National want a quick fix for Auckland. They’re also not prepared to pay for or support the infrastructure the city needs (public transport, good intensive housing, adequate green spaces and amenities) you bozos, it’s not rocket science!)
“The minister has warned that Aucklanders may need to sacrifice quality for affordability.”
This is a joke. It stinks of the 1990s, the decade that gave us leaky homes. It will be a disaster and cost Auckland in the short and long term.
National have ignored Wellington and pushed Christchurch around. Now, like a shonkey salesman they want to strong arm Auckland into one buying one white elephant after another (an unnecessary convention centre, low quality development…).
It stinks alright. The Government is looking for someone else to blame for the housing crisis. And at the same time it is centralising power so that local voices become quieter and quieter.
There is no need to sacrifice quality for affordability. Unless your dream is for a outer ring of shanty towns.
It is noticeable how fst Nick Smith talks. It’s like he’s on speed. His brain is running on the Roger Douglas track – charge forward with your policies, push them through fast, before any opposition can be organised.
He is also really good at presenting the most complex of problems with the most black and white analysis through the use of words and making it sound so simple even though he does not have a frack what he is talking about.
Stop bloody moaning, folks, the solution is already here, move on, face up to the “brighter future”! Get a life, and work and earn your own way, if you want to join the ones in Remmers, in Eastern Suburbs or the better quarters on the North Shore of Auckland, or other cherished residential areas!
The fact that the government is unable to pay its employees, the school teachers, because its rules and rates and regulations around employment and pay are so incredibly complex that nobody not even the government can work it out then surely that is an indicator of something, is it not?
It is probably the biggest failure of the government, as a system, ever. It has created something it doesn’t even know how to work and gets lost in its own maze.
It is frightfully funny and scary at the same time. Why do we give these people so much power if this is all they can achieve?
oh poppycock, all large institutions have complex pay grades, think of the police, defence force, health department and large corporates. BM please engage your brain before I just start calling you Steven Joyce, then we will all know what to expect.
Standard employment pay scales, Jane, nothing difficult there at all. You should have a look at Fonterra’s CEA, makes that one look like a note scribbled on the back of a napkin. Difference is, Fonterra pay correctly, and on time.
A socialist government in a capitalist world. It looks to me the rationing is the outcome of a struggle between the government’s price controls and the combination of pressures from outside the country plus businesses within the country operating on market principles.
And, of course, one should always take an NZ Herald article on such things at face value.
Maybe because the article looks like a direct cut and paste from an anti-government website. Venezuela imports 70% of it’s food so the opportunities for disruption of supply by anti-government agents are huge.
So Jimmie, any thoughts on why the evil dictatorship in Venezuela, you know, the one headed by that tyrant Hugo Chavez, didn’t just collapse ‘before lunchtime’ following his death?
DId you actually read that, Jimmie? It’s about a problem they have with stuff being smuggled into Colombia, a country which is the darling of the neocons. Ask yourself why things can be smuggled from Venezuela to Colombia and subsequently be sold at a profit? Maybe market forces aren’t working too well in the capitalist paradise?
Yes I am aware of that Dv, just taking some artistic licence to poke the system in the ribs. I think the point still stands though – how can it be that hard? Why try to reinvent the wheel all the time?
It is like pretty much all tech – slower and more comvoluted. Ever queued behind people paying by eftpos compared to cash? Is it actually quicker to pay by internet banking than writing and posting a cheque?
Well at least the Dentists will be happy. And as someone who was born in England before the introduction on Fluoride into the water there. I have paid for it, both in monetary terms, and in bad teeth
I think you might find, as I mentioned yesterday, http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-05062013/#comment-643987
the Scandinavians banned it a long time ago, and based on that alone, given they are far ahead of the anglo-file idiots, is enough for me to accept that its the right decision.
I’ll take their position, over people who share yours, every day of the week!!!
Dr. Arvid Carlsson, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology in 2000 for his research on neurotransmitters in the brain. In a 2005 interview, Dr. Arvid Carlsson noted that “fluoridation is against all modern principles of pharmacology. It’s obsolete. I don’t think anybody in Sweden, not a single dentist, would bring up this question anymore.”
TC – Anti science, you mate, are poorly read, as anyone else who foolishly believe, mass medication, is the reason their teeth are good or bad or otherwise!
Answer this – What percentage of the western world, adds flouride to its water supply, and what percentage of NZ towns/cities do the same?
My point is its being removed faster than nations/towns/cities are adding the poison to the water supplies, including in NZ!
Ill take the Scandinavians reasoning for removing it, over your position for adding/leaving it, all day long , champ!
You got a sales pitch, as to why I wouldn’t?
Edit- do they have flouride in the water where you live?
If no – are you out lobbying to get it added, or are you simply chewing on loads of topical application toothpaste, taking note of the, do not swallow, medical warning, to ensure you get enough of the poison into your system!
My non-fluoridated toothpaste doesn’t say not to swallow. Please note I don’t use it because I’m against fluoride but because it’s the only no animal testing toothpaste I can get locally.
Funny how mention of vaccination, iodisation or fluoridisation suddenly turns the most hardened left wing Commissar into a screaming Libertarian. Suddenly it’s all about the patriarchal middle class white privileges of “choice” and “personal responsibility” and never a flying fuck for underprivileged children who benefit from such public health programmes.
I support both fluoridation and vaccination and I’m left.
Funnily those I know who are opposed are firmly right ( as opposed to left ) in their views. They complain of fluoridation as part of the nanny state complex. They are quite clear that if you teeth rot it’s your own damn fault and would have the poor chose between toothpaste or food.
Of course we all know the patriachal daddy state is much much worse and we are seeing that unfold in real time.
I’m not sure how you can assume the anti-fluoride brigade are left in any way shape or form.
Ditto. You only have to read history to see the benefits to the public from the public health risk factors in a society that it eliminates. Sