Is the Speaker on a promise? All that smirking, sly little smiles and glances of admiration to John Key who was as usual impolite, evasive, insulting, abusive, unable to answer perfectly coherent questions but instead goes into incandescent, incoherent rants. Carter did everything but spring up and high five Key at one point. Absolutely appalling. Have noticed a lot less tittering and clapping of flippers from the trained seals lately. Novelty of key’s wit and wisdom wearing off perhaps. Carter is letting our yapping pm away with too much. Bit of man love there.
Watched a section of it last night and in oz such a blatant abuse of the position would be broadcast on primetime news as time and again they behave like juveniles to prevent the govt being made to answer opposition questions.
Carter is a disgrace and has childish tantrums but then none of the nats give a F about democracy so they love it.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 1.1.1
But you really get the feel that Dr Smith raised the bar back, which was good.
Then we get this guy, who actually makes Wilson look not that bad – That makes me shudder, as I agree with you The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell, Wilson was awful.
Begs the question, is it a race to the gutter with this lot?
Our least trusted groups are bloggers and MPs, with only 5% and 8% of New Zealanders expressing complete or lots of trust in them.
Trust in MPs and government ministers appears to have fallen over the last three years, with over half of respondents saying they trust them a lot or a little less. This is followed by bloggers and the media, with net losses of 43% and 40% respectively.
Only 9% of adults find the newspapers and magazines they use totally credible: there is a nett credibility gap overall of -16%.
Only 36% feel their newspapers and magazines are doing as well as they possibly can, and there is a large number planning to stop buying them or who will definitely or might stop using them – equivalent to an audience loss of another 447,785 New Zealanders nationwide.
Can’t say that any of that really surprises me.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 1.1.1.1.1.1
Lockwood was the best we ever had. Given their experience under Wilson, I think the Nats were pissed off at how even-handed he was. So, they weren’t going to make that mistake again.
Yesterdays bias and abuse of the speakers position by Carter was appalling and he should be removed
Key and his shitty liver ,the white coats should have been taking him to detox
Iceland’s embattled prime minister has resigned amid a controversy over his offshore holdings, a Cabinet minister said as outrage over the accounts roiled the North Atlantic island nation.
Susie Ferguson conducts another miserable interview where she fails again to hold the government to account.
Instead she simply allows Joyce to blather on without questioning the bs he spouts.
How does she let him get away with the lies he says?
RNZ. Not good enough.
It really is kind of sad at the moment, but I hope that as we get nearer to a change of government, National Radio will put their teeth back in and start biting the arse of the likes of Joyce and Key. Somebody in the msm has to hold National to account, and if not RNZ, who?
The corporate media, are being exposed as a lost cause, I do love how the RWNJ scream there is a liberal bias. And RNZ is just not enough, I gave up on them when they started to use PR sniper Hooton. Actually, there is another problem, there are more PR people than there are journalists – no wonder no one knows what truth looks like.
That said, more and more people are getting their news off the internet, and checking there sources. OK maybe not the second part. But I know I check way more now.
“As the ripples from the biggest leak in journalistic history continue to spread, academic Brooke Harrington – who spent the better part of a decade investigating wealth management – says the corruption goes well beyond Mossack Fonseca.”
No, he gave up on them. What part of “Matthew Hooton tells lies for money and anyone who employs him diminishes their reputation by doing so” are you having trouble with?
RNZ providing as lot of misinformation today.
Now propaganda about Sanders and Clinton being disseminated.
The ‘Democratic strategist’ Mary Anne Marsh was simply appalling.
Why can’t RNZ do some simple research on the US election rather than relying on such shills for the establishment?
Because of Obama’s black African past a surge of over-zealous and liberal idealism were effective in clinching his election to the presidency. Despite Hillary’s consistent support of American violent and widespread intervention her gender similarly is playing into the hands of distorted idealism.
“…Pol said criminals involved in drugs and human trafficking generated the greatest amount of illicit funds.
But the criminals who had set up trusts in New Zealand were more likely to be involved in large-scale cartels, corruption and professional “trade-based” money-laundering.
One New Zealand trust has already been associated with Unaoil, a Monaco company under investigation for helping multinationals bribe oil ministers and officials in the Middle East.
Woodhouse and Prime Minister John Key had said the OECD had “looked at our foreign trust rules in the past and had no concerns”.
Labour leader Andrew Little said an OECD report published in 2013 showed that was incorrect.
The report said improvements might be needed to laws and regulations to ensure that people who owned shares in companies could be identified where those shares were held by nominees.
Corin Dann on TV1 breakfast news this morning has stated that Australian journalists perusing these Panama files has discovered there have been 60,000 mentions of NZ in the files. That is a hell of a lot of mentions for a supposedly squeaky clean tax regime country. Also he said, more worrying for the Government was that we are the only OECD country to provide the services of tax trusts for overseas customers in the manner the files are disclosing.
Maybe if the Gods smile on us, we may see a resignation of an important public servant in the near future.
And therefore presumably anyone who was in the last Labour govt should also resign, given that the current regime is nearly 30 years old.
Having said that, the zeitgeist moves on. What was OK once may not be OK today.
And there is no doubt a lot more concern about corporate tax avoidance than there used to be.
An interesting aspect is that Europeans seem much more caught up in it than Americans.
I have always thought this is a response to uncertainly about govt trustworthiness, which has much deeper well springs than we can really imagine In New Zealand. Fundamentally we know that our govt, over many decades, is inherently trustworthy.
For instance if your country has been invaded, subject to revolution, people persecuted and subject to pogroms, and property confiscated, either by outright govt theft or by extreme taxes (north of 70%), then you might want your assets in a place that is not accessible to govt.
A large number of European nations have suffered one or more of these fates in the last hundred years. But we have never had experience (in New Zealand) of any of these things, and I would also say neither are we likely to. But many migrants to New Zealand certainly understand these risks.
So the reason why people act in the way they do is not just about avoiding legitimate taxes, there may be much deeper reasons, which are in part sociological, to use offshore havens, or for that matter Swiss bank accounts.
the implications of the panama papers are significantly deeper then tax avoidance and asset suppression,they are the transfer of sovereign power and oversight under the guise of FTA.
Sanders for example railed against the FTA with Panama in 2011
“In fact, combating tax haven abuse in Panama would be a violation of this free trade agreement, exposing the U.S. to fines from international authorities,” he stressed.
The problems that arise from the panama papers are not only about tax avoidance and asset obfuscation ,but also the transfer of sovereign ownership and legislative oversight as Sanders correctly identified with the Panama FTA.
“In fact, combating tax haven abuse in Panama would be a violation of this free trade agreement, exposing the U.S. to fines from international authorities,” he stressed.
And therefore presumably anyone who was in the last Labour govt should also resign, given that the current regime is nearly 30 years old.
But the bit that allows secretive tax avoiding trusts is only 4/5 years old and passed by this government.
What was OK once may not be OK today.
Actually, it was never Ok – it was always immoral but the government tried to persuade people that it was fine and dandy so as to help the rich people steal from everybody else.
An interesting aspect is that Europeans seem much more caught up in it than Americans.
The US seems to have a few internal tax havens which means that they don’t have to go offshore for them.
Fundamentally we know that our govt, over many decades, is inherently trustworthy.
Wrong. We don’t know that at all and trust in government has been falling.
For instance if your country has been invaded, subject to revolution, people persecuted and subject to pogroms, and property confiscated, either by outright govt theft or by extreme taxes (north of 70%), then you might want your assets in a place that is not accessible to govt.
You don’t have that right. If you don’t want to pay the taxes of a particular country then your only option is to leave. Anything else is sociopathic BS.
But we have never had experience (in New Zealand) of any of these things,
I think you need to speak more to Māori who do have direct experience of these things over the last century or so.
I was simply pointing out how trust in the government being able to protect civil and economic rights (at a fundamental level) will influence behaviour.
For instance could you blame people in Eastern Europe getting as many of their assets (and indeed themselves) out of their countries following the communist takeovers of the 1940’s.
As for Maori, the issues you refer to primarily relate to the activities of the Crown in the nineteenth century. Since 1893 New Zealand has been a continuous democracy where everyone has had the vote. And a robust respect for the rule of law.
Is it perfect, no. But compared to most of the world, yes.
Then there was Bastion Point in the 70s where hundreds of police surrounded the rightful owners and went on to evict them.
Then when the rule of law compensates an iwi like Rangitāne o Manawatū through the treaty they get given back the Manawatu river, now one of the shittiest, polluted rivers in the world. The few million dollars they get back in the treaty claim was worked out by Metiria Turei as “$27 an acre” for the land taken from them. Sweet deal for over a century of settler profiteering?
A fair point about Maori, particularly in respect of actions in the nineteenth century.
But as a broader point, my perspective is not an unreasonable view of New Zealand in contrast with most other nations in the world, given that we been a comprehensive democracy since 1893.
Continental Europe has obviously been less stable than New Zealand throughout the twentieth century. Ask the people of the former Yugoslavia as recently as twenty years ago.
Sure why not, I’m all for the labour MP who helped pass these acts resigning as well. Individual responsibility and all that.
Notice how you avoid that one, and went on some lame anti communist rant, fear murmuring is so last century.
So this is the defence for defrauding other people of tax revenue, I think you may have to come up with something better than that paranoid delusion. You might convince the public here, but the Aussies I’m talking to – just think we are a bunch of “thieving w*&^%rs”. Other people are look at us with disgust now. Go on, view some of the message boards across the globe. Wake up man, it ant pretty.
“Fundamentally we know that our govt, over many decades, is inherently trustworthy.” And it took the Tories to tear down that edifice. I think maybe you living in a wee bit of a bubble Wayne, I get it. I’m white, it’s easy to indulge in that privilege.
But the reality is really quite different.
Politicians are despised, people don’t vote and then people like you come here and spin. The sociological spin was deeply ironic, considering Marx was one of the founders of sociology. And by the way, I’m anti-authoritarian. So no great fan of Marx or communism myself.
It looks like NZ could be up there with the likes of British Virgin Islands as a tax haven. Redlogix posted this fascinating ABC documentary (45 mins) yesterday about how it all works and some of the major players, although it doesn’t focus on NZ so much. http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2016/04/04/4434529.htm
People need to get across this debate here, a tax haven is where you choose to pay your tax or no tax as the case may be as your your centre of business. interest or business domicile re world wide income. In essence you structure your affairs legally to choose a domicile to pay the minimal tax, your legal and democratic right In NZ case people are just parking money here in trusts not using NZ as there domicile or centre of business interest , NZ tax rates, laws etc are not beneficial like the virgin island, Ireland etc that are real tax havens. I am not sure what the big issue is here, if money is been laundered or hidden here to avoid tax NZ is party to multiple tax treaties and international convention. if there is suspion A NZ trust is been used to evade tax by an offshore tax regime the NZ tax regime won’t protect you
Uh-huh. So some people are far too rich. A mere millionaire probably wouldn’t go to all the cost and bother of squirreling several hundred thousands away out of sight….and out of reach of the tax regime that fills the public purse, that provides the infrastructure and services that society needs.
Any info on any of this money that’s been squirreled away being put towards bettering the common good? I mean, that’s what free market fundamentalism suggests should happen. Don’t need any pesky government determining public expenditure; the rich, using market mechanisms that are their exposal, will see us right.
Not disagreeing Bill I am just highlighting that NZ is not a tax haven ( that keeps been thrown out) , ie it’s not about paying tax in NZ or NZ attracting business as a center of interest due to its low tax regime or that NZ law will protect offshore illegal tax avoidance should a tax avoider be pursued here. it’s simply a story that some people are using our trust regime ( and innovation and benefit of English law separating ownership and control of assets) to potentially hide money
Today I will be on the Raglan Radio Morning Show with host Aaron at 9:35 AM I will be talking about the Panama Papers, John Key’s MO and Soros among others!
people from overseas not paying tax? Not my business.
People from NZ not paying tax? Only my business if they are middle to lower class people without trusts. Rich people with Trusts? Thats not my business.
“Well, there are two features of a tax haven as far as I’m aware.
“One is a very low, or no, tax base and the other is secrecy. We have neither of those things, we have a requirement for all people who earn income in New Zealand to pay tax and we share with other jurisdictions.”
Mr Woodhouse said as these were overseas trusts, they had overseas settlors, assets and income and the New Zealand Inland Revenue (IRD) had no interest in their obligations to pay tax overseas.” Quote End
@Sabine – don’t forget the beneficiaries who are constantly being surveilled in case they might have, shock ‘a relationship’ and apparently 50% of WINZ debts are overpayments by WINZ. The government went to extreme lengths to avoid paying beneficiaries their underpayments however.
Sounds like corporations are also underpaying holiday pay etc etc…. Kiwis are being ripped off constantly, just an accident apparently. Look a panda everyone…
Avoiding and hiding millions or billions via trusts is fine for Key’s Government, (in fact encouraged). Don’t forget the tax payers union are also ‘relaxed’ about multinationals not paying the same tax as NZ based companies. Free market does not seem to matter if the 0.0001% can profit. Paying tax in NZ by the rich listers is now a voluntary exercise.
Love how for years Natz have pitted the middle class against the beneficiaries as ‘taking their hard earned savings’ and all along making NZ a secret tax haven mentioned 60 times in the Panama leaks. Co incidence (and that John Key trained as an accountant – I think that is his sole qualification). Does not sound like it.
Yep it’s just like the financial melt down again, when the dodgy high flying CFO’s often with accountancy qualifications pushed entire countries into crisis and then still managed to get their bonuses with taxpayers money… Meanwhile the middle class are homeless, job less and pensionless or without security …. and told lucky they don’t have to fill out the 70+ pages of unemployment benefit application when for example Fonterra lay off 100 workers (while CEO receives 4 million salary).
At a time where our state houses have just been tendered off cheap to offshore companies and corporations… MSM blackout while the Bachelor makes headlines each day… Oh what a joke we have become in NZ!
(and that John Key trained as an accountant – I think that is his sole qualification)
IIRC, he trained as a financier which is a different thing altogether and far more dangerous as they seem to believe that you can make money from money and not have to produce anything.
FYI – tomorrow I have been given 30 minutes by the Local Government and Environment Select Committee to give evidence in person to support my petition calling for an urgent inquiry into Auckland Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs).
After trying to illegally steal our Harbour in cahoots with Auckland council Planners, it is pretty clear these COO’s answer to nobody but themselves.
Apparently in a free market companies are supposed to answer to the shareholders (who in the councils case should be the ratepayers) so why are they not accountable to ratepayers?
It sounds like, from what Mr Woodhouse says that we NZ are supplying and allowing a conduit to facilitate these trusts and buggar the morality of it, but yes, that’s okay it’s legal for this country. Now wasn’t that what Kim Dot Com was arguing, that he was just providing the conduit to access entertainment media and that he couldn’t be blamed for people using it in nefarious ways. Look what it has done for Kim Dot Com, extradition probably on the way, this Government doesn’t and isn’t seeing it for being legal at all. How do they explain their hypocrisy over this situation? Pity we don’t have an impeachment mechanism here.
“Pity we don’t have an impeachment mechanism here”
But we do have question time, the General Debate and a media of sorts…
Our government may have a bit of trouble explaining that juxtaposition. In the same way they are going to have to explain to other governments why our trust ownership and taxation rules are out of phase with other jurisdictions allowing tax evasion and laundering.
But we do have question time, the General Debate and a media of sorts…
And that gets on prime time news when?
Our government may have a bit of trouble explaining that juxtaposition.
Well, they would have difficulty explaining that if it go several weeks of prime time news with the journalists asking hard questions. Instead we’re likely to get a few minutes worth, a bit of a giggle between the host and the PM and that will be it.
The people of Rojava…we could open a kind of book on who gets to take them out in the end. Will it be the US, Russia or Turkey? Maybe a combined NATO thing? Maybe Syrian armed forces after the country regains some stability?
I’m picking a slow brutal demise at the hands of Assad’s forces, while the west and Russia sit back and either inform their respective audiences (us) that their hands are tied due to whatever settlement has resulted in Syria, or that Assad is just clearing away the last of any terrorist presence from the country.
Who’d be a fucking democrat?
btw. The Kurds in the vid are all about an independent Kurdistan. That’s inimical to the democratic aspirations in Rojava.
I’m picking Turkey. Look how fast they are to blame them for anything going wrong in Turkey. My guess it will be sold to the west as dealing with Terrorism. The Turkish government is using drones on them daily as it is.
I’m hopeful that the rest of the Kurds will engage with the people of Rojava, I hear they have been. These women were in Iraq, and the Iraq Kurds are talking to the Rojava Kurds. They know the history of the West and Turkey lying to them. That they won’t get an independent Kurdistan, it just won’t happen, they can not be that stupid.
OK believing in Masoud Barzani, is that stupid. Oh crap – I despair.
Panorama BBC have an edition,
“Tax Havens of the Rich and Powerful Exposed
Panorama
The rich and powerful have hidden billions of dollars in tax havens. They thought their financial secrets were safe, but now a huge leak of documents has revealed a world of secrecy, lies and crimes. ”
Explains with case studies how the money laundering/tax evasion works in Britain.
Nice to see at some reporting from this Panama stuff move beyond the stupid shallow gasping over the fact that rich pricks are doing rich prick stuff with regards tax avoidance.
From ‘The Guardian’
Revealed in the leaked documents was the fact that 2,800 Mossack Fonseca companies are connected to more than 6,000 UK title deeds, worth at least £7bn
Maybe Phil Twyford (or who-ever…probably best if it’s ‘who-ever’) would like to get on to it and see how many title deeds in NZ are linked back to Mossack Fonseca companies?
From book Affluenza by Oliver James I’m reading.
On today’s democracy: Dunn asserts that the age of democracy has actually entailed a far greater control of citizens by governments: ‘The world in which we all now live is governed more extensively and more intimately than it has ever been before.’
(Cambridge political theorist John Dunn.)
Democracy, in English-speaking nations today has come to mean the handing over of a vast number of decisions and powers to rulers in return for the freedom to pursue egotistical, hedonistic consumer choices (as Herbert Marcuse predicted it would, back in the 1960s).
I recommend this book, which has theory, ideas and anecdotes with something for everyone to agree and disagree with, which is good mind exercise fodder!
In an age of potentially catastrophic climate change, where the future survival of civilisation and even humanity itself depends on cutting back on fossil fuels, this scandal makes the current tax avoidance scandal that the world seems to be concentrating on, seem petty by comparison.
“The publication of the report, putting Unaoil at the very center of a massive international bribery ring, was met with head scratching by many energy analysts. Despite its seemingly crucial role in so many oil and gas contracts awarded around the world, very few have heard of the company.
The alleged operation was relatively straightforward. The clients – exploration companies, construction and engineering firms, and oilfield service contractors – would pay Unaoil large sums, and Unaoil would secure contracts for them by bribing government officials in the country of interest. Many of Unaoil’s clients claim that they did not know that Unaoil was bribing government officials on their behalf, but the report asserts that some were either willfully blind or were fully aware of the corruption.”
The fact that Unaoil’s “ownership” can be traced back to a shell company registered in New Zealand; Warrants investigation to determine if the Unaoil “Bribe Factory” was one of the “lobbyists” used by the “exploration companies, construction and engineering firms, and oilfield service contractors” in this country?
And further; Were Unaoil one of the oil industry lobbyists that persuaded the National government to pass special laws targetting anti fossil fuel protesters?
zinger? Nah.
Probably followup along the lines of “if NZ isn’t a tax haven in accordance with the pm’s assertions, why are there 60,000 references to NZ in the internal documents of a company that specialises in sheltering clients’ money in tax havens?” and moving on from there.
Winston likes tax evaders. Lots of paperwork to table in parliament…
This is quite distasteful stuff, heavy suppression orders in place yet almost salacious reporting allowed
In this cases it should be name suppression of the accused, suppression of any and all details of the victims and then, if found guilty, name the offender but leave all details identifying the victims in place and, if found not guilty, leave all suppression orders in place
But this whole reporting from the trial is just sleazy imho
The fact that the complainants were afraid no-one would believe them lends credence to their claims. Women/girls of any age who have been victims of violence where there is no visible or physical evidence available, knows there is a strong chance they will not be believed. It happens all the time.
“In this episode of the Keiser Report Max and Stacy discuss the curious case of Putin’s photo being used to sell #panamapapers when his name is allegedly not even mentioned in the 11 million pages of documents.
They also look at #WikiGreeks as someone leaks the transcript of a conversation between IMF officials hoping for a ‘credit event’ to ‘resolve’ the ongoing Greek tragedy.
In the second half, Max interviews Joel Benjamin and Jamie Griffiths of Debt Resistance UK about the LOBO loans pushing local UK councils to the brink of insolvency.”
Yeah. That news was politely buried in the article I linked. As one comment below the piece noted on the language used by ‘The Guardian’ Cruz apparently “crushed” Trump while Sanders’s bigger percentage win over Clinton was merely Sanders “beating” Clinton…with, I’d add, all the usual qualifiers politely explaining how he’s a lost cause just wasting everyone’s time.
Sanders – 56.5% he wins 45 delegates
Clinton – 43.5% she wins 31 delegates
I read Sanders will need to win by roughly this margin in the all of the remaining primaries to overtake Clinton and beat her with total no. of delegates.
The big one is going to be New York in 2 weeks where 247 delegates are up for grabs. Feel the Bern!
I understand there are still ten delegates to be allocated in Wisconsin to make a total of 86 delegates.
I also heard that Washington state delegates had also not been fully allocated yet (whatever ‘allocated’ in this context means given I thought they were automatically generated from vote percentage).
Are there odds being offered here on the USA elections? Seems a very interesting contest and sports betting seems to be a regular feature in these days.
Sanders needed to win by 16% in order to be on track to beat Clinton. He only won by 13.5%, so he’s still going backwards. Hence why he didn’t “crush” Clinton, whereas Cruz has landed a heavy blow at Trumps chances of winning.
Has anyone ever wondered why Auckland does not have a public/community Television station. A quick count of other areas gives me:
Cue Television
TV Central
Dunedin TV
Canterbury Television
TV Rotorua
Info-Rotorua
East Coast TV
Channel North
Television Hawkes Bay
Mainland TV
South TV
I may have missed some I think Nelson has their own channel.
The one thinsg all these channels can do is show stories of interest to the people that live in the area.
For some reason Auckland misses out. I am sick of commercail TV1,2,3,prime etc with their one size fits all for all of NZ. I want to see stories about Auckland.
In the past TVNZ did their best to stop local TV in Auckland by buying out stations and then closing them down. Remember Max and Horizon Television?
Just wonder if anyone else in Auckland would like to see programmes about Auckland.
hi ron, you can add tararua television to yr mix, too.
a friend and i were talking about the potential of a true local newspaper, as our one here in feilding is being “improved” and folded in with two other ‘local’ papers.
kinda like how the evening standard is 3/4s of the dominion.
slightly different real estate ads though.
Well who knows dog ? I’m not a liar, I’m not an effete simpering dick, I don’t lappishly colonise Richie’s arse to compensate for a lack of testo’, I don’t make giggles about child rapists and murderers, I don’t repeatedly assault young women, I’m not illiterate and most of all I’m not a troll backing an embarrassing disgrace. Quite the reverse of your spectacular fetidness Bowel.
I have been reading and listening to the aftermath of Trump’s comments about the four female first term Democratic representatives, all of whom are “people of color.” I found the US coverage interesting both as evidence of partisanship and the ...
The Herald reports that the housing shortage / bubble has hit a new level:New Zealand is short of 130,000 homes, the tally having risen lately by 30,000, two economists say. Jarrod Kerr and Jeremy Couchman, Kiwibank economists said: "This time ...
Milk producer Fonterra is one of New Zealand's biggest coal-users, using it to power all its South Island (and a few of its North Island) dairy factories. They'd previously "committed" to not building any new coal boilers after 2030. Now, ...
The proposed Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill treats biogenic methane emissions differently from all other carbon emissions. The latter are to be measured net so that emissions from fossil fuels can be offset by carbon stored in trees. ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh This article aims to answer a simple question, whether the conflict is only a rural one or whether it is also urban. The verb ‘to be’ is conjugated in the present tense as ,despite what some ...
Yesterday the government released its discussion document on action on agricultural emissions. As sadly usual, it proposed enormous subsidies for farm emissions, including for nitrogen-based fertiliser. This is a huge mistake. In addition to being one of the chief drivers ...
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act (this replaced their previous plans to hold a secret consultation with handpicked people). 285 people submitted on ...
Always Playing Catch-Up: Throughout the 1970s, the purchasing power of the ordinary worker’s pay packet – the only meaningful measure of his or her wealth – was being eaten away every passing year by seemingly inexorable rises in the cost-of-living. ...
The Interim Climate Change Committee's report on Action on agricultural emissions: Evidence, analysis and recommendations was finally released today, and as you might guess from the title, it is recommending that we actually act, rather than let farmers keep ...
On Sunday July 7, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter announced their intention to review the Ministry of Health’s Funded Family Care policy and repeal Part 4Aof the 2000 NZ Public Health and Disability Act. These are festering injustices ...
Agriculture is our biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for 48% of the total. It follows that meeting any credible emissions reduction target requires cutting agricultural emissions, most likely by having fewer cows. But National thinks people shouldn't be ...
How scummy is the UK Home Office? This scummy:The Home Office lied to EU member states to remove victims of human trafficking and modern slavery in breach of European law, according to whistleblowers. Legal experts have said the practice is ...
Belle is a lovely fifteen year-old border collie who belongs to our friends and neighbours at Bryan’s Beach, Michael and Judy Corboy. Belle, in her old age, can hardly see or hear, but – as a constant participant at social ...
“We wuz robbed!” is the classic cry of the disappointed losers of a closely contested sporting contest – it is very much to the credit of the Black Caps that we heard no such sentiment from them following the stunning ...
The Youth Parliament is being held this week, and some of the youth MPs are campaigning for a lower voting age:Molly Doyle, 17, is one Youth MP who wants this to change. She is part of a non-partisan campaign run ...
Up till now, Australia has made its living by digging up coal and exporting it to other countries, destroying the global climate in the process. But now they have a new option: exporting solar power:The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep ...
Later this month, thousands of people are expected to march to parliament as part of the #HandsOffOurTamaraki movement. At its heart, the movement is about preserving whānau and demanding that the state stop removing children from their whānau, hapū and iwi. ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh The recent statements made by the former FARC commander, Carlos Lozada (legal name Julian Gallo), where, from his seat in Congress, he praised the Colombian Army demonstrate how low the farianos have sunk. Lozada began by ...
A Woman’s Place is on the Podium was a public meeting in London on 10 July to discuss women’s sports and the impact of transwomen competing against women. The venue was sold out with a packed hall of 750 people. ...
Last month I talked about the no-fly movement: people who refuse to fly or limit it to absolute necessity to avoid destroying the climate. Now, that movement has a somewhat surprising new member: Dutch airline KLM:Dutch airline KLM has launched ...
In the 1960's, humanity faced a terrible threat: global thermonuclear war. Nuclear weapons were uniquely destructive and dangerous, and if more countries got them, the logic of MAD and the pre-emptive strike would put us on a hair-trigger to destruction. ...
An occasional series where I will ponder allegations of anti-Semitism directed at the British Labour Party and its members.In this case, we are thinking about an allegedly anti-Semitic image shared by a Labour Party member. Its origins appear to be ...
Matariki has been and gone, but this year we saw a couple of op-eds arguing that it should be a public holiday, replacing the foreign monarch's fake birthday. And now, New Zealand Republic - a group which campaigns for an ...
The discussion on the quality of economic advice, which we reported last week, has spilled over into a discussion about whether so many senior appointments should be of non-New Zealanders. Recall I discussed the failure to develop career paths within ...
When Nicky Hager revealed US footage of the Operation Burnham raid, obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act, one of the obvious questions was whether Ministers had seen it - and in particular, whether they'd been told that it ...
Northern Ireland is the Alabama of the UK: a backwards region where women and gay people are denied fundamental rights. But Westminster has just decided to fix that:MPs have voted resoundingly to extend same-sex marriage and access to abortion to ...
There's a problem with "synthetic cannabis", and not just the one you think. It's the name.We're in the midst of a wave of news stories that link synthetic drugs to serious harm, through deadly road accidents and accidental overdoses (which ...
Ranjit Kauri, The Dancing Maharani and Other Stories, Swansea, Head and Heart, 2019, £6.99; reviewed by Don Franks Working people are not the same country to country. Our struggles for a better life take place in surroundings of very different ...
Let's Do Them! All Jacinda Ardern has to do to clinch the 2020 General Election is frighten the bejesus out of the electorate by describing in the most graphic terms imaginable what will happen to all the positive beginnings her ...
It may be that we have all misinterpreted the somewhat surprising “bromance” between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. It has been all too easy to assume that it is Kim who is cosying up to Trump rather than the ...
by Michael Roberts So the full circle is completed. The corrupt pro-business conservative New Democracy party in Greece that was ousted by the anti-capitalist Syriza party in 2015 has been returned to office in yesterday’s general election, with an outright ...
When the Australian government passed a series of new spy laws over the last few years, they pinky-promised that they wouldn't use them to spy on journalists and subvert freedom of the press. They lied:The anti-encryption laws passed by the ...
From 1975 to 1989, the spy agencies of South America's right-wing military dictatorships cooperated in Operation Condor, a joint campaign of extermination against the continent's left. Roughly 400,000 people were imprisoned, 30,000 disappeared, and 60,000 murdered - kidnapped, tortured, executed, ...
When she was standing for office, Jacinda Ardern promised she would take abortion out of the Crimes Act. And to be fair, there was some early action on that, with an immediate referral of the issue to the Law Commission ...
When the government introduced the Zero Carbon Bill, people rightly asked what they planned to do to reduce transport emissions, which basicly had no policy at all other than the ETS. Today, they responded, announcing a "feebate" system which would ...
At almost every level, the problem with medicinal cannabis is a lack of good information. In the US, FDA regulations make it hard to research. Most doctors aren't familiar with what research there is and most patients don't know either. ...
Redline is critical of Corbyn for his political weaknesses, but he’s no anti-Semite. There is no substance to the McCarthyist witch-hunt being run by the right wing, and the pro-Israel lobby inside and outside the Labour Party in the UK. ...
The government's billion trees program is the sort of policy which could make a real difference to our emissions and the fight against climate change. But climate scientist Jim Salinger isn't convinced:The Forestry Minister Shane Jones' one billion trees won't ...
Last month the government was celebrating another surplus. Meanwhile, children are starving:One in five children are living in households where putting food on the table is a struggle, according to a new report from the Ministry of Health. It found ...
Show Me The Money! The alternative to state funding of infrastructure is, of course, to fund it by taking on massive amounts of private debt. On this issue, at least, Auckland mayoral challenger, Tamihere, has some solid points to make. ...
If we are to avoid making the earth uninhabitable, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to practically nothing over the next decade. But that will still leave us with the problem of the carbon we have already emitted, which ...
Former Waikato DHB CEO Nigel Murray allegedly misused public funds, spending more than $120,000 of public money on unjustified travel. He was forced to resign and the Serious Fraud Office began an investigation. But despite the SFO finding that the ...
Jeremy Corbyn, we are told, is being advised – not least by his deputy (as well as by some of his would-be successors) – that he must come “off the fence” on the Brexit issue if he wants to bolster ...
The End of Life bill has been read a second time and is now heading for the House for further debate. Personally, I support the proposal. I don't ever epect to take advantage of the Bill's provisions myself, but as ...
Before the substantive issue which this column is about – whether there has been a deterioration in the economic advice given to the government – a paragraph about the budget leaks.read more ...
Below is a translation of the editorial in the June 24 round of weekly workplace bulletins issued all over France by the revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvriere. Last Saturday, 8,000 people took to the streets of Belfort (eastern France) to ...
Why hasn't Parliament followed the lead set by our local authorities and declared a climate emergency? The answer is the National Party:The Prime Minister’s admission that she is open to the idea of declaring a climate change emergency is nothing ...
Back in May the government released its Zero Carbon Bill. While much of the bill was welcome, there was one big exception: it contained a secrecy clause, requiring the Climate Change Commission to maintain secrecy over practically everything it does. ...
by Phil Duncan This past week has marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Stonewall Inn riots in Christopher Street, New York, the event generally regarded as kicking off the gay liberation movement. Quite a few articles have ...
Southland - land of coal-burning dairy farmers - has become the first region in the country to explicitly vote against declaring a climate emergency. Their reason? They didn't want to "devalue" the word "emergency". Its an argument addressed powerfully in ...
New Zealand has a problem with police chases: officers going after fleeing drivers like rabid dogs, without any consideration for proportionality or public safety, often with fatal results. And according to an in-depth article in the Guardian today, the UK ...
Welcome to another heaping helping of research publications related to climate change drivers and mechanisms, the effects of climate change and how we might yet grope our way into systems approaches to dealing with the mess we're making, despite ourselves. ...
Holly Lawford-Smith is a senior lecturer in political philosophy at the University of Melbourne. She’s currently writing a book about radical feminism. This article appeared on Feminist Current Academics should be standing together in defence of universities’ fundamental values: the ...
The Otago Daily Times has an in-depth article about the future of wind energy in New Zealand, and it is looking bright:The news that wind will play the leading role in New Zealand’s energy future was put up in lights ...
If the sight of schoolkids striking for a future has been filling you with hope, good news: they want you to join them on September 27:Students will take to the streets again demanding action on climate change, and this time ...
The People's "Friend": In this masterpiece of revolutionary propaganda, the homicidal political psychopath, Jean-Paul Marat, has been transformed by Jacques-Louis David, the French Revolution's most accomplished artist, into a martyred hero of the ordinary people of Paris. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, ...
The principle of one person, one vote doesn’t apply for local elections. In fact, you don’t even need to be a person to have voting rights. Welcome to the ratepayer roll. While the ratepayer roll accounts for less than 1% ...
I have been working my way through a 47,000 document tranche of declassified US government communications related to Argentina and the “Dirty War” of 1976-83. I grew up in Argentina in the period leading up to the March 24, 1976 ...
To express concern about foreign ownership and control in New Zealand is often to invite accusations of xenophobia and economic illiteracy. It is worthwhile, therefore, to rehearse the grounds for that concern, and to explore the various forms it can ...
It must be a day ending in Y because the Guardian - remember when it used to be a good paper1 - is running another spurious story about Corbyn's leadership being threatened over anti-Semitism.The headline the Guardian runs is: "MPs tell ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Jun 23 through Sat, June 29, 2019 Editor's Pick When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious'Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and ...
A new digital platform aims to make it easier for small businesses to access services from multiple government agencies, leaving them more time to focus on their own priorities. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash ...
Million-dollar start to gun collection eventsPolice Minister Stuart Nash says a solid start has been made to the gun buyback and amnesty after the first weekend of community collection events. “Gun owners will walk away with more than ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash has praised Police and gun owners after the first firearms collection event saw a busy turnout at Riccarton Racecourse in Christchurch. “Police officers and staff have put a tremendous effort into planning and logistics for the ...
Seventy-eight new Police constables are heading out to the regions following today’s graduation of a new recruit wing from the Royal New Zealand Police College. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the record high number of new Police officers being recruited, ...
Fonterra’s use of coal has been the target of numerous grassroots campaigns in recent years. Last year 350 Aotearoa affiliated groups, Fossil Free Aoraki and 350 Nelson launched a petition dismissing the dairy giant’s initial target of no new ...
Information sessions on proposals for The Medicinal Cannabis Scheme take place in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch over the next fortnight. The sessions are open to anyone with an interest in learning more about the proposed scheme. ...
“Our children are our most vulnerable, most innocent victims and we do not want to see any more children harmed by these ‘known sex offenders’. The safety of our community must be the paramount consideration.” ...
“The announcement that Fonterra will immediately stop installing any new coal boilers or increasing capacity to burn coal is the signal that the biomass fuel supply industry welcomes” said Brian Cox, Executive Officer of the Bioenergy Association. ...
18 July 2019-- Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) today welcomed Fonterra’s commitment to build no new coal plants, a “no brainer” for the climate crisis the world faces. The group has been urging this transition for six years now and ...
The increase in demand for cage-free eggs is set to continue according to animal rights organisation SAFE, who says the egg industry should expect this and prepare. ...
Wellington, New Zealand – 350 Pacific made a formal submission to the New Zealand Government’s Environment Parliamentary Select Committee on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, led by the Pacific Climate Warriors (PCWs) based in ...
There used to be a school of thought on the centre right side of politics that the best way to neuter the Greens as a political force would be to let them have a spell in government. Then, according to ...
Today (18 July) is Nelson Mandela International Day when the United Nations highlights the importance of humane conditions of imprisonment. In New Zealand our prisons are overcrowded and understaffed. At 214 prisoners per 100,000 people, we have the fifth ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa will take legal action over the lengthy delay in implementing pay increases for teachers. Novopay announced yesterday that teachers would have to wait until 11 September to see pay increases that they won when they settled ...
EDS has filed its submission on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. The Bill sets targets for greenhouse gas reductions, provides for the government to set a series of carbon budgets, and sets up a new, independent, Climate ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has identified an absurd case of mission creep at Wellington City Council: the decision to spend $21,750 on two Consumer NZ investigations into different brands of bike lights. ...
The Motor Trade Association is welcoming the release of the Government’s new draft road safety strategy. MTA Chief Executive Craig Pomare says the association is pleased to see vehicle safety has been made a priority in the Road to Zero ...
The Department of Conservation continue to repeat the same old story about attacks on staff and how it is affecting their role in protecting our precious wildlife. NZ herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12249704 ...
The government's silence on the fact that the country's second-largest milk processor is on the brink of becoming 25% Chinese Government owned has been deafening. ...
School Strike 4 Climate NZ welcomes the coalition Government’s endeavour to take action on reducing agricultural emissions but is disappointed at the weak stance that the Government has taken on the issue. ...
The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) has issued a formal warning under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (AML/CFT Act) to seven reporting entities within the Regus Management Limited (RNZML) designated business ...
The Northland Regional Council (NRC) has voted to exclude all GM/GE precautionary provisions in its regional plan, despite years of community engagement showing support for such protection. There is a sense of betrayal following the way the NRC Chairman ...
New Zealand’s ‘mission-driven’ charities working in international aid are showing early signs of changing the way they work, in particular prioritising building the capacity and resilience of local communities to do their own development. ...
Teachers will have to wait until 11 September for pay increases won as part of their collective agreement negotiations settled in June, according to an update sent to schools today from Novopay. ...
July 16 (BusinessDesk) - Energy Minister Megan Woods says the government “won’t die in a ditch” if its goal of 100 percent renewable electricity generation isn't reached by 2035. ...
The Electricity Networks Association (ENA) is welcoming the Government’s response to the Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) Report released today. Graeme Peters, chief executive of the ENA, said one of the key recommendations, endorsed by the ...
An article* published this month in the Journal of Health Organization and Management raises questions over the way health board members are elected and whether the boards are even needed. ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa's kindergarten teacher members will vote on a proposed settlement to their collective agreement after four days of negotiations with the Ministry of Education and kindergarten employers. ...
Vector has today welcomed the ICCC’s report on Accelerated Electrification . Vector agrees that accelerating the electrification of transport and process heat will play a major role in reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Initiatives to ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling on the Porirua City Council to cancel its underwriting of a proposed Canadian-led privately owned adventure park slated for public land after a similar project created a huge liability for Christchurch ...
Youth climate change campaigners Generation Zero welcome the Interim Climate Change Committee’s (ICCC’s) reports: Accelerated Electrification and Action on agricultural emissions ; which were finally released by the Government today, almost three months ...
Fish & Game New Zealand notes the announcement today that the Government and the intensive agriculture leadership have reached a ‘historic consensus’ and are exploring using a formal sector-government agreement instead of bringing agriculture ...
The independent Interim Climate Change Committee’s report on Accelerated Electrification was released today by the Minister for Energy and Resources, Hon Dr Megan Woods. ...
The independent Interim Climate Change Committee’s report Action on agricultural emissions was released today by the Minister for Climate Change, Hon James Shaw and the Minister of Agriculture, Hon Damien O’Connor. ...
Please find attached embargoed copies of two media statements from the Interim Climate Change Committee http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1907/Embargoed_Interim_Climate_Change_Committee_Accelerated_electrification_MEDIA_STATEMENT.pdf ...
Greenpeace Executive Director, Dr Russel Norman, has reacted with disbelief that the Government’s latest climate proposal includes an option for dairy to voluntarily deal with their emissions over the next six years. ...
This week’s “Youth Parliament” is an expensive waste of time that promotes taxpayer-funded junketeering, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . “We shouldn’t be training kids on the joys of the trough,” says Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones admitted on Q+A tonight that the state of New Zealand’s infrastructure planning is “dismal” and the government needs to get on with building “rather than writing more reports about it.” ...
DairyNZ has released its submission on the Zero Carbon Bill and is calling on the Government to revise the methane target in the Bill to one that does not put at risk New Zealand’s world-leading dairy sector. Farm profit could ...
July 15 (BusinessDesk) - Foreign Minister Winston Peters will have bi-lateral meetings with two of US president Donald Trump's most hawkish defence and security advisers in a five day trip to Washington D.C. ...
Youth climate change campaigners Generation Zero are calling for Members of Parliament to show political courage as the Zero Carbon Bill goes through the crucial Select Committee process. ...
Annual net migration was provisionally estimated at 50,200 (± 800) in the year ended December 2018 compared with 52,600 in the previous year, Stats NZ said today. ...
New Zealanders have the opportunity to contribute to the government’s Review of Retirement Income Policies, including questions around Superannuation and KiwiSaver. Submissions are now open for the Review, being run by the Commission for Financial ...
Yesterday at Mataatua Marae the Tamaki Makaurau Electorate of the Māori party congratulated Rangi Mclean who was appointed to the Vice president Tāne role of the party nation-wide executive. ...
The funding crisis facing the disability sector has become more urgent following the disturbing news that the Ministry of Health will not increase contract prices for providers this year, the New Zealand Disability Support Network said today. ...
The growing number of working poor is an alarming indicator that the regulatory Minimum Wage does not cut it said Closing the Gap spokesperson Peter Malcolm. ...
Historic hui gives overwhelming agreement for a Māori Inquiry The inquiry into state run Oranga Tamariki will be led by whanau, kaimahi and Māori leaders. ...
Drug infiltration into our maximum security prisons is putting prisoners and staff at unnecessary risk, and one tool that would be of huge benefit is a full body scanner. ...
Neil Armstrong may have been the first man on the moon, but if we define the ‘space race’ as spaceflight capability, the Soviets won it hands down, writes Jennifer Frost. ...
Joel Rindelaub explains why it's so important for those weighing on climate science to be transparent about their funding sources and conflicts of interest. ...
Our government and leaders are (still) divided on the question of compulsory te reo Māori. Who’s for it, who’s against it, and who’s flip flopping around in the middle?Under article two of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the government pledges to ...
