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.
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Check out Speak Up For Women’s new podcasts: Episode 3 In this episode Speak Up For Women spokeswoman Ani O’Brien (@aniobrien) is joined by Beth Johnson (@beth_nosnhoj) to discuss the proposal from Statistics NZ to change standard data collection policy to “gender by default” rather than sex. They discuss why the ...
During a recent public consultation on the future of Archives New Zealand, a key report was suppressed. The Ombudsman has ruled that the refusal was unjustified. Sadly, the consultation was over by the time of the the decision has been made. However, the law on the use of the ...
National MP - Michael WoodhouseUnbelievable! Michelle Boag also sent National’s Michael Woodhouse confidential emails about COVD-19 patients, and he continued to publicly attack the Government over these very same breaches of privacy.This is the biggest political self-own since the Act Party’s David Garrett admitted in Parliament that he used a ...
Transcript: National Party policy announcement on roads – 8 July, 2020 Muller: Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for coming. Reporter 1: Is Hamish Walker a racist? Muller: Hang on… you haven’t even said good afternoon to me yet. Reporter 1: Good afternoon Mr Muller. Is Hamish Walker a racist? ...
Back in April, I wrote about trials in Iran of a fixed-dose combination of two existing anti-viral drugs used to treat hepatitis C – sofosbuvir and daclatasvir – that could point to an effective treatment for Covid-19 symptoms.At the time, data from those trials was not available outside the hospitals ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Anja Mizdrak, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Michael BakerThe pandemic-related lockdown is possibly the most dramatic public health intervention in NZ history. It helped achieve the elimination of community transmission of the COVID-19 virus in NZ. But it was also associated with 548 fewer total ...
Reprehensible: There is much that could be said about Michael Woodhouse, but what would be the point? Any man who willingly involves himself in a situation as reprehensible as the one depicted in the above photograph has already vouchsafed all that decent people need to know about his character. That there have ...
As the debate over assisted dying rages in the run-up to the referendum at the election on September 19, a persistent problem continues to dog the discussions. That is to say, a prominent spokesperson for a particular group takes a strong public stand in opposition without acknowledging that they don’t ...
No Other Suspects? The mainstream news media was willing to print and broadcast harsh Opposition criticism of the Government, even though they knew that the source of the leaked information was a National Party MP. Even though, by pushing the story up towards the top of every news bulletin they were ...
Sacrificial Lamb: If the stories about Mr Taogaga and the unauthorised release of confidential medical data had been deliberately orchestrated by Labour’s political opponents, their deflection of the news media’s attention away from the Prime Minister’s address to the Labour Party Congress could hardly have been more successful.THE LABOUR PARTY ...
The East is Rent: The consequences of unleashing the young against the old; of elevating ideological rigor above reasoned debate; and of setting the present against the past; was a decade of unprecedented social stress and tension, interspersed with explosions of murderous mob violence and tragic material destruction. More than ...
The Green Party of Aotearoa-New Zealand could go from helping Jacinda Ardern run the country, to being turfed out of Parliament altogether in ten weeks. And that could see the end of Labour in government. Without them, Labour would likely have to do what no party has done since the ...
Remember the government's tyrannicalTerrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill? Remember how it was rammed through Parliament, with a four-day submission period and a select committee process that was a democratic fraud? At the time, the government gave the impression that there was an urgent need for this legislation, that a ...
Attack journalist - Tova O'BrienWe all know that much of the mainstream media in New Zealand is terribly biased. They are in effect another branch of the National Party, and can often be even more prejudiced than their right wing bosses.In fact many right wing politicians moonlight as journalists and ...
Former National Party President - Michelle BoagAfter the complete botch job Hamish Walker made of leaking the private details of COVID-19 patients to the mainstream media last week, the best-case scenario for Todd Muller and the National Party would be if the news cycle went quiet about their involvement.But unfortunately ...
One of the challenges of working on illegal wildlife markets, is you don’t really have scope to talk about your research into illegal wildlife markets. There is some stuff though that willbe coming out on Asiatic black bears in China, and before Covid19, I was delving more into rhinos. Which ...
Some are surprised at this sudden brain implosion on the part of both Michelle Boag, former National Party President, and the National Party in general, in exposing the private, confidential details of COVID patients. Others…? Let’s be blunt: not so much. Too many of that Party have long operated with ...
Michelle Boag - Former National Party PresidentWhen Todd Muller decided not to discipline Hamish Walker for his horribly racist press release last week, you had to wonder if his lack of proper leadership had something to do with a shared belief system? After all, the whiteness of the blue “team” ...
On Twitter today, lawyer Felix Geiringer asked a good question: why are MP's exempt from the Privacy Act? The Act imposes its obligations on "agencies", and s8 of the 2020 Act states that this term does not include... a member of Parliament in their official capacity The 1993 Act, ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhat was the climate and sea level like at times ...
So now we know, beyond all doubt. The National party has no interest in joining the “team of five million” in our fight against the pandemic but its priority is to take every opportunity it can to damage the government. The cynicism is breathtaking. It was prepared to leak the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters The massive dust storm that formed over the Sahara Desert in mid-June invaded the southeastern U.S. June 25-28, bringing dangerous levels of air pollution, low visibility, and colorful sunsets. The air pollution event over parts of Texas and the Gulf ...
In 1987, as a British Labour MP, I was elected to the Shadow Cabinet by my colleagues and was asked by the party leader to direct Labour’s campaign in the general election of that year. The election was to take place at the height of Mrs Thatcher’s dominance and we ...
National MP Nicola WillisHousing, which I would argue is a fundamental human right, has long been a problem in New Zealand. Not only do we have some of the most overpriced houses in the entire world, much of the housing stock is substandard and therefore affects not just people’s health ...
If the government has not lined up behind a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum the way some reformers would have liked, one entirely laudable thing it did do was commission some science around the public's choice.That science landed today, in the form of the report from an expert ...
Associate Professor Sara WaltonAt the heart of the discussion on opening up our borders is the dichotomy of health and the economy – both of which are actually intertwined, like many things with our economy, as this epidemic has shown.If we think about our country as a system, ...
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Josh Gabbatiss This year will see the largest ever drop globally in both investment and consumer spending on energy as the coronavirus pandemic hits every major sector, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The crisis is accelerating the shutdown of older fossil-fuelled ...
A short opinion piece – Friday 26th June 2020 Whilst our Government has treated many financial victims of the current Covid-19 virus with appropriate generosity, the same cannot be said for those of the two earlier “epidemics” in NZ. The “Covid-84” virus (also called “Rogernomics”) spread systemic greed, with the ...
Everyone deserves a a decent life. We know this is possible with a fairer approach to income support and tax Read the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Poverty Action Plan here ...
After a long break, the government is back inserting secrecy clauses in legislation. This time its the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (No 3), which in its clause allowing Ministers to exempt purchasers of farm land from the usual rules also allows them to exempt an exemption from the publication requirement: ...
Over the past two years the government has repeatedly delayed a scheme to put cameras on boats to monitor Mew Zealand's pervasively criminal fishing industry. But it turns out that the industry actually wants cameras: Three of the country's biggest seafood companies have broken ranks with the rest of the ...
Louise Delany (public health lawyer)Health and emergency laws have played a critical role in this country’s successful elimination of community transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic. This blog details key aspects of the legislation and comments on issues around testing, payments by incoming travellers for quarantine costs, and mask use. ...
I like Andrew Curry’s succinct and insightful futures blog The Next Wave. His most recent post is about social change. In particular, the decadal-long periods usually required for changes in values. He highlights a 2016 paper by Inglehart and Norris, who examined whether economic insecurity or a “cultural backlash” ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Stop making sense: why it's time to get emotional about climate changeThe science has been settled to the highest degree, so now ...
MONDAY JULY 6Washington (History, Sky 073, 7.30pm). The brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin is the executive producer of this six-part series about America's first president. It combines interviews with live action and is narrated by Jeff Daniels. It's engaging, said Salon.TUESDAY JULY 7The ABC Murders (Prime, 8.30pm). Sarah Phelps has done incredible things with ...
I think we can all agree that the mainstream media in New Zealand has a very different set of rules for the right wing compared to the left. While Labour and Green Party politicians don’t seem to be able to fart without it becoming a sackable offence, National and Act ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 28 through Sat, July 4, 2020Editor's Choice'2040': A funny, entertaining, upbeat climate documentaryA timely Australian documentary takes a 'solutions' approach, with the filmmaker inspired by visions of ...
Racist National MP Hamish WalkerEven before Todd Muller's coup ousted Simon Bridges by a single vote, it was patently obvious that the National Party promotes and stands for white privilege. In fact they’ve always worked to ensure the discriminatory status quo in New Zealand doesn’t change.So it’s no surprise that ...
Dave HeatleyZero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an attractive situation, at least compared to much of the world. The situation could be robust and enduring – or it might be fragile, just one border incursion away from a “second ...
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people? When in doubt, centralise‘ has been a persistent theme in New Zealand public policy throughout our history. The current government is no exception. Here are some examples. - The regional polytechs have been ...
I wrote earlier in the week about the Scientology front organisations Drug Free World and Drug Free Ambassadors and their quite prominent role in anti-cannabis reform "coalition" assembled by Family First and a newloca branch of the American prohibitionist organisation SAM.It turns out Family First aren't the only ones helping ...
Nik GreenMuch of the public debate about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has focused on the extent to which government regulations have restricted personal and business activity.Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government Here in New Zealand, the question of when to change Alert Levels dominated the ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters acknowledged today the heavy price of trying to lead the National Party today. ‘One’s sympathy goes out to Todd Muller and his family. Todd is a good man, unlike most of his colleagues he does ...
We're keeping New Zealand moving, one progress-packed week at a time. Read below to find out how we're creating jobs, protecting the environment, looking out for the health of New Zealanders', and upgrading our critical infrastructure - and that's only this week. ...
We're keeping New Zealand moving, one progress-packed week at a time. Read below to find out how we're creating jobs, protecting the environment, looking out for the health of New Zealanders', and upgrading our critical infrastructure - and that's only this week. ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund is providing up to $19.5 million to boost innovative primary sector businesses and create training and job opportunities for Northland locals through the construction of an innovation and enterprise park at Ngawha, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones ...
The Green Party is today unveiling part one of its plan for a fossil-fuel free Aotearoa, including an immediate ban on new industrial coal boilers. ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industry New Zealand First is supporting calls by hunters and the New Zealand Tahr Foundation (NZTF) to halt a large scale cull of Himalayan Tahr by the Department of Conservation in National Parks. The calls are supported by a 40,000 strong petition and the ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First leader Winston Peters today scoffed at suggestions that a team of six political operatives have been dispatched to New Zealand to assist his campaign. ‘As President Ronald Reagan once said, ‘there they go again.’ ‘The clickbait journos can’t ...
New Zealand First is pleased to announce Jenny Marcroft as the party’s election 2020 candidate for the Auckland Central electorate. Jenny spent years working in Auckland Central, having spent a vast proportion of her broadcasting career there. She says she, "knows the place and knows the people." Ms Marcroft says ...
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...
This week we moved into the second half of 2020 - and our Government delivered another week of big changes and major progress for New Zealanders. Read below for a wrap of the key things moments from the week - from extending paid parental leave, to making major investments in ...
The Green Party has opposed the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting Bill which shortcuts normal consenting processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA), reduces public participation and narrows environmental considerations. ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Regional Economic Development A regional freight hub for the lower North Island will be built just northeast of Palmerston North, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Government is investing $40 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to designate and buy land and design ...
Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson is calling for the introduction of a Guaranteed Minimum Income to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and prevent more families entering into further debt with the Ministry of Social Development. ...
There has been renewed focus on New Zealand First acting as a handbrake on the Government after our decision to not support Auckland light rail. We are a handbrake for bad ideas, that istrue, but our track record since 2017 has seen New Zealand First constructively also serve as an ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP New Zealand First’s Fair Residency for Superannuation Bill passed its First Reading in Parliament today. The Bill makes a significant change to NZ Super by raising the minimum residency requirement from 10 to 20 years, after age 20. “Currently, a migrant of ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order A New Zealand First member’s bill in the name of Darroch Ball introducing a six-month minimum prison sentence for assaults on first responders has passed its second reading in Parliament. The new offence of "injuring a first responder or corrections officer with ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Deputy Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First welcomes the launch of the new Criminal Cases Review Commission, gifted with the name from Waikato-Tainui - Te Kāhui Tātari Ture, announced in Hamilton today by Justice Minister Andrew Little. “New Zealand First has long believed in and ...
The Green Party is celebrating over $800m in new funding for green projects, which will get people into jobs while solving New Zealand’s long-term challenges. ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is appalled that Meridian seems to have been unnecessarily spilling water from its dams to drive up its profits."While New Zealanders have been coming together in some of our darkest hours, we don’t expect power gentailers to waste water and ...
We wrapped up the first half of 2020 with a busy month, taking additional steps to support New Zealanders as we continue with our economic recovery. We rolled out targeted packages to support key industries like tourism and construction, helped create jobs in the environmental and agriculture sectors, and set ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has welcomed the appointment of Maurice Davis and his deep infrastructure and construction experience to the board of the Infrastructure Commission. Mr Davis (Ngāti Maniapoto), is the seventh and final appointment to the board led by former Reserve Bank Governor ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand’s click bait journalism is taking a turn for the worse, with yet another example of sensationalist, wilful-misrepresentation of the facts. “New Zealand First has worked constructively with its Coalition partner on hundreds of pieces of legislation and policy, and ...
The Green Party is today unveiling its Poverty Action Plan, which includes a Guaranteed Minimum Income to ensure people have enough to live with dignity. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Rotorua Museum redevelopment and Whakarewarewa and Tokorangi Forest projects will be accelerated thanks to a $2.09 million Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) boost, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
This week, we rolled out the next steps of our recovery plan, with new infrastructure investment, extra support for tourism operators, and a new programme to get Kiwis into agriculture careers. The global economic consequences of COVID-19 will continue to be a challenge, but we have a detailed plan to ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its final reading in Parliament today fulfilling a coalition agreement commitment. “This is an important step in saving the lives of New Zealanders and delivers a key coalition commitment ...
Whakatāne has been given a $2.5 million boost to speed up previously funded projects and create more than 450 jobs in the next decade. Of those, the equivalent of 160 full-time jobs could be delivered in the next six weeks. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is in town to make ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $2.5 million to accelerate three infrastructure projects in Whakatāne, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This package is about ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones is throwing his weight behind a bid by the Auckland Council to fast-track the more than doubling of the city's water allowance from the Waikato River. And he's coming out strongly against anyone who plans on getting in the way of this campaign. "It is my ...
The Green Party is thrilled to see changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that mean consents for large projects can be declined if they will have significant climate change implications that are inconsistent with the Zero Carbon Act and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Paris Agreement obligations. ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence The Royal New Zealand Navy’s new ship, Aotearoa, set sail for New Zealand on 10 June from the Republic of Korea, and is due to arrive in Auckland tomorrow, announced Minister of Defence Ron Mark. “Aotearoa is the Royal New Zealand Navy’s new fleet ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters has today welcomed the Racing Industry Bill passing its third reading, creating the legislative framework for revitalising the racing industry while limiting the need for future government intervention. “For too long our domestic racing industry has ...
A package of wellbeing infrastructure investments in Kaipara which focuses on improving the lives of the elderly and upgrading the iconic Kauri Museum has been announced by Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones today. “These shovel-ready projects will have significant benefits for their respective communities and I’m pleased this funding ...
More support is rolling out for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from the COVID Response and Recovery Fund, to help them adapt and innovate to deal with the impact of the virus. The Ministers for Economic Development and Small Business have announced a further $40 million for the Regional Business ...
Stephen Clark, Māori Land Court Judge of Hamilton has been appointed as a District Court Judge with jury jurisdiction to be based in Hamilton, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. Judge Clark graduated with an LLB from Auckland University in 1988 and was admitted to the Bar in the same year. ...
The Crown will provide a loan to Hawke’s Bay Airport to ensure it can trade through COVID-19 economic impacts, support the region’s recovery and protect up to 200 jobs. The Crown has a 50 percent shareholding in Hawke’s Bay Airport Limited (HBAL), with Napier City Council holding 26 percent and ...
Four celebrated Māori and Pasifika events will receive up to $100,000 each in funding from the new Creative and Cultural Events Incubator fund, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. The four events that were successful in the inaugural funding round are: Kia Mau Festival, Wellington Māoriland Film Festival, Otaki ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio is pleased to announce the inaugural launch of Kiribati Language Week as part of the 2020 Pacific language Weeks programme. “I am so pleased that this year we are able to provide resourcing support to the Kiribati community in Aotearoa which will ...
Wildlife institutions affected by a loss of visitor revenue during the COVID-19 lockdown are set to receive government support with nearly $15 million of funding available announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage. “Eco-sanctuaries, zoos, aquariums, wildlife parks, and wildlife rescue, hospital and rehabilitation facilities provide crucial support for the recovery ...
The Government is expanding and accelerating frontline mental health and wellbeing services at tertiary education institutes (TEI) to help students manage ongoing stresses related to COVID-19. “The lockdown has been hugely disruptive for students. Many of them have had to relocate and move to online learning, isolating them from their ...
The Minister of Police says a major operation against the Mongrel Mob in Waikato will make a big dent in drug harm and violent offending linked to organised crime networks. “Senior leadership of the Waikato Mongrel Mob has been taken out as a result of Operation Kingsville, which resulted in ...
The Government is extending the border exception criteria to enable some offshore victims and support people of the Christchurch mosque attacks to attend the sentencing of the accused beginning on 24 August2020, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “We want to support our valued Muslim brothers and sisters who were directly ...
