent Philip Polkinghorne (written before David Seymour was a minister) to an attempt to drive ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Stephenson, Deputy Director, Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, Australian National University Newly published research has found clear evidence that openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, and queer+ (LGBTIQ+) Australian politicians were disproportionately targeted with personal abuse on social media at the ...
Gilmore Girls, Schitt’s Creek, even The Vampire Diaries – they’re all set in tight-knit neighbourhoods where everyone knows everyone. So what is it like to actually know your neighbours? My favourite television shows are set in tight-knit neighbourhoods where everyone knows everyone. Characters attend town meetings where they debate local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yanyan Hong, PhD Candidate in Communication and Media Studies, University of Adelaide IMDB On the surface, Ne Zha 2: The Sea’s Fury (2025), the sequel to the 2019 Chinese blockbuster Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child, is a high-octane, action-packed and ...
Wellington travellers say their buses are so hot they’re often forced to get off early and walk. Shanti Mathias explores the impact of non-functioning air conditioning on public transport. When Bella, a young professional living in Wellington, thinks about taking the bus, her first thought is “Ugh”. The bus might ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Annette Kroen, Research Fellow Planning and Transport, RMIT University The cleanup is underway in northern Queensland following the latest flooding catastrophe to hit the state. More than 7,000 insurance claims have already been lodged, most of them for inundated homes and other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Subha Parida, Lecturer in Property, University of South Australia Carl Oberg/Shutterstock Houses and fire do not mix. The firestorm which hit Los Angeles in January destroyed nearly 2,000 buildings and forced 130,000 people to evacuate. The 2019–20 Australian megafires destroyed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, University of Tasmania Tasmania has been burning for more than two weeks, with no end in sight. Almost 100,000 hectares of bushland in the northwest has burned to date. This includes the Tarkine rainforest ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Loosemore, Professor of Construction Management, University of Technology Sydney This week, the Productivity Commission released its much-awaited report into productivity growth in Australia’s housing construction sector. It wasn’t a glowing appraisal. The commission found physical productivity – the total number ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pascale Lubbe, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Molecular Ecology, University of Otago Royal spoonbills are among several new species that have crossed the Tasman and naturalised in New Zealand. JJ Harrison/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA When people arrived on the shores of Aotearoa ...
Stats NZ’s head is stepping down over the agency’s failure to safeguard census data, and more officials may soon be in the firing line, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. An ‘absolutely unacceptable’ failure Stats NZ chief ...
Health NZ is under greater government scrutiny, with the new health minister setting up a unit he says will "drive greater accountability and performance". ...
No politics section in today’s online Herald, of course nothing of merit to report at all so replace it with fluff and other passing issues. Are their shills struggling to create content and spin around the latest blatant ‘ f you’ to the electorate by the NACT.
Further to this did I miss the Digipoll the Herald usually runs to coincide with the start of the new parliamentary session or did they not bother this year? Also (though it’s hard to believe it’s possible) TVNZ’s political coverage seems to be even more useless than it used to be.
This is on their web page – must relate to national’s tough stance on crime and their investment in justice?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10790077
Police bosses are considering laying off staff and closing some stations in an effort to save $360 million over the next three years.
The staff cuts would include police officers and non-sworn staff.
Commissioner Peter Marshall is not commenting on the proposal, but says frontline policing resources will not be reduced.
Oh good, frontline services will improve with a slashing of support! Yeah Right….
Meanwhile Stuff has a few significant articles today:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6527665/26k-for-3-day-McCully-fly-by
accompanied by a poll asking if this trip is worth the money
A very significant artilce of asset sales:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6527608/Law-won-t-give-Kiwis-first-rights-to-shares
and another artcle on, what amounts to, the Maori Party major sell-out on asset sales:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6527609/SOEs-Waitangi-lite-but-coalition-tight
What a shameful end for the Maori Party.
Hi Carol Re asset sales and the general picture worldwide:
The decline phase of I.C. (Industrial Civilisation) sounds momentous eh!? continues to collapse to a simpler less rich for the 99% level while the 1% aided by the likes of shonkey and dunny paper shore up their nests with aquiring real assets rather than paper junk!
More Proof the World Is Going to Hell
Get a Proper Job, Says Michael C. Ruppert
By Andy Capper
money is only a symbol for what energy can do.
Michael C. Ruppert: The only education worth taking a loan out for now is a practical trade. Do something that will help you stay alive. Industrial society is collapsing and there will be no recovery. We are past peak oil and nobody can deny that.
There is a 96 percent correlation between GDP growth and greenhouse gas emissions, which means there can be no [economic] recovery without burning oil and coal. China is scrambling all over the world for coal because their factories are closing down because they rely on coal for energy.
There are reports that the British police are starting to militarise. More weapons and armoured vehicles (like the Jankel Guardian pictured below) are being acquired, and officers are receiving SAS training tactics. The mainstream press says this is to protect people from a Mumbai-style terror attack, but the concern at ground level is that when the UK’s economy really hits the skids there is going to be a new form of extreme rioting that the country has never seen before.
That is going to happen all over Europe. There is a catch-22 in progress for police departments who are being cut back globally due to budget issues, in places by as much as 50 percent, yet still have the mandate to keep order.
Link: http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resources/collapsenet-public-access/news-alerts/item/6773-get-a-proper-job-michael-c-ruppert
http://whoar.co.nz/2012/commentwhoar-original-cartoon-lockwood-smith-vs-winston-peters/
phil-at-whoar.
Doesn’t Phil O’Reilly know that workers may also be “mums and dads”.
Richard Boock posts the obvious truth about the keyman
“every time Key opts to avoid what the rest of us regard as the blindingly obvious, he becomes a little more of a hollow man; a PM without answers, a leader without a vision. A bloke who’s just realised the world he once knew doesn’t exist anymore. And that it won’t be returning.
A complete banker, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/blogs/an-auckland-minute/6526335/John-Key-Dishonest-or-deluded
A work of beauty, that article. Thanks for linking it…
I was having a real rant about this to my partner. Great to see it articulated so clearly.
Can anyone tell me why Statistics NZ’s series on work stoppages stops in December 2010. There is no 2011 data. Have they stopped collecting or posting the data? Or am I missing something?
This year’s spike will make fascinating reading.
May be quake related. Stats NZ building was stuffed quite early on and seem to remember that loads of info and data were trapped in red zone and not backed up off site.
Thanks Andy. That makes sense.
We don’t know how lucky we are as workers in NZ and it’s easy to forget gains hard one by our forebears through unions and sacrifice. Without them we would no doubt be in a similar situations to the people outlined below…
My wife is from eastern Europe and her family still live there so often I here first hand how bad things are getting employment wise.
Her father who is relatively high up the chain as a head engineer at a heating plant was told if he takes a holiday this year not to come back because he won’t have a job to come back to, It seems that the company owner is insisting that all workers give up their paid holidays for the foreseeable future.
Her Mother works for a company doing work related to EU funds she is a project manager on @ 500nzd per month working 60 hour weeks, Her boss recently awarded himself a $100,000 euro bonus on winning a multi million dollar contract
The other common theme is that people just aren’t getting paid at all or only a fraction of what they should be.
Unfortunately with no protection, no help and desperation people are to scared of losing what little income they have they put with this shit. I get the impression tensions are rising and the shit may really hit the fan over the next few years with corruption endemic and poverty ever increasing.
Also of interest French banks are moving there labour force over to her country as someone will do for $250 nz per week that someone in France was doing for $1500 nz and thanks to the wonders of the internet and call centre tech to the average customer you would assume you were dealing with someone in France.
Whilst everyone looks over their neighbour’s fence and belatedly wakes up to the Asset Sales debacle, we miss the dissembled denial of everyones’ right to a safe and just society. There are thousands of books that have been written which speak most plainly how freedom of the press is all that stands between society and slavery.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6526793/Surveillance-bill-to-target-privilege
Freedom of the press: perpetrate creation and maintenance of stereotype; support free market ideology; embark on trial-by-media circumventions of justice; publish distract and delay, designed to be addictive, badly researched, unprofessional, opinion as fact, racist delusions on a daily basis.
Yeah, don’t really think our media needs any more “freedom”. They seem to be complaining that one of them might have to find some courage, stand up for what a real fourth estate might be and risk going to prison.
I can see it now, the office-bound hero abandoned by shameful doe-eyed collegues and editors- in-chief, betraying them and shrugging their shoulders; all of them more interested in selling the story of the persecuted journalist than the story the journalist was chasing. Bunch of jackles and weasels the lot.
With our imaginary fourth estate gone, finally, and good riddance, something new can take it’s place, most likely beginning in the blogosphere; but if laws change to stop that, then maybe a return to printing presses and community meetings.
I completely agree what we currently consume is the editorial equivalent of fast food. I sincerely wish people would walk away from the neon lit queues of factless fodder and head home to a table laden with the real food our forebearers had so earnestly fought for. Even if most of the ideas they were fighting and fighting for, were themselves myths and lies.
That does not alter the stark reality that this shift is designed to silence those who may speak out. It is not about the Journalist. They gave up any right to be respected long ago. It is absolutely about the whistleblower. The single voice that has the strength to speak truth to power.
The threat of exposure and the ensuing melee inevitably extinguish the career the health, at times the family and even the very life of the whistleblower. This course of events has regularly been shown to be a very effective muzzle in despotic regimes and free democracies alike. The idea that secrecy is only for Governments has been and continues to be a core poison to the consumers of real and true democracy.
Truth is now a minuscule smattering of seeds left on a vast banquet table of frozen TV dinners.
Seeds that every corporate owned government on this planet work so diligently against propogating. Simple seeds that they never again want to see planted in the rich soil of freedom.
Good to see Rush Limbaugh getting his comeuppance for his word vomit at Sandra Fluke, after she testifying in Congress to support access to contraceptives under medical insurance.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/05/rush-limbaugh-sincerely-sorry-aol
Hopefully he’ll be taken off air, given his track record.
America’s Paul Holmes.
http://whoar.co.nz/2012/spying-on-the-koch-brothers/
“…Inside the discreet retreat where the elite meet to plot Barack Obama’s defeat…”
phil-at-whoar.
… however they have yet to come up against Stan the man with the tan van who has the golden an…
http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/22682-affco-workers-air-safety-concerns.html
Affco workers air safety concerns
Posted at 11:45am Tuesday 06th Mar, 2012
Meat workers at the latest Affco plant to be locked out are concerned new workers’ safety is being put at risk to undermine the union.
Talley’s locked out 200 workers at the Rangiuru freezing works near Te Puke at 5am, taking the total number of locked out meat workers nationwide to 1000.
There are 150 workers striking in solidarity with the workers outside the plant with over 750 striking at the company’s seven other North Island plants. The company locked out 750 workers last Wednesday and previously said it wouldn’t lock out any more workers.
The Rangiuru site president for the Meat Workers Union is Kaipara McGarvey, 47, from Tuhoe, and he is a lamb cutter. “This dispute isn’t about pay or anything like that, it’s about getting rid of the union,” he says. “Talley’s is a well-known anti-union company and we all feel it’s pretty low that they’d stoop to putting new workers’ safety at risk just to undermine us.”
Rakai Tamihana, 39, from Nga Tamanuihiri, is a boner in his third season. He joined the union when he started in 2010 and was quickly approached by the company. “The company pressured me out of the union and put my safety at risk to undermine union workers,” he says. “They took me into a room and offered me $1000 and three per cent pay rise to pull out; then they put me on the slaughterfloor without any training where I got an electric shock from the railing.
“I felt like a guinea pig – they only put me there to create division with the skilled workers who were all in the union.”
Rariri Potaka, 48, from Ngati Waitaha, has worked at the plant for 18 years. He is a supervisor (leader hand) on mutton slaughter.
“I was threatened with disciplinary action for refusing to put a new starter who had only been at the plant four hours on the chain,” he says. “Mutton slaughter is a dangerous job and we don’t wear protective clothing or mesh gloves because of contamination issues. I was willing to put my job on the line so I wouldn’t risk the workers’ safety.”
Potaka says new staff are labourers and usually work up to skilled jobs through years of training.
http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/22682-affco-workers-air-safety-concerns.html
Good on him! But the whole thing is evil…
For those that can get past the fact this is about something on Kiwiblog and involves Judith Collins this is well worth noting.
It also involves Charles Chauvel:
High praise for the side of parliament we don’t hear much about – where much of the actual work is done.
Charles also says:
And David Parker:
Sounds like it’s well done by all involved, on a very tricky and contentious bit of legislation.
DPF calls it Rare Praise. I hope we can get to see this approach as normal.