When teenagers today are being called upon to solve the problems of tomorrow, why aren’t they given the right to participate in democracy? Fourteen-year-old Oli Morphew makes the case for lowering the voting age. If you’re going to deprive someone of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University Australia’s relations with China will be further complicated by the news that Australian citizen Yang Hengjun is set to be charged with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Kyne, Senior Research Fellow in conservation biology, Charles Darwin University More than 28,000 species around the world are threatened, according to the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics, Centre For Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics (CAPPE), Charles Sturt University Two Australian universities, University of Technology Sydney and Curtin University, are conducting internal reviews of ...
The dairy and red meat sectors are playing games and employing delaying tactics rather than facing up to the climate change challenge, says Rod Oram. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne The next US presidential election will be held on November 3, 2020. Incumbent president Donald Trump will almost certainly be ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has doubled down on her criticism of Australia's deportation policy as "corrosive", ahead of her meeting with counterpart Scott Morrison. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Larkin, Senior Lecturer in Musicology, University of Sydney Review: Whiteley, Opera Australia, Sydney. Opera Australia’s newest production, Whiteley, brings together three Australian icons. Elena Kats-Chernin, the doyenne of Australian composers, has ...
By RNZ Pacific The United Nations in Papua New Guinea is boosting its presence in the Highlands as it works with the government to improve access to justice for tribal communities. The acting resident coordinator said the massacre of ...
A children’s television presenter, New Zealand’s first supermodel, and bloody Cocksy! Jordan Hamel pays tribute to the Kiwi icons that helped get him through his life.Adolescence was not a great time for me. Depression, anxiety, sexuality, awkward social interactions, emotional ...
The House - The Youth Parliament has beat the real thing to the punch by declaring a climate change emergency this week. Youth Press Gallery member Sophie Dixon reports. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rona Macniven, Research Fellow, University of Sydney Indigenous Australians have a long and proud heritage in both traditional sports and games, and in modern sport through the achievements of people like Johnathan ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alice Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University It’s 50 years since the two Apollo 11 astronauts – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin – spent 22 hours collecting samples, ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.It’s a wacky, wacky week on The Real Pod this week. But is it wackier than the fact that Gilda Kirkpatrick saw a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neal Hughes, Senior Economist, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Water prices in the southern Murray-Darling Basin have reached their highest levels since the worst of the Millennium ...
It seems inevitable that New Zealand will soon officially be in a state of emergency over climate change, with a declaration likely to be passed in Parliament. Is this a good thing? The debate over moving into official emergency status ...
The newsreader turned talkback host Peter Williams (not Peter Williams) is furious about the mainstream refusal to acknowledge the cheesiness of the moon.I’m sorry but my head still hurts.Yesterday I blew to smithereens the so-called “consensus” on the “science” around ...
Every fish on the iconic New Zealand Commercial Fish Species poster, ranked. There are a few staples of the quintessential fish and chip shop: sticky plastic curtains, soggy paper tickets with a little red number, tin pottles of Wattie’s tomato sauce, ...
Eligible home owners will be able to claim grants for energy-efficient heaters this winter as part of the government's Warmer Kiwi Homes programme. ...
MediaRoom this week: the Media Council backs reporters asking questions, urges caution linking a group to the Christchurch attacks, muses on news vs advertising and wants corrections published faster. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Even though we can see the Moon shining brightly in the night sky – and sometimes in daylight – it’s hard to put into ...
By Pacific Media Centre NewsdeskIndonesian President Joko Widodo’s threat to pursue anyone who impedes investment is worrying environmental activists who claim that such actions could criminalise those fighting for the environment, reports CNN Indonesia.Jokowi made the threat ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monica Barratt, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University A NSW Coronial Inquest investigating a series of drug-related deaths at Australian music festivals has heard evidence of ...
The Netball World Cup grand final is tie-proof and won't end in any kind of super over. RNZ's netball reporter Ravinder Hunia who's in Liverpool explains why. ...
Party Line is a new audio work by Evangeline Riddiford Graham that reinvestigates the Cartwright Inquiry, medical mispractice and misogyny through the lens of the #metoo era. In a red room six handsets dangle from the ceiling on their spiral cords. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neil R Jordan, Lecturer, UNSW Humans and dogs go way back. From wolf totems to the big bad wolf of fact and fairy tale, through sheepdogs, lap dogs, and labradoodles, our relationships ...
For Auckland is a new Spinoff podcast of civic conversations with people working to create and sustain a better Auckland for all. In episode three, host Timothy Giles speaks to Grace Stratton about accessibility, in fashion and in Auckland.She’s launched ...
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 contentForeign affairs and trade Peter Dunne (Newsroom): Beware, nice ...
Human rights activists and refugees are calling on the PM to use her international profile to speak out against China’s persecution of religious groups. ...
Instead of buying a cuppa in exchange for a place to work, Coffee Supreme is flipping the script.For the last 25 years, Coffee Supreme has stuck to what it does best, which is sourcing, roasting, brewing and selling some seriously ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Blaskovich, Senior Research Officer, The University of Queensland Artistic depictions of several chemical elements feature in a new exhibition from today as part of Australia’s celebrations for the International Year of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Hopkins, Senior Lecturer, Australian National University In 2017, a small group of male prisoners participated in an eight-week yoga program at the Alexander Maconochie Centre(AMC), which houses all adult prisoners in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ramon Zenel Shaban, Clinical Chair and Professor of Infection Prevention and Disease Control at the University of Sydney, University of Sydney “Travel safe, travel far, travel wide, and travel often,” saysNomadic ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Bone, Lecturer, Massey University A majority of academic staff at some of Australia’s top universities work in casual or fixed-term positions. This reflects a trend towards casualisation in academia, and other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Smith, Professor of Archaeology, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in south-west Victoria is the first Indigenous Australian landscape to be gazetted on ...
Open mike 06/04/2016 
Open mike is your post.
I have been reading and listening to the aftermath of Trump’s comments about the four female first term Democratic representatives, all of whom are “people of color.” I found the US coverage interesting both as evidence of partisanship and the ...15 hours ago
The Herald reports that the housing shortage / bubble has hit a new level:New Zealand is short of 130,000 homes, the tally having risen lately by 30,000, two economists say. Jarrod Kerr and Jeremy Couchman, Kiwibank economists said: "This time ...15 hours ago
The proposed Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill treats biogenic methane emissions differently from all other carbon emissions. The latter are to be measured net so that emissions from fossil fuels can be offset by carbon stored in trees. ...1 day ago
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh This article aims to answer a simple question, whether the conflict is only a rural one or whether it is also urban. The verb ‘to be’ is conjugated in the present tense as ,despite what some ...2 days ago
2 days ago
On Sunday July 7, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter announced their intention to review the Ministry of Health’s Funded Family Care policy and repeal Part 4Aof the 2000 NZ Public Health and Disability Act. These are festering injustices ...3 days ago
Belle is a lovely fifteen year-old border collie who belongs to our friends and neighbours at Bryan’s Beach, Michael and Judy Corboy. Belle, in her old age, can hardly see or hear, but – as a constant participant at social ...3 days ago
A Woman’s Place is on the Podium was a public meeting in London on 10 July to discuss women’s sports and the impact of transwomen competing against women. The venue was sold out with a packed hall of 750 people. ...5 days ago
An occasional series where I will ponder allegations of anti-Semitism directed at the British Labour Party and its members.In this case, we are thinking about an allegedly anti-Semitic image shared by a Labour Party member. Its origins appear to be ...1 week ago
1 week ago
2 weeks ago
Welcome to another heaping helping of research publications related to climate change drivers and mechanisms, the effects of climate change and how we might yet grope our way into systems approaches to dealing with the mess we're making, despite ourselves. ...2 weeks ago
The People's "Friend": In this masterpiece of revolutionary propaganda, the homicidal political psychopath, Jean-Paul Marat, has been transformed by Jacques-Louis David, the French Revolution's most accomplished artist, into a martyred hero of the ordinary people of Paris. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, ...2 weeks ago
The principle of one person, one vote doesn’t apply for local elections. In fact, you don’t even need to be a person to have voting rights. Welcome to the ratepayer roll. While the ratepayer roll accounts for less than 1% ...2 weeks ago
Image Credit: Blog Writing Tips. I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the ... 3 weeks ago
A new digital platform aims to make it easier for small businesses to access services from multiple government agencies, leaving them more time to focus on their own priorities. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash ...3 days ago
Fonterra’s use of coal has been the target of numerous grassroots campaigns in recent years. Last year 350 Aotearoa affiliated groups, Fossil Free Aoraki and 350 Nelson launched a petition dismissing the dairy giant’s initial target of no new ...15 hours ago
A former MP and shock jock says Queenstown council’s making excuses in seeking a 35-year approval for sewer overflows. ...22 mins ago
Neil Armstrong may have been the first man on the moon, but if we define the ‘space race’ as spaceflight capability, the Soviets won it hands down, writes Jennifer Frost. ...52 mins ago
Joel Rindelaub explains why it's so important for those weighing on climate science to be transparent about their funding sources and conflicts of interest. ...52 mins ago
Emma Espiner takes a look at a deadly inequity happening in our poorest communities. ...52 mins ago
Rebecca Mahoney is about to make rugby history as the first woman to referee a Ranfurly Shield challenge. ...52 mins ago
Our government and leaders are (still) divided on the question of compulsory te reo Māori. Who’s for it, who’s against it, and who’s flip flopping around in the middle?Under article two of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the government pledges to ...1 hour ago
At three weeks in, how is New Zealand coping with the plastic bag ban? ...1 hour ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University Australia’s relations with China will be further complicated by the news that Australian citizen Yang Hengjun is set to be charged with ...7 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Kyne, Senior Research Fellow in conservation biology, Charles Darwin University More than 28,000 species around the world are threatened, according to the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International ...8 hours ago
The dairy and red meat sectors are playing games and employing delaying tactics rather than facing up to the climate change challenge, says Rod Oram. ...10 hours ago
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has doubled down on her criticism of Australia's deportation policy as "corrosive", ahead of her meeting with counterpart Scott Morrison. ...11 hours ago
A controversial selection is on track to be the All Blacks' X-factor star at the Rugby World Cup. ...11 hours ago
By Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk The Indonesian government is furious over the Oxford City Council’s decision to award West Papuan activist Benny Wenda the Honorary Freedom of the City accolade, reports Kumparan. “Indonesia strongly condemns the award by the ...11 hours ago
The PM has been touting New Zealand's attractiveness to investors during her Australia visit - but can she win over the banks? ...11 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Larkin, Senior Lecturer in Musicology, University of Sydney Review: Whiteley, Opera Australia, Sydney. Opera Australia’s newest production, Whiteley, brings together three Australian icons. Elena Kats-Chernin, the doyenne of Australian composers, has ...13 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific The United Nations in Papua New Guinea is boosting its presence in the Highlands as it works with the government to improve access to justice for tribal communities. The acting resident coordinator said the massacre of ...13 hours ago