A project to support volunteer efforts to look after streams and rivers is getting a boost thanks to support from DOC’s Community Conservation Fund announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “The government is backing efforts to look after waterways with $199,400 for the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust from ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter today announced that funding for the COVID-19 Community Fund for women and girls will be doubled, as the first successful funding applications for the initial $1million were revealed. “Women and girls across the country have suffered because of the effects of COVID-19, and I ...
The Government’s books were better than forecast with a higher GST take as the economy got moving again after lockdown, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Crown Accounts for the 11 months to the end of May indicate the year end results for tax revenue will be stronger than forecast. ...
A plan to revitalise New Zealand’s strong wool sector and set it on a new, more sustainable and profitable path was unveiled today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The newly-released report - Vision and Action for New Zealand’s Wool Sector - was developed by the Wool Industry Project Action Group ...
Community efforts to create a Predator Free Whangārei will receive a $6 million boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. The new funding, through Government company Predator Free 2050 Ltd, will create around 12 jobs while enabling the complete removal of possums over ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced that the New Zealand Government is reviewing the settings of its relationship with Hong Kong. “China’s decision to pass a new national security law for Hong Kong has fundamentally changed the environment for international engagement there,” Mr Peters said. “New Zealand remains deeply ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced details of a multimillion-dollar investment in Whangārei for infrastructure projects that will help it recover from the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 200 jobs are expected to be created through the $26 million investment from the Government’s rejuvenation package ...
Following a second incident in which a person escaped from a managed isolation facility, security is being enhanced, including more police presence onsite, Minister Megan Woods said. “The actions of some individuals who choose to break the very clear rules to stay within the facilities means that more resourcing is ...
Waste reduction and recycling programmes in Kaipara are set to get a boost with Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage today announcing a $361,447 grant from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF) Sustainable Kaipara. “The new funding will allow Sustainable Kaipara to partner with local schools, kura, community ...
The Government will support the Southland economy in the wake of multinational mining company Rio Tinto’s decision to follow through with its long signalled closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. “This day has unfortunately been on the cards for some time now, but nevertheless the final decision is a ...
New tools being developed to help boost Aotearoa’s Predator Free 2050 effort were unveiled today by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. A new rat poison, a camera with predator recognition software to detect and report predators, a new predator lure and a ...
The Coalition Government has approved the purchase of a fleet of Bushmaster vehicles to replace the New Zealand Army’s armoured Pinzgauers, Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced today. The new fleet of 43 Australian-designed and built Bushmaster NZ5.5 will provide better protection for personnel and improved carrying capacity. “The age ...
The Government’s three prevention frameworks to reduce family violence in Aotearoa were launched this week by Associate Minister for Social Development Poto Williams. The frameworks were developed in partnership with communities around New Zealand, and build on the work the Government has already begun with its new family violence prevention ...
The Government is pleased to confirm funding for improvements to radiology and surgical services at Hawke's Bay DHB, Health Minister Chris Hipkins says. "The Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson and former Health Minister Dr David Clark approved funding for Hawke's Bay DHB’s redevelopment of their radiology facilities ...
• New funding for four beds at Napier’s Springhill Residential Addiction Centre • A new managed withdrawal home and community service, and peer support before and after residential care at Tairāwhiti DHB • A co-ordinated network of withdrawal management services throughout the South Island • Peer support in Rotorua and ...
Introduction, seafarers and POAL Good morning everyone, I am delighted to be online with you all today. Before I begin, I have to acknowledge that COVID-19 has disrupted the maritime sector on an unprecedented scale. The work of seafarers and the maritime industry is keeping many economies around the world ...
A $13 million investment from Government will create jobs and improve the resilience of the rail connection between Christchurch and the West Coast, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones and Regional Economic Development Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau say. The funding comes from the tagged contingency set aside in Budget 2020 for infrastructure projects ...
The Government is investing $761 million to assist local government upgrade under-pressure water services across the country, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. The announcement was made at the site of the water bore that was found to be the source of the fatal ...
Recognised Seasonal Employers and migrant seasonal workers stranded in New Zealand will be able to continue working and supporting themselves with more flexible hours and roles, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. The time-limited visa changes are: Stranded RSE workers will be able to work part-time (a minimum of 15 hours ...
The Government is making immediate short-term changes to visa settings to support temporary migrants already onshore in New Zealand and their employers, while also ensuring New Zealanders needing work are prioritised, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. We are: Extending temporary work visas due to expire by the end of 2020 ...
Professor Peter Skelton CNZM has been appointed as Chief Freshwater Commissioner and Alternate Environment Court Judge Craig James Thompson as Deputy Chief Freshwater Commissioner for the newly established Freshwater Planning Process (FPP). Environment Minister David Parker today also announced the appointment of Chief Environment Court Judge Laurie Newhook as the ...
Auckland Queen’s Counsel Neil Campbell has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Campbell graduated with a BCom and LLB (Hons) from the University of Auckland in 1992. He spent two years with Bell Gully Buddle Weir in Auckland before travelling to the United ...
The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to better enable the development and operation of commercial film and video facilities in Christchurch. The Proposal, developed by Regenerate Christchurch in response to a request from Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section ...
The Government has launched a bold plan to boost primary sector export earnings by $44 billion over the next decade, while protecting the environment and growing jobs. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today released Fit for a Better World – Accelerating our Economic Potential, a 10-year roadmap to unlock greater value ...
A new approach to prevent family harm that encourages greater collaboration across government and community groups is being celebrated at the opening of a new facility in Auckland. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today opened the Multi-Disciplinary Family Harm Prevention Hub Te Taanga Manawa in Lambie Road in Manukau. The facility ...
The Government has released a major new report on the options for relocating the Port of Auckland’s freight operations while deferring any decision on the issue. “That decision needs to be informed by policy analysis that is still to be completed. As a result it will be up to a ...