In response to the concerns of some groups, the 7-year threshold means that examination orders are not available to investigate such crimes as protesting, trespass, disorderly behaviour or unlawful assembly. -Judith Collins
such crimes as protestingThat’s a hell of a freudian slip.
http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=668:iran-next-in-line-for-western-intervention&catid=25:alerts-2012&Itemid=69
[deleted]
[lprent: We’re not a cut’n’paste site. We’re interested in what you have to say and you appear to be somewhat laconic. It’d pay not to be in the future. We boot people who are incapable of expressing themselves.
If you are going to quote something, then use blockquote or italics to make it clear what is yours and what is someone elses. Only quote small relevant section(s) and as you did, put a link in. Then people can go to the link if you have interested them enough. And read the policy. ]
The question has been quietly asked in Chch about the efforts of rescuers following Feb 22 and whether mistakes had been made that resulted in deaths. It is hoped the Royal Commission is considering this (which is not an attack on the rescuers, merely a legitimate questioning of the methods, policies etc which guided them).
This article http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6530540/Inept-rescue-effort-blamed-for-deaths appears today which clearly indicates the question is real and serious.
Vamos!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100015432/spains-sovereign-thunderclap-and-the-end-of-merkels-europe/#disqus_thread
Excellent.
The needs of the people come before the desires of the money-lenders.
It is this concept which is strangely alien to Key and corps.
NACT Budget Blow Out
“Treasury says the government’s corporate tax take may miss forecasts for the rest of the financial year, leaving the Crown vulnerable to a bigger-than-expected annual deficit. : Todays NZ Herald
Hang on, Key and Co have done all they can to shrink Government and lay the conditions they believe support the business sector. When are the corporates going to contribute their fair share?
Never whilst key is in charge
And from this http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/nz-corporate-tax-dwindle-2012-214756006.html
“…and the Debt Management Office has slipped behind the run-rate needed to meet this year’s bond programme to raise $13.5 billion”. We ae having sporting slang now being applied to the govts finances. Next there will be the required run rate graph, when we are well behind the required rate worry as then it will be obvious that no one will want to loan to us and our only option will be asset sales …… mmmmm
I gather this deficit is whythere is such a slash and burn attitude towards govt departments- refer to the rumoured cutting of the police budget and the resulting loss of front line staff- Cannot wait for SST outbusrts to follow 😉
Here’s another National mistruth blown out of the water
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10790179
So those frontline staff are actually unpaid students, thanks Tony Pink Tie!
And another – 2000 more nurses!! Another lie
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10789874
And pretty outright lies, too – doctors and I believe nurses need not only to have completed specific qualifications, but to be registered as well.
That’s just desperate. If he repeats the claim in the House, it would be contempt or whatever MPs get done for.
Under Lockwood they get a stern look at a see me after sitting note whe they probably get told off for making his job tougher.
And the MSM sit by and do jack along with the opposition who are paid to front up and call him out of these lies…..a sense of futility grows.
I was reading Ryall’s excuses in the Herald last night.. Disgusting!
Stuff: Wharfies ordered to unload ship
OMG – Told to do their job…. where will it end !
But seriously, what has happened in the past when a ship has arrived from a port that didn’t have union workers affiliated to the NZ Labour party ? Has it been unloaded or do these guys really have the mafia style control they think they have ?
Once upon a time workers had a legal right to withdraw their labour. A right which still exists in the rest of the “free” world.
In NZ even the industrial action taken by Sam Purnell in Wellington for a 40 hour week would be illegal today.
Why should they work a ship loaded by scabs?
A ship which is itself manned by scab labour. Undercutting NZ rates of pay and taking NZ jobs. Without even getting into the safety issues and risks attached to Flag of Convenience shipping.
Nothing stopping them withdrawing their labour – they can resign !
I though their job was unloading ships not playing Labour party politics…..
I thought Gibson’s job was running a port. Not playing NACT politics.
KJT
May I suggest the best course of action would seem to be for the unions and their associates to setup their own port. Purchase their own port infrastructure and staff it. They would then have full control over which ships come and go via that port.
Isn’t work a transaction between the owners of financial capital and the owners of work capital, based on an agreement? If that agreement is changed don’t both parties have the right to withdraw from the transaction? – Owners of financial capital can sack bad workers, or if they can’t pay for work agree on terms to cancel the contract (redundancy). If the owners of work capital find the agreement is being broken by the owners of financial capital they have the right to withdraw their work in the same way. It’s not a subordinate relationship – it’s an agreement.