A children’s television presenter, New Zealand’s first supermodel, and bloody Cocksy! Jordan Hamel pays tribute to the Kiwi icons that helped get him through his life.Adolescence was not a great time for me. Depression, anxiety, sexuality, awkward social interactions, emotional ...13 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alice Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University It’s 50 years since the two Apollo 11 astronauts – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin – spent 22 hours collecting samples, ...15 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neal Hughes, Senior Economist, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Water prices in the southern Murray-Darling Basin have reached their highest levels since the worst of the Millennium ...15 hours ago
Instagram will test the removal of 'likes' from New Zealand-based users' content from today. ...16 hours ago
The newsreader turned talkback host Peter Williams (not Peter Williams) is furious about the mainstream refusal to acknowledge the cheesiness of the moon.I’m sorry but my head still hurts.Yesterday I blew to smithereens the so-called “consensus” on the “science” around ...16 hours ago
Every fish on the iconic New Zealand Commercial Fish Species poster, ranked. There are a few staples of the quintessential fish and chip shop: sticky plastic curtains, soggy paper tickets with a little red number, tin pottles of Wattie’s tomato sauce, ...16 hours ago
MediaRoom this week: the Media Council backs reporters asking questions, urges caution linking a group to the Christchurch attacks, muses on news vs advertising and wants corrections published faster. ...16 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Even though we can see the Moon shining brightly in the night sky – and sometimes in daylight – it’s hard to put into ...17 hours ago
By Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s threat to pursue anyone who impedes investment is worrying environmental activists who claim that such actions could criminalise those fighting for the environment, reports CNN Indonesia. Jokowi made the threat ...17 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monica Barratt, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University A NSW Coronial Inquest investigating a series of drug-related deaths at Australian music festivals has heard evidence of ...17 hours ago
The Netball World Cup grand final is tie-proof and won't end in any kind of super over. RNZ's netball reporter Ravinder Hunia who's in Liverpool explains why. ...17 hours ago
Two of Australia's big banks and their New Zealand operations have taken another hit. ...18 hours ago
Fonterra is accelerating plans to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels by 11 years. ...18 hours ago
Party Line is a new audio work by Evangeline Riddiford Graham that reinvestigates the Cartwright Inquiry, medical mispractice and misogyny through the lens of the #metoo era. In a red room six handsets dangle from the ceiling on their spiral cords. ...19 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neil R Jordan, Lecturer, UNSW Humans and dogs go way back. From wolf totems to the big bad wolf of fact and fairy tale, through sheepdogs, lap dogs, and labradoodles, our relationships ...19 hours ago
The government's chief digital technology advisor said it is fulfilling its function despite meeting only once this year. ...19 hours ago
Human rights activists and refugees are calling on the PM to use her international profile to speak out against China’s persecution of religious groups. ...21 hours ago
Instead of buying a cuppa in exchange for a place to work, Coffee Supreme is flipping the script.For the last 25 years, Coffee Supreme has stuck to what it does best, which is sourcing, roasting, brewing and selling some seriously ...21 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Blaskovich, Senior Research Officer, The University of Queensland Artistic depictions of several chemical elements feature in a new exhibition from today as part of Australia’s celebrations for the International Year of ...22 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ramon Zenel Shaban, Clinical Chair and Professor of Infection Prevention and Disease Control at the University of Sydney, University of Sydney “Travel safe, travel far, travel wide, and travel often,” says Nomadic ...22 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Con Doolan, Professor, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, UNSW Former Australian Greens leader Bob Brown made headlines this week after he objected to a proposed wind farm on Tasmania’s Robbins Island. ...22 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Smith, Professor of Archaeology, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in south-west Victoria is the first Indigenous Australian landscape to be gazetted on ...22 hours ago
Is the Speaker on a promise? All that smirking, sly little smiles and glances of admiration to John Key who was as usual impolite, evasive, insulting, abusive, unable to answer perfectly coherent questions but instead goes into incandescent, incoherent rants. Carter did everything but spring up and high five Key at one point. Absolutely appalling. Have noticed a lot less tittering and clapping of flippers from the trained seals lately. Novelty of key’s wit and wisdom wearing off perhaps. Carter is letting our yapping pm away with too much. Bit of man love there.
Watched a section of it last night and in oz such a blatant abuse of the position would be broadcast on primetime news as time and again they behave like juveniles to prevent the govt being made to answer opposition questions.
Carter is a disgrace and has childish tantrums but then none of the nats give a F about democracy so they love it.
You’ve obviously forgotten what Wilson was like.
Pathetic was Wilson, I agree.
But you really get the feel that Dr Smith raised the bar back, which was good.
Then we get this guy, who actually makes Wilson look not that bad – That makes me shudder, as I agree with you The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell, Wilson was awful.
Begs the question, is it a race to the gutter with this lot?
The populace thinks so:
And talking about the media:
Can’t say that any of that really surprises me.
Lockwood was the best we ever had. Given their experience under Wilson, I think the Nats were pissed off at how even-handed he was. So, they weren’t going to make that mistake again.
PS. “Begs the question” does not mean what you think it means.
Don’t think he was the best but he was pretty good.
Although you’re right, that was a quote.
But then again it’s language and language, just like culture, changes over the decades.
Maybe. Best that I can recall, then.
Yesterdays bias and abuse of the speakers position by Carter was appalling and he should be removed
Key and his shitty liver ,the white coats should have been taking him to detox
Who is next???
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11617590
Iceland’s embattled prime minister has resigned amid a controversy over his offshore holdings, a Cabinet minister said as outrage over the accounts roiled the North Atlantic island nation.
+100 Penny…let the imagination run wild…another PM closer to home?
Susie Ferguson conducts another miserable interview where she fails again to hold the government to account.
Instead she simply allows Joyce to blather on without questioning the bs he spouts.
How does she let him get away with the lies he says?
RNZ. Not good enough.
Yeah, very poor interview. At the end of it, all we got from Joyce was platitudes, when what we need is jobs.
I once thought she was quite good, but she’s now obeying Griffin’s dictats.
It really is kind of sad at the moment, but I hope that as we get nearer to a change of government, National Radio will put their teeth back in and start biting the arse of the likes of Joyce and Key. Somebody in the msm has to hold National to account, and if not RNZ, who?
The corporate media, are being exposed as a lost cause, I do love how the RWNJ scream there is a liberal bias. And RNZ is just not enough, I gave up on them when they started to use PR sniper Hooton. Actually, there is another problem, there are more PR people than there are journalists – no wonder no one knows what truth looks like.
That said, more and more people are getting their news off the internet, and checking there sources. OK maybe not the second part. But I know I check way more now.
Kathryn Ryan was good though…this interview is interesting
‘Wealth Management researcher on Panama Papers’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201795957/wealth-management-researcher-on-panama-papers
“As the ripples from the biggest leak in journalistic history continue to spread, academic Brooke Harrington – who spent the better part of a decade investigating wealth management – says the corruption goes well beyond Mossack Fonseca.”
You haven’t listened to RNZ for 13 years?
No, he gave up on them. What part of “Matthew Hooton tells lies for money and anyone who employs him diminishes their reputation by doing so” are you having trouble with?
One Anonymous Bloke
Hugs bro Hugs!
I could not have said it better.
+100
What lies?
The ones where his lips move.
RNZ providing as lot of misinformation today.
Now propaganda about Sanders and Clinton being disseminated.
The ‘Democratic strategist’ Mary Anne Marsh was simply appalling.
Why can’t RNZ do some simple research on the US election rather than relying on such shills for the establishment?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201795934/chaos-expected-as-us-primary-circus-hits-wisconsin
The ever-insightful J. Pilger.
Because of Obama’s black African past a surge of over-zealous and liberal idealism were effective in clinching his election to the presidency. Despite Hillary’s consistent support of American violent and widespread intervention her gender similarly is playing into the hands of distorted idealism.
http://johnpilger.com/articles/trump-and-clinton-censoring-the-unpalatable
Is this true?
I for one am looking forward to an official statement from the OECD…..
” Woodhouse and Prime Minister John Key had said the OECD had “looked at our foreign trust rules in the past and had no concerns”. ”
http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/78585843/foreign-trusts-hiding-darker-secrets-than-tax-avoidance-says-expert
“…Pol said criminals involved in drugs and human trafficking generated the greatest amount of illicit funds.
But the criminals who had set up trusts in New Zealand were more likely to be involved in large-scale cartels, corruption and professional “trade-based” money-laundering.
One New Zealand trust has already been associated with Unaoil, a Monaco company under investigation for helping multinationals bribe oil ministers and officials in the Middle East.
Woodhouse and Prime Minister John Key had said the OECD had “looked at our foreign trust rules in the past and had no concerns”.
Labour leader Andrew Little said an OECD report published in 2013 showed that was incorrect.
The report said improvements might be needed to laws and regulations to ensure that people who owned shares in companies could be identified where those shares were held by nominees.
The OECD in Paris has been contacted for comment.
…..”
_______________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Thanks Penny. Will await outcomes with interest.
Ah, so John Key lied – yet again.
Yes.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1604/S00066/key-misleading-over-oecd-tax-haven-report.htm
Corin Dann on TV1 breakfast news this morning has stated that Australian journalists perusing these Panama files has discovered there have been 60,000 mentions of NZ in the files. That is a hell of a lot of mentions for a supposedly squeaky clean tax regime country. Also he said, more worrying for the Government was that we are the only OECD country to provide the services of tax trusts for overseas customers in the manner the files are disclosing.
Maybe if the Gods smile on us, we may see a resignation of an important public servant in the near future.
I would have thought the whole cabinet should resign over this one.
Individual responsibility and all that…
I’m thinking that the whole cabinet needs to be jailed over this one.
Adam,
And therefore presumably anyone who was in the last Labour govt should also resign, given that the current regime is nearly 30 years old.
Having said that, the zeitgeist moves on. What was OK once may not be OK today.
And there is no doubt a lot more concern about corporate tax avoidance than there used to be.
An interesting aspect is that Europeans seem much more caught up in it than Americans.
I have always thought this is a response to uncertainly about govt trustworthiness, which has much deeper well springs than we can really imagine In New Zealand. Fundamentally we know that our govt, over many decades, is inherently trustworthy.
For instance if your country has been invaded, subject to revolution, people persecuted and subject to pogroms, and property confiscated, either by outright govt theft or by extreme taxes (north of 70%), then you might want your assets in a place that is not accessible to govt.
A large number of European nations have suffered one or more of these fates in the last hundred years. But we have never had experience (in New Zealand) of any of these things, and I would also say neither are we likely to. But many migrants to New Zealand certainly understand these risks.
So the reason why people act in the way they do is not just about avoiding legitimate taxes, there may be much deeper reasons, which are in part sociological, to use offshore havens, or for that matter Swiss bank accounts.
the implications of the panama papers are significantly deeper then tax avoidance and asset suppression,they are the transfer of sovereign power and oversight under the guise of FTA.