The history of Rāpaki is being restored through the inclusion of te reo in thirteen official place names on Te Pātaka-o-Rākaihautū / Banks Peninsula and around Lyttelton Harbour/Whakaraupō, the Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage, announced today. “I am pleased to approve the proposals from Te Hapū o Ngāti ...
Bookings for seats on Air New Zealand flights into New Zealand will be managed in the short term to ensure the Government is able to safely place New Zealanders arriving home into a managed isolation or quarantine facility, says Housing Minister Megan Woods. “Last week Air Commodore Darryn Webb and I ...
Grant Robertson has today announced the first major release of funding from the $265 million Sport Recovery Package announced at Budget 2020. “Today we’re setting out how $80 million will be invested, with $54 million of that over the 2020/2021 financial year for organisations from community level through to elite ...
The Government is maintaining current levy rates for the next 2 years, as part of a set of changes to help ease the financial pressures of COVID-19 providing certainty for businesses and New Zealanders, ACC Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “New Zealanders and businesses are facing unprecedented financial pressures as a ...
Neon’s gender-flipped version of High Fidelity features Zoë Kravitz in the role John Cusack made famous 20 years ago. And it works far better than you might expect, writes Catherine McGregor.By now we’ve all accepted the fact that every last artistic touchstone we hold dear will one day end up ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Australia’s response to the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is rightly considered one of the world’s best. At their best, our federal and state politicians have put aside the ...
Todd Muller’s brief leadership of the National Party ended this morning and his resignation creates opportunities for truly centrist, more stable and independent parties not under investigation by the SFO. Unfortunately this does point to some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Damien Manuel, Director, Centre for Cyber Security Research & Innovation (CSRI), Deakin University Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed last month Australia is actively being attacked by hostile foreign governments. An advisory note posted on the government’s Australian Cyber Security Centre website said ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ross Tapsell, Senior Lecturer in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific., Australian National University The recent police interrogations of six Al Jazeera journalists in Malaysia – five of whom are Australian – was not about ...
ANALYSIS:By Liam Hehir The detailed reasons for opposition National Party leader Todd Muller’s shock resignation are something we are not yet given to know. At this point, anything other than the statement made by Muller himself is nothing more than speculation. The announcement was a bolt from the blue ...
The rich become that way because they work hard to provide the everyday things that our nation needs. So runs the story that underpins the economic system we live under. Its something that is so taken for granted, it often goes uncommented upon. It seems ...
In every discussion about who could lead the National Party since John Key resigned in 2016, one name has always figured high in speculation: Judith Collins.The controversial yet popular MP for Papakura has put her name forward twice – losing to Bill English and Simon Bridges. Since then, Collins has ...
Maternal mental health is far more complex than most realise, and for many women,problems start well before the baby is born. Here, four women share their experiences of perinatal distress – and how to get through it. Josie Gritten has three littlies and she is a perpetual motion machine, a superwoman. One ...
Former Prime Minister Jim Bolger says the National Party needs to choose a new leader who is bold enough to talk publicly about tax increases and New Zealand's post-Covid economic future. ...
At last Pretty Penny has met its judicial fate and been sent packing from New Zealand. Debtfix co-founder, Christine Liggins says; “Far from ‘helping everyday people’ as their tagline states, Pretty Penny was a thorn in the side of those who deal with ...
Analysis - The National Party has been thrown into utter confusion by Todd Muller's resignation and now the caucus has to find someone prepared to take a hospital pass, writes Peter Wilson. ...
“The Council has been using the water crisis as an excuse to prime Auckland ratepayers for a painful 3.5% increase in rates. Supposedly, the crisis has introduced $239 million in new costs.” “However, the Government has now announced $196 million ...
Todd Muller's resignation now puts Jacinda Ardern in the awkward position of having to say what she really, really wants to do with her second term. Bernard Hickey analyses her choices. Jacinda Ardern is reputed to have played a few Spice Girls tracks as a DJ at the Morrinsville College after-ball ...
Latest from the Beehive – While National’s Todd Muller was thinking hard about his future as leader, the government was getting on with the job of governing and redistributing taxpayers’ money. At least, we presume that’s what Muller was doing . He was also giving a highly instructive lesson in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University And then there was none. Early this morning the National Party caucus awoke to a nightmare. Todd Muller, their newly minted leader of some 53 days, had resigned his position. This is not just another ...
After Todd Muller’s shock resignation, a crushing electoral defeat for National looks all but assured. But is a historically weak opposition really something for the left to celebrate, asks Danyl Mclauchlan. It probably doesn’t matter who takes over as leader of the National Party. Todd Muller’s sudden resignation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Audrey Courty, PhD candidate, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University Amid claims of social media platforms stifling free speech, a new challenger called Parler is drawingattention for its anti-censorship stance. Last week, Harper’s Magazine published an open letter ...
So is the election now a foregone conclusion? With Jacindamania still raging, and the National Party shattered by its own shambolic performance, it looks like a walk in the park for the Labour Party and its coalition partners. Certainly NZ First leader Winston Peters wasn’t slow to rub salt into ...
Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas reel at the announcement that Todd Muller has resigned as leader of the opposition. At 7.30am, just 53 days after he replaced Simon Bridges as leader of the National Party, Todd Muller announced his immediate resignation from the job.How did it come to this, ...
The Minister of Immigration has dropped another bombshell today relating to temporary visa holders and their families, says Ms June Ranson, chair of the New Zealand Association of Migration and Investment (NZAMI). Having granted an automatic six-month extension ...
A success story of the New Zealand Made Products Facebook page, this Christchurch start-up has grown from a backyard workshop to a centre for sustainable architecture and building all in the space of a few months.Two Christchurch guys needed a table for their flat. So they built one out of ...
Power Play - Who will seize the day now National is a party looking for a leader? RNZ political editor Jane Patterson takes a look at a party that was supposed to be settling in to fight its election campaign. ...
An announcement today that three Police raids of firearm licence holders following the Christchurch Mosque shootings were illegal, raises questions about Police over-reacting to what people say on social media, according to the Council of Licenced Firearms ...