As for a setting up their own port, why don’t the owners of financial capital do their own work then they wouldn’t have to worry about agreements with the owners of work capital? Better still why not both sides come to an agreement to set up a cooperative?
rosy
Yes there is an agreement between the owners of capital (the port) and the owners of labour (the workers). It’s called an employment contract. It’s the thing the employment court has ruled on.
Now if the employment contract explicitly said the workers were withing their rights to pick and choose which vessels they work on based on the work place associations of the people that loaded them – then I suspect the employment court would have ruled in their favour.
If the owners of labour (the workers) don’t like the work they are required to do under their contract then they can certainly withdraw their labour. But to do that, they need to actually withdraw their labour – resign. They can’t simply tell the owners of capital (the port) that they have made up a new employment condition and expect it to stand. This is evidenced by the employment court ruling that they must get back to work… or I guess resign.
Resign? It’s just as easy to say that if Employers can’t manage a dispute they could sell up to more competent providers of capital or the management could resign – It depends on whether the workers and businesses would prefer that to renegotiating the agreement. Generally I’d expect both employers and workers would work on the principle that they would prefer an agreement with the current workers/businesses Often it suits no-one for any other outcome.
The only reason the employers are trying this on is because of high unemployment, in a tight labour market I doubt you’d see the same thing happening. And before you say it… yes workers should maintain the principle of negotiating a fair agreement in a tight labour market, and in the past there have been some occasions when they haven’t. This is not a case of holding port management to ransom – it’s fighting to maintain conditions from a base of proven productivity.
And in terms of the Wellington port workers & the Employment Court (a different, albeit related issue), I don’t see that workers are being unreasonable.
rosy
You can’t call their tactics fair and honourable when they are overturned by a court as being illegal. The union have lawyers – they must have know they were acting illegally.
How would we be talking about the port if their actions were thrown out in a court – we would call them scum…
I didn’t call the actions fair or honourable, I said not unreasonable…and who’s ‘we’? I don’t think I’ve read you using the word ‘scum’ in the context of poor employers. And It’s not a word I use.
The situation with the Auckland port management actions is completely different, btw.
Yes the situation with Auckland is entirely different. So WTF did the Wellington workers think they were doing ?
They did.
Once upon a time. It was called State ownership.
Like the power companies, our roads, NZ rail etc etc. the Unions and their associates, the former Labour party, paid for and set up.
Unfortunately, we did too good a job and made them too attractive to RWNJ thieves.
Those who are too incompetent and gutless to start a real business for themselves want to steal ours!
Yes in a fairy tale the state was the union….. And they all lived happily ever after….
The state isn’t one-in-the-same as the trade unions. The trade unions may be the funding arm of one political party – but they are not the state.
Those who are too incompetent and gutless to start a real business for themselves want to control someone else’s….
Those who are too incompetent and gutless to start a real business for themselves want to control someone else’s….
Jeez, I’d Love to hear you say that to the next engineer or doctor you meet.
Sure, if I meet a Doctor that decides that they won’t treat me because I’m not a union member or an engineer who refuses his services because I’m not a union member then I’ll certainly tell them they have crossed the line. I’ll find another doctor or another engineer. In the case of the doctor I’d also lay a complaint.
Doctors take an oath to preserve life – they put that ahead of all else. Engineers are required to act within established standards and guidelines…
I’m not sure what your point is – the port workers have in this case decided that their employment contract terms can be varied based on something the port has no control over – how is that even comparable to an engineer or a doctor ?
Doctors are smart and have their own unions you moron, very effective unions they are too.
So when did the doctors union insist that doctors classify patients according to their union affiliations…. of that’s right – DR’s are smart and don’t make up the rules as they go along…. The patient comes first – their disputes second. Shame you couldn’t find a better way to make yourself look like a tool.
Bringing the doctors union into this really isn’t helping the port workers…..
True. Smashing the Board and POAL management is the only thing left at this point.
Has Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia sold their souls? To John Key? How much? And for what end?
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/iwi-leader-calls-maori-party-leave-coalition-4761842
Gee, Pita, can you really hear yourself these days? And actually even believe in what you say?
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/mnr/mnr-20120306-0812-harawira_urges_maori_party_to_quit_government_over_asset_sales-048.mp3
Power sharing.
Apparently we are being offered something we already own and given that the government is responsible for getting a best possible return on its revenue for its citizens, ummm now, if the assets are really such a good buy and investment, can one assume that the government will be first in line to buy them when they offer them for sale … duh