Sanders for example railed against the FTA with Panama in 2011
“In fact, combating tax haven abuse in Panama would be a violation of this free trade agreement, exposing the U.S. to fines from international authorities,” he stressed.
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/05/sanders_ardently_opposed_the_trade_deal_that_helped_make_the_panama_papers_scandal_clinton_supported_it/
Gnats – consistently defending tax-evading drug cartels since Key took power.
They started before Key took over.
The problems that arise from the panama papers are not only about tax avoidance and asset obfuscation ,but also the transfer of sovereign ownership and legislative oversight as Sanders correctly identified with the Panama FTA.
“In fact, combating tax haven abuse in Panama would be a violation of this free trade agreement, exposing the U.S. to fines from international authorities,” he stressed.
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/05/sanders_ardently_opposed_the_trade_deal_that_helped_make_the_panama_papers_scandal_clinton_supported_it/
But the bit that allows secretive tax avoiding trusts is only 4/5 years old and passed by this government.
Actually, it was never Ok – it was always immoral but the government tried to persuade people that it was fine and dandy so as to help the rich people steal from everybody else.
The US seems to have a few internal tax havens which means that they don’t have to go offshore for them.
Wrong. We don’t know that at all and trust in government has been falling.
You don’t have that right. If you don’t want to pay the taxes of a particular country then your only option is to leave. Anything else is sociopathic BS.
I think you need to speak more to Māori who do have direct experience of these things over the last century or so.
Draco,
I was simply pointing out how trust in the government being able to protect civil and economic rights (at a fundamental level) will influence behaviour.
For instance could you blame people in Eastern Europe getting as many of their assets (and indeed themselves) out of their countries following the communist takeovers of the 1940’s.
As for Maori, the issues you refer to primarily relate to the activities of the Crown in the nineteenth century. Since 1893 New Zealand has been a continuous democracy where everyone has had the vote. And a robust respect for the rule of law.
Is it perfect, no. But compared to most of the world, yes.
And you were wrong as this government rapidly erodes any trust that the people once had in government.
Maybe primarily but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t occured this century as well.
Basically, you seem to be making shit up and re-writing history to fit your belief of how things are rather than accepting things as they are.
I think it’s fair to say there are countless examples of Māori having land taken off them in the 20th century too. So much for the rule of law Wayne.
Here’s an example from the 1940s in Waiwhetu: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/hutt-valley/69662452/Confiscated-land-returned-to-Waiwhetu-Maori
Then there was Bastion Point in the 70s where hundreds of police surrounded the rightful owners and went on to evict them.
Then when the rule of law compensates an iwi like Rangitāne o Manawatū through the treaty they get given back the Manawatu river, now one of the shittiest, polluted rivers in the world. The few million dollars they get back in the treaty claim was worked out by Metiria Turei as “$27 an acre” for the land taken from them. Sweet deal for over a century of settler profiteering?
Christ on a bike Wayne!
Those things being
Speechless.
Bill,
A fair point about Maori, particularly in respect of actions in the nineteenth century.
But as a broader point, my perspective is not an unreasonable view of New Zealand in contrast with most other nations in the world, given that we been a comprehensive democracy since 1893.
Continental Europe has obviously been less stable than New Zealand throughout the twentieth century. Ask the people of the former Yugoslavia as recently as twenty years ago.
Sheesh Wayne, you’re out there.
Clearly the ONLY reason those things have not happened here yet is the time factor…
…. have you noticed the prevalence of European heritage among our citizens? The very same Europeans that you refer to above?
that really is a Wayne’s World moment for you Wayne
Sure why not, I’m all for the labour MP who helped pass these acts resigning as well. Individual responsibility and all that.
Notice how you avoid that one, and went on some lame anti communist rant, fear murmuring is so last century.
So this is the defence for defrauding other people of tax revenue, I think you may have to come up with something better than that paranoid delusion. You might convince the public here, but the Aussies I’m talking to – just think we are a bunch of “thieving w*&^%rs”. Other people are look at us with disgust now. Go on, view some of the message boards across the globe. Wake up man, it ant pretty.
“Fundamentally we know that our govt, over many decades, is inherently trustworthy.” And it took the Tories to tear down that edifice. I think maybe you living in a wee bit of a bubble Wayne, I get it. I’m white, it’s easy to indulge in that privilege.
But the reality is really quite different.
Politicians are despised, people don’t vote and then people like you come here and spin. The sociological spin was deeply ironic, considering Marx was one of the founders of sociology. And by the way, I’m anti-authoritarian. So no great fan of Marx or communism myself.
It looks like NZ could be up there with the likes of British Virgin Islands as a tax haven. Redlogix posted this fascinating ABC documentary (45 mins) yesterday about how it all works and some of the major players, although it doesn’t focus on NZ so much.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2016/04/04/4434529.htm
People need to get across this debate here, a tax haven is where you choose to pay your tax or no tax as the case may be as your your centre of business. interest or business domicile re world wide income. In essence you structure your affairs legally to choose a domicile to pay the minimal tax, your legal and democratic right In NZ case people are just parking money here in trusts not using NZ as there domicile or centre of business interest , NZ tax rates, laws etc are not beneficial like the virgin island, Ireland etc that are real tax havens. I am not sure what the big issue is here, if money is been laundered or hidden here to avoid tax NZ is party to multiple tax treaties and international convention. if there is suspion A NZ trust is been used to evade tax by an offshore tax regime the NZ tax regime won’t protect you
Uh-huh. So some people are far too rich. A mere millionaire probably wouldn’t go to all the cost and bother of squirreling several hundred thousands away out of sight….and out of reach of the tax regime that fills the public purse, that provides the infrastructure and services that society needs.
Any info on any of this money that’s been squirreled away being put towards bettering the common good? I mean, that’s what free market fundamentalism suggests should happen. Don’t need any pesky government determining public expenditure; the rich, using market mechanisms that are their exposal, will see us right.
Not disagreeing Bill I am just highlighting that NZ is not a tax haven ( that keeps been thrown out) , ie it’s not about paying tax in NZ or NZ attracting business as a center of interest due to its low tax regime or that NZ law will protect offshore illegal tax avoidance should a tax avoider be pursued here. it’s simply a story that some people are using our trust regime ( and innovation and benefit of English law separating ownership and control of assets) to potentially hide money
Ok it appears people are parking money in New Zealand companies to avoid tax in their own country. How is that not a tax haven or a form of one?
Watch that angle as Oz still posess an independant media, unlike here.
Today I will be on the Raglan Radio Morning Show with host Aaron at 9:35 AM I will be talking about the Panama Papers, John Key’s MO and Soros among others!
+100…and please link here
people from overseas not paying tax? Not my business.
People from NZ not paying tax? Only my business if they are middle to lower class people without trusts. Rich people with Trusts? Thats not my business.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/300718/overseas-trust-activities-not-nz's-concern-minister
Quote: But Mr Woodhouse said that was wrong.
“Well, there are two features of a tax haven as far as I’m aware.
“One is a very low, or no, tax base and the other is secrecy. We have neither of those things, we have a requirement for all people who earn income in New Zealand to pay tax and we share with other jurisdictions.”
Mr Woodhouse said as these were overseas trusts, they had overseas settlors, assets and income and the New Zealand Inland Revenue (IRD) had no interest in their obligations to pay tax overseas.” Quote End
@Sabine – don’t forget the beneficiaries who are constantly being surveilled in case they might have, shock ‘a relationship’ and apparently 50% of WINZ debts are overpayments by WINZ. The government went to extreme lengths to avoid paying beneficiaries their underpayments however.
Sounds like corporations are also underpaying holiday pay etc etc…. Kiwis are being ripped off constantly, just an accident apparently. Look a panda everyone…
Avoiding and hiding millions or billions via trusts is fine for Key’s Government, (in fact encouraged). Don’t forget the tax payers union are also ‘relaxed’ about multinationals not paying the same tax as NZ based companies. Free market does not seem to matter if the 0.0001% can profit. Paying tax in NZ by the rich listers is now a voluntary exercise.
Love how for years Natz have pitted the middle class against the beneficiaries as ‘taking their hard earned savings’ and all along making NZ a secret tax haven mentioned 60 times in the Panama leaks. Co incidence (and that John Key trained as an accountant – I think that is his sole qualification). Does not sound like it.
Yep it’s just like the financial melt down again, when the dodgy high flying CFO’s often with accountancy qualifications pushed entire countries into crisis and then still managed to get their bonuses with taxpayers money… Meanwhile the middle class are homeless, job less and pensionless or without security …. and told lucky they don’t have to fill out the 70+ pages of unemployment benefit application when for example Fonterra lay off 100 workers (while CEO receives 4 million salary).
At a time where our state houses have just been tendered off cheap to offshore companies and corporations… MSM blackout while the Bachelor makes headlines each day… Oh what a joke we have become in NZ!
Someone has posted this…
http://www.theguardian.com/news/commentisfree/2016/apr/05/millennials-rent-trap-panama-papers-british-property-housing-young-people
IIRC, he trained as a financier which is a different thing altogether and far more dangerous as they seem to believe that you can make money from money and not have to produce anything.
FYI – tomorrow I have been given 30 minutes by the Local Government and Environment Select Committee to give evidence in person to support my petition calling for an urgent inquiry into Auckland Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs).
Thursday 7 April 2016
9.30 – 10am.
Select Committee Room 2.
Kind regards
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Good Luck Penny.
After trying to illegally steal our Harbour in cahoots with Auckland council Planners, it is pretty clear these COO’s answer to nobody but themselves.
Apparently in a free market companies are supposed to answer to the shareholders (who in the councils case should be the ratepayers) so why are they not accountable to ratepayers?
It sounds like, from what Mr Woodhouse says that we NZ are supplying and allowing a conduit to facilitate these trusts and buggar the morality of it, but yes, that’s okay it’s legal for this country. Now wasn’t that what Kim Dot Com was arguing, that he was just providing the conduit to access entertainment media and that he couldn’t be blamed for people using it in nefarious ways. Look what it has done for Kim Dot Com, extradition probably on the way, this Government doesn’t and isn’t seeing it for being legal at all. How do they explain their hypocrisy over this situation? Pity we don’t have an impeachment mechanism here.
“Pity we don’t have an impeachment mechanism here”
But we do have question time, the General Debate and a media of sorts…
Our government may have a bit of trouble explaining that juxtaposition. In the same way they are going to have to explain to other governments why our trust ownership and taxation rules are out of phase with other jurisdictions allowing tax evasion and laundering.
And that gets on prime time news when?
Well, they would have difficulty explaining that if it go several weeks of prime time news with the journalists asking hard questions. Instead we’re likely to get a few minutes worth, a bit of a giggle between the host and the PM and that will be it.
Good point Kate. Good for the goose but…
A couple of quick videos from vice news. Both are shorter than 2 minutes.