Just over seven weeks after he rolled Simon Bridges to become leader of the opposition, and with under 10 weeks to go to the election, Todd Muller has quit. Here’s a reminder of how it unfurled – and unravelled.May 21A Colmar Brunton poll for TVNZ puts National at 29%. It’s ...
Todd Muller's stint as National leader has been cut short by a commendable decision to put his own wellbeing first - but now the party must try to find a path forward to September 19 For all that National’s critics claimed to predict it, the news was a shock. Just ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found three searches conducted by Police following the 15 March Mosque attacks were unlawful. Following the attacks, Police identified people of interest to national security and set up an operation aimed ...
CEAC want Gov’t to protect communities using ‘OECD/WHO/EU standards traffic noise for residential traffic noise Confirmation of reports to urban residents both from NZTA/Transit-NZ acoustical consultants have since 2001 warned residents that ...
“What a mess” said Hannah Tamaki. “Todd Muller’s resignation this morning is a further indication of the insidious problems hidden in the belly of New Zealand politics. With all three major political parties under investigation by the Serious ...
A recent media story highlighting the fact that a convicted paedophile has worked on a popular New Zealand children’s tv show reveals the serious inadequacies of current legislation which is supposed to protect our children, according to Safeguarding ...
The country's electoral donation laws are being questioned with a third major political party now the subject of a Serious Fraud Office investigation. ...
Mistrust in the government and generational trauma mean Māori communities are more at risk of falling victim to conspiracies relating to the 5G spectrum. Alice Webb-Liddall finds out what needs to be done to combat this dangerous misinformation.The real danger of conspiracy theories can sometimes be hard to grasp. When ...
Nearly two months ago Todd Muller stepped up to wrestle the leadership of the National Party from Simon Bridges, he won. But after just 53 days, he has resigned. Here's a quick look at his background. ...
Greenpeace NZ is challenging Coca Cola to face up to its embarrassing contribution to ocean pollution for Plastic Free July. Coca Cola Amatil floods NZ with hundreds of millions of plastic bottles annually - the majority of which end up in landfill ...
With just over two months to go before the election, National suddenly, shockingly finds itself in need of a new leader. Who are the potential candidates?Late leadership changes before an election aren’t unheard of in politics. The current prime minister is living proof of that, taking over from Andrew Little ...
Source: Statement by Todd Muller – New Zealand National Party I have taken time over the weekend to reflect on my experience over the last several weeks as Leader of the Opposition. It has become clear to me that I am not the best person to be Leader of the Opposition ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Audrey Courty, PhD candidate, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University Amid claims of social media platforms stifling free speech, a new challenger called Parler is drawingattention for its anti-censorship stance. Last week, Harper’s Magazine published an open letter ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Hocking, Emeritus Professor, Monash University Forty-five years after they were written, hundreds of previously secret letters between the queen and the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, relating to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 will be released in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing and Deputy Head (Learn & Teaching), School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University The recent lockdown of nine social housing towers in Melbourne’s north to contain the spread of COVID-19 led to widespread concerns for residents’ ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francesco Paolucci, Associate Professor of Health Economics, University of Bologna, and Professor of Health Economics, University of Newcastle Australia has fared better than most countries in reducing its COVID-19 cases to very low numbers. However, on June 15, new clusters of infection ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Burke, Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Putting a price on carbon should reduce emissions, because it makes dirty production processes more expensive than clean ones, right? That’s the economic theory. Stated baldly, it’s obvious, but there ...
Politics editor Justin Giovannetti reports from Wellington.National Party leader Todd Muller has resigned citing health reasons, only 53 days after he rolled Simon Bridges to take over the largest party in New Zealand’s parliament. The next general election is in 66 days.Muller’s short leadership was marked by disarray within the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona David, Visiting Fellow, University of Western Australia In previous recessions in Australia, far larger numbers of men than women lost their jobs. This reflected realities at that time. Men had higher levels of workforce participation than women, and the construction and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon O’Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney Curtis Sittenfeld has a knack of putting her readers in uncomfortable places in her fiction. In her short story Gender Studies she puts you in the ...
After just over a month in the job, National leader Todd Muller has stepped aside National leader Todd Muller has resigned from the role a little over a month after deposing Simon Bridges, citing the heavy toll the job has taken on him and his family. In a brief statement, ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Serious Fraud Office announces investigation into donations made to Labour, deportations from Australia to resume, and retail businesses up against it on rent.In a short statement released yesterday afternoon, the Serious Fraud Office made it clear that donations to the ...
The 2020 longlist for the APRA Silver Scroll Awards – New Zealand’s premiere songwriting awards – have just been announced. Here’s the full list of the 20 finalists, with the songs themselves to listen to.This morning saw the announcement of the longlist for the APRA Silver Scroll, New Zealand’s most ...
It was claimed as a win but last week’s court decision on tahr control was mostly legal shots thumping harmlessly into a wall. David Williams reports ANALYSIS: Last Friday, hunting groups welcomed a “landmark” High Court decision, “halting” a controversial plan to “exterminate” all tahr in national parks and sharply ...
There’s concern the Department of Conservation’s assessment of proposed changes to a yet-to-be-constructed hydro scheme underestimates their potential impact A West Coast small hydro scheme’s proposed new pipeline path could require over 1000 native trees be felled on public conservation land. What was supposed to be a thin pipe lying on top ...
Dr Neal Curtis explains why we shouldn't simply dismiss people trying to resist discrimination by calling them anti-democratic You may have heard a lot about ‘cancel culture’ recently, not least because of the 150 signatories to the Harper’s Magazine letter last week that supposedly cancelled cancel culture. ‘Cancelling’ is a ...
The closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter has left the door open for another electricity-intensive project to take its place at the south tip of the South Island. ...
A complaint has been made to the Department of Internal Affairs against a book of short stories How do you know you’ve “made it” as a writer? Is it, as one friend recently commented on a photo of me holding my new book, when Facebook refuses to allow you to ...
Terminally ill man Stuart Armstrong responds to a first-person piece on assisted dying Newsroom ran last week, arguing people should have the option to choose a death that reflects their life and beliefs This week Serena Jones wrote an article describing her position on the upcoming referendum on the End ...
What New Zealand must do to play virtual host to APEC next year is something perhaps never attempted before. The rewards could be big. Virtual hosting of 2021 APEC: a rewarding challenge for NZ New Zealand’s confirmation that it will proceed with hosting APEC in 2021, using virtual digital platforms, ...
A major infrastructure announcement by the National Party slated to take place today needs to defy stereotypes about what they are all about. COMMENT: It didn't take a genius to realise that a major infrastructure announcement down south by the National Party would turn out to be a road of ...
LISTEN: In our podcast, A Neesh Audience, Black Cap Jimmy Neesham talks to playmakers who'll be part of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 in New Zealand. In this episode, he chats with White Ferns captain Sophie Devine. Sophie Devine has been on a roll of late. Whether it be ...
If there’s any time for ambitious, agenda-setting policy ideas, it’s now, write Max Harris and Laura O’Connell Rapira. Here are seven suggestions that might just transform New Zealand for the better.In a pre-budget speech, finance minister Grant Robertson said it was time to “address long-term issues”, but then when the ...
The SpinoffBy Max Harris and Laura O'Connell Rapira
St John Ambulance is paying wages on borrowed money - and that can't keep happening. Most people would say there are three branches of emergency services in New Zealand: police, fire, and ambulance. Police are fully funded by the government. Fire and Emergency New Zealand is funded through an ...
By Jimmy Kalebe in Port Moresby Papua New Guinea police have intercepted and confiscated almost K200,000 (about NZ$90,000) in K2 and K5 notes hidden in a container on a ship which arrived at the Lae wharf in a suspected money laundering case. The cash, packed into three boxes inside the ...
National MP Amy Adams has apologised for wrongly claiming one of her party's candidates is Chinese. Catherine Chu was born and raised in Christchurch and her parents are from South Korea. ...
National MP Amy Adams has apologised for wrongly claiming one of her party's candidates is Chinese. Catherine Chu was born and raised in Christchurch and her parents are from South Korea. ...
Pacific Media Watch Host Oscar Perress talked to contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch Sri Krishnamurthi today about Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s government rejecting a licence for the country’s biggest radio and TV network ABS-CBN. Its 25-year-old franchise expired in May but the majority of legislators refused to renew in ...
Open mike 06/04/2016 
Open mike is your post.
The "palace letters" between Australia's then Governor-General John Kerr and the Queen were released today by the Australian Archives. From the bits I caught of the original press conference, they didn't sound so bad. But now people have had time to go through them properly, and they show an appalling ...15 mins ago
About 10 years ago when I was producing Q+A on TVNZ, first-term minister Judith Collins arrived for an interview with a staff member I hadn’t met. She kindly introduced us. “This is Tim Watkin,” she said. Adding after the briefest of pauses, “he writes mean things about me on Pundit”.Her ...1 hour ago
The toxic implosion of National thanks to an internal culture of screaming bullshit, most of it completely supercharged in the last decade by a feckless, moronic, “smile and wave” Banker (lauded as “a businessman who will sort out politics!”) who mainlined Neoliberal economics and was literally called, by his own ...1 hour ago
Todd Muller - National Party MPTodd Muller’s shock resignation today really only points to one possible conclusion; there’s further damning evidence linking him directly to National’s latest dirty political episode that will likely be unearthed during an official inquiry.Obviously Muller being directly involved in the leaking of COVID-19 patient’s private ...5 hours ago
. . The last 24 hours in Aotearoa’s New Zealand’s politics has provided more drama than a week’s worth of “Shortie Street” episodes combined and binge-watched. It began approximately around 5.30 last night (7 July) with a disclosure by Clutha-Southland MP, Hamish Walker that he had leaked a list of ...11 hours ago
Read our latest newsletter here ...1 day ago
Dr Kim Handley, University of Auckland Just how do cyanobacteria live in their natural habitat, and how do they coexist with other bacteria and microbial life forms? And what difference will knowledge on this bacteria have on maintaining New Zealand’s water quality? One of the consequences of declining water quality ...1 day ago
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Climate Feedback Article Review... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Global temperatures could exceed crucial 1.5 C target in the next five years In this aerial view ...1 day ago
The Council of Disobedient Women There is a regular segment in the Speak Up For Women podcasts called “Absolutely Blasted Mad Moment of the Week”. Each podcast the speaker and the host discuss a recent event that is the most insane thing they have seen in the gender critical space ...3 days ago
TUESDAY JULY 14Yorkshire Airport (Prime, 7.30pm). Bloomin’ ’eck, behind the scenes at Leeds Bradford Airport. Apparently, there is plenty of “northern charm”, although reaction in the UK ranged from “brilliant” to “patronising”. It is narrated by Hugh Dennis, whose middle name might be “Arch”.WEDNESDAY JULY 15Queen: Live at Wembley (Prime, ...3 days ago
Simon Bridges must be the unluckiest person in New Zealand politics. When he was elected as leader of the National party, he also became Leader of the Opposition – a position, he was entitled to assume, that would require him to “oppose”. But the government he set out to oppose ...3 days ago
Check out Speak Up For Women’s new podcasts: Episode 3 In this episode Speak Up For Women spokeswoman Ani O’Brien (@aniobrien) is joined by Beth Johnson (@beth_nosnhoj) to discuss the proposal from Statistics NZ to change standard data collection policy to “gender by default” rather than sex. They discuss why the ...4 days ago
Transcript: National Party policy announcement on roads – 8 July, 2020 Muller: Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for coming. Reporter 1: Is Hamish Walker a racist? Muller: Hang on… you haven’t even said good afternoon to me yet. Reporter 1: Good afternoon Mr Muller. Is Hamish Walker a racist? ...4 days ago
Today’s content Tiwai Point to close Hamish Rutherford (Herald): Government subsidising practically everything plays hardball with Rio Tinto (paywalled) Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Sudden closure of aluminium smelter worst outcome for jobs, consumers and the environment Brian Fallow (Herald): Tiwai closure sad news – and an opportunity for the environment (paywalled) Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Rio ...4 days ago
Reprehensible: There is much that could be said about Michael Woodhouse, but what would be the point? Any man who willingly involves himself in a situation as reprehensible as the one depicted in the above photograph has already vouchsafed all that decent people need to know about his character. That there have ...4 days ago