I’d be impressed if the Russians keep their word on this. Wouldn’t Princess Diana be proud.
Any chance we can support the Kurds against ISIS yet?
The people of Rojava…we could open a kind of book on who gets to take them out in the end. Will it be the US, Russia or Turkey? Maybe a combined NATO thing? Maybe Syrian armed forces after the country regains some stability?
I’m picking a slow brutal demise at the hands of Assad’s forces, while the west and Russia sit back and either inform their respective audiences (us) that their hands are tied due to whatever settlement has resulted in Syria, or that Assad is just clearing away the last of any terrorist presence from the country.
Who’d be a fucking democrat?
btw. The Kurds in the vid are all about an independent Kurdistan. That’s inimical to the democratic aspirations in Rojava.
I’m picking Turkey. Look how fast they are to blame them for anything going wrong in Turkey. My guess it will be sold to the west as dealing with Terrorism. The Turkish government is using drones on them daily as it is.
I’m hopeful that the rest of the Kurds will engage with the people of Rojava, I hear they have been. These women were in Iraq, and the Iraq Kurds are talking to the Rojava Kurds. They know the history of the West and Turkey lying to them. That they won’t get an independent Kurdistan, it just won’t happen, they can not be that stupid.
OK believing in Masoud Barzani, is that stupid. Oh crap – I despair.
😉
FYI:
http://sputniknews.com/world/20160406/1037543197/soros-putin-clinton-cameron-panama.html
How the Putin/Cello player system works is in Panorama @ 13 below.
Panorama BBC have an edition,
“Tax Havens of the Rich and Powerful Exposed
Panorama
The rich and powerful have hidden billions of dollars in tax havens. They thought their financial secrets were safe, but now a huge leak of documents has revealed a world of secrecy, lies and crimes. ”
Explains with case studies how the money laundering/tax evasion works in Britain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b076vwwy
Oops Sorry. That link to Panorama does not work outside UK . We watched via Apple. Pity. Excellent program.
Google is your friend.
Brilliant Joe. I had felt a little foolish above so you saved my blushes. The Putin connection @8:18.
The Cameron connection @ 16:15.
Nice to see at some reporting from this Panama stuff move beyond the stupid shallow gasping over the fact that rich pricks are doing rich prick stuff with regards tax avoidance.
From ‘The Guardian’
Revealed in the leaked documents was the fact that 2,800 Mossack Fonseca companies are connected to more than 6,000 UK title deeds, worth at least £7bn
http://www.theguardian.com/news/commentisfree/2016/apr/05/millennials-rent-trap-panama-papers-british-property-housing-young-people
Maybe Phil Twyford (or who-ever…probably best if it’s ‘who-ever’) would like to get on to it and see how many title deeds in NZ are linked back to Mossack Fonseca companies?
+1
According to this, 47 entities have been created in NZ.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AFP/status/717200510902734853
+1 Joe. Shocking. Lets have the trust owners names and the addresses of the NZ property!
Can’t do that saveNZ,
It would go against david seymour as the defender of the weak and helpless.
I love politics from the ACT party, it’s so obviously dirty these days.
Well as one Troll has pointed out in defence of the 0.0001% who control 50% of the world wealth.
They are just being sustainable – because imagine the consumption if 50% of people had a fair share of wealth.
My God, we might have to radically shift how we use resources such as housing and water and power and transport and food!
So the right wing discourse is that 0.0001% are taking 50% of the worlds assets for ‘environmental’ reasons apparently.
LOL
From book Affluenza by Oliver James I’m reading.
On today’s democracy:
Dunn asserts that the age of democracy has actually entailed a far greater control of citizens by governments: ‘The world in which we all now live is governed more extensively and more intimately than it has ever been before.’
(Cambridge political theorist John Dunn.)
Democracy, in English-speaking nations today has come to mean the handing over of a vast number of decisions and powers to rulers in return for the freedom to pursue egotistical, hedonistic consumer choices (as Herbert Marcuse predicted it would, back in the 1960s).
I recommend this book, which has theory, ideas and anecdotes with something for everyone to agree and disagree with, which is good mind exercise fodder!
“The World’s Biggest Oil Bribery Scandal”
In an age of potentially catastrophic climate change, where the future survival of civilisation and even humanity itself depends on cutting back on fossil fuels, this scandal makes the current tax avoidance scandal that the world seems to be concentrating on, seem petty by comparison.
The fact that Unaoil’s “ownership” can be traced back to a shell company registered in New Zealand; Warrants investigation to determine if the Unaoil “Bribe Factory” was one of the “lobbyists” used by the “exploration companies, construction and engineering firms, and oilfield service contractors” in this country?
And further; Were Unaoil one of the oil industry lobbyists that persuaded the National government to pass special laws targetting anti fossil fuel protesters?
Just noticed this statistic.
We have more migrants arriving than children being born in NZ…
Estimated resident population at 31 December 2015: 4,649,700 P
Births December 2015 year: 61,038
Deaths December 2015 year: 31,608
Net migration February 2016 year: 67,391
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/top-statistics.aspx
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS to the Prime Minister: Given his answer to Oral Question No. 1 yesterday, how does he stand by his statements?
Winston obviously has thought of a zinger to the answer he got yesterday. Never works once the moment has passed.
zinger? Nah.
Probably followup along the lines of “if NZ isn’t a tax haven in accordance with the pm’s assertions, why are there 60,000 references to NZ in the internal documents of a company that specialises in sheltering clients’ money in tax havens?” and moving on from there.
Winston likes tax evaders. Lots of paperwork to table in parliament…
Sanfords used to register their fishing boats in Panama.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11617867
At least shes seen the light
Ongoing trial of the Prominent New Zealander: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/78618365/prominent-new-zealander-trial-cross-examination-reveals-inconsistencies
Starting to look like there might have been more smoke than actual fire. Or at least, not enough evidence / certainty for a conviction.
I suspect if he is not convicted, the suppression orders won’t be lifted.
This is quite distasteful stuff, heavy suppression orders in place yet almost salacious reporting allowed
In this cases it should be name suppression of the accused, suppression of any and all details of the victims and then, if found guilty, name the offender but leave all details identifying the victims in place and, if found not guilty, leave all suppression orders in place
But this whole reporting from the trial is just sleazy imho
Nowhere near as sleazy as the deception of ordinary New Zealanders by your hero Key on the sale of KiwiBank..
The government still retains 100% ownership vto, don’t let emotion and hyperbole get the better of you
what a pile of deceptive bullshit
by your reckoning the government owns everything in the whole country by dint of its over-arching sovereignty
So if the government doesn’t own it who does?
The question is: how does the government own anything at all?
The fact that the complainants were afraid no-one would believe them lends credence to their claims. Women/girls of any age who have been victims of violence where there is no visible or physical evidence available, knows there is a strong chance they will not be believed. It happens all the time.
And from the herald:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11617818
https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/338447-episode-max-keiser-897/
“In this episode of the Keiser Report Max and Stacy discuss the curious case of Putin’s photo being used to sell #panamapapers when his name is allegedly not even mentioned in the 11 million pages of documents.
They also look at #WikiGreeks as someone leaks the transcript of a conversation between IMF officials hoping for a ‘credit event’ to ‘resolve’ the ongoing Greek tragedy.
In the second half, Max interviews Joel Benjamin and Jamie Griffiths of Debt Resistance UK about the LOBO loans pushing local UK councils to the brink of insolvency.”
I see the mainstream is poo poo-ing another Sander’s victory again.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/05/ted-cruz-crushes-donald-trump-wisconsin-primaries
just heard on the tranny, sanders beats clinton in winsconsin by more than 10 points.
nothing to see here, move on.
just the sixth straight victory for sanders.
i wonder if ther panama papers release is likely to hurt either of the democratic candidates?
Yeah. That news was politely buried in the article I linked. As one comment below the piece noted on the language used by ‘The Guardian’ Cruz apparently “crushed” Trump while Sanders’s bigger percentage win over Clinton was merely Sanders “beating” Clinton…with, I’d add, all the usual qualifiers politely explaining how he’s a lost cause just wasting everyone’s time.
Sanders – 56.5% he wins 45 delegates
Clinton – 43.5% she wins 31 delegates
I read Sanders will need to win by roughly this margin in the all of the remaining primaries to overtake Clinton and beat her with total no. of delegates.
The big one is going to be New York in 2 weeks where 247 delegates are up for grabs. Feel the Bern!
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/superdelegates-might-not-save-hillary-clinton/
I don’t claim to fully understand the us electoral system yet , but there is an interesting graph showing when Obama over took Clinton in this link.
I understand there are still ten delegates to be allocated in Wisconsin to make a total of 86 delegates.
I also heard that Washington state delegates had also not been fully allocated yet (whatever ‘allocated’ in this context means given I thought they were automatically generated from vote percentage).
Or, then again, this link suggests that there are 96 delegates to be allocated in total in Wisconsin and reports that the allocation is currently 45 to 36.
Are there odds being offered here on the USA elections? Seems a very interesting contest and sports betting seems to be a regular feature in these days.
Sanders needed to win by 16% in order to be on track to beat Clinton. He only won by 13.5%, so he’s still going backwards. Hence why he didn’t “crush” Clinton, whereas Cruz has landed a heavy blow at Trumps chances of winning.
Has anyone ever wondered why Auckland does not have a public/community Television station. A quick count of other areas gives me:
Cue Television
TV Central
Dunedin TV
Canterbury Television
TV Rotorua
Info-Rotorua
East Coast TV
Channel North
Television Hawkes Bay
Mainland TV
South TV
I may have missed some I think Nelson has their own channel.
The one thinsg all these channels can do is show stories of interest to the people that live in the area.
For some reason Auckland misses out. I am sick of commercail TV1,2,3,prime etc with their one size fits all for all of NZ. I want to see stories about Auckland.
In the past TVNZ did their best to stop local TV in Auckland by buying out stations and then closing them down. Remember Max and Horizon Television?
Just wonder if anyone else in Auckland would like to see programmes about Auckland.
hi ron, you can add tararua television to yr mix, too.
a friend and i were talking about the potential of a true local newspaper, as our one here in feilding is being “improved” and folded in with two other ‘local’ papers.
kinda like how the evening standard is 3/4s of the dominion.
slightly different real estate ads though.
This one never was a Kiwi ! You reckon you could ever have a truly satisfying beer with this simpering, effete, lying, never was a Kiwi ?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11618024
Are you a true Kiwi, North.?
A good beer drinking, rugger bloke, the real men of NZ?
Well who knows dog ? I’m not a liar, I’m not an effete simpering dick, I don’t lappishly colonise Richie’s arse to compensate for a lack of testo’, I don’t make giggles about child rapists and murderers, I don’t repeatedly assault young women, I’m not illiterate and most of all I’m not a troll backing an embarrassing disgrace. Quite the reverse of your spectacular fetidness Bowel.