Some are surprised at this sudden brain implosion on the part of both Michelle Boag, former National Party President, and the National Party in general, in exposing the private, confidential details of COVID patients. Others…? Let’s be blunt: not so much. Too many of that Party have long operated with ...6 days ago
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters acknowledged today the heavy price of trying to lead the National Party today. ‘One’s sympathy goes out to Todd Muller and his family. Todd is a good man, unlike most of his colleagues he does ...10 hours ago
We're keeping New Zealand moving, one progress-packed week at a time. Read below to find out how we're creating jobs, protecting the environment, looking out for the health of New Zealanders', and upgrading our critical infrastructure - and that's only this week. ...1 day ago
The Green Party is today unveiling part one of its plan for a fossil-fuel free Aotearoa, including an immediate ban on new industrial coal boilers. ...2 days ago
A package of wellbeing infrastructure investments in Kaipara which focuses on improving the lives of the elderly and upgrading the iconic Kauri Museum has been announced by Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones today. “These shovel-ready projects will have significant benefits for their respective communities and I’m pleased this funding ...8 hours ago
Todd Muller may have only served 53 days as leader of the National Party but was his the shortest leadership? ...1 hour ago
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Neon’s gender-flipped version of High Fidelity features Zoë Kravitz in the role John Cusack made famous 20 years ago. And it works far better than you might expect, writes Catherine McGregor.By now we’ve all accepted the fact that every last artistic touchstone we hold dear will one day end up ...2 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Australia’s response to the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is rightly considered one of the world’s best. At their best, our federal and state politicians have put aside the ...3 hours ago
Todd Muller's resignation now puts Jacinda Ardern in the awkward position of having to say what she really, really wants to do with her second term. Bernard Hickey analyses her choices. Jacinda Ardern is reputed to have played a few Spice Girls tracks as a DJ at the Morrinsville College after-ball ...6 hours ago
Latest from the Beehive – While National’s Todd Muller was thinking hard about his future as leader, the government was getting on with the job of governing and redistributing taxpayers’ money. At least, we presume that’s what Muller was doing . He was also giving a highly instructive lesson in ...6 hours ago
So is the election now a foregone conclusion? With Jacindamania still raging, and the National Party shattered by its own shambolic performance, it looks like a walk in the park for the Labour Party and its coalition partners. Certainly NZ First leader Winston Peters wasn’t slow to rub salt into ...7 hours ago
Todd Muller's stint as National leader has been cut short by a commendable decision to put his own wellbeing first - but now the party must try to find a path forward to September 19 For all that National’s critics claimed to predict it, the news was a shock. Just ...8 hours ago
Queenstown rents fall at double digit rates in May and June. Nasdaq hits fresh record high as Tesla surges. UK set to ban Huawei from 5G rollout ...11 hours ago
After just over a month in the job, National leader Todd Muller has stepped aside National leader Todd Muller has resigned from the role a little over a month after deposing Simon Bridges, citing the heavy toll the job has taken on him and his family. In a brief statement, ...11 hours ago
It was claimed as a win but last week’s court decision on tahr control was mostly legal shots thumping harmlessly into a wall. David Williams reports ANALYSIS: Last Friday, hunting groups welcomed a “landmark” High Court decision, “halting” a controversial plan to “exterminate” all tahr in national parks and sharply ...13 hours ago
There’s concern the Department of Conservation’s assessment of proposed changes to a yet-to-be-constructed hydro scheme underestimates their potential impact A West Coast small hydro scheme’s proposed new pipeline path could require over 1000 native trees be felled on public conservation land. What was supposed to be a thin pipe lying on top ...13 hours ago
NZ should be "in lockstep" with Five Eyes partners over national security law, Simon Bridges says. ...13 hours ago
Dr Neal Curtis explains why we shouldn't simply dismiss people trying to resist discrimination by calling them anti-democratic You may have heard a lot about ‘cancel culture’ recently, not least because of the 150 signatories to the Harper’s Magazine letter last week that supposedly cancelled cancel culture. ‘Cancelling’ is a ...13 hours ago
The closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter has left the door open for another electricity-intensive project to take its place at the south tip of the South Island. ...13 hours ago
A complaint has been made to the Department of Internal Affairs against a book of short stories How do you know you’ve “made it” as a writer? Is it, as one friend recently commented on a photo of me holding my new book, when Facebook refuses to allow you to ...13 hours ago
Terminally ill man Stuart Armstrong responds to a first-person piece on assisted dying Newsroom ran last week, arguing people should have the option to choose a death that reflects their life and beliefs This week Serena Jones wrote an article describing her position on the upcoming referendum on the End ...13 hours ago
What New Zealand must do to play virtual host to APEC next year is something perhaps never attempted before. The rewards could be big. Virtual hosting of 2021 APEC: a rewarding challenge for NZ New Zealand’s confirmation that it will proceed with hosting APEC in 2021, using virtual digital platforms, ...13 hours ago
A major infrastructure announcement by the National Party slated to take place today needs to defy stereotypes about what they are all about. COMMENT: It didn't take a genius to realise that a major infrastructure announcement down south by the National Party would turn out to be a road of ...13 hours ago
LISTEN: In our podcast, A Neesh Audience, Black Cap Jimmy Neesham talks to playmakers who'll be part of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 in New Zealand. In this episode, he chats with White Ferns captain Sophie Devine. Sophie Devine has been on a roll of late. Whether it be ...13 hours ago
St John Ambulance is paying wages on borrowed money - and that can't keep happening. Most people would say there are three branches of emergency services in New Zealand: police, fire, and ambulance. Police are fully funded by the government. Fire and Emergency New Zealand is funded through an ...14 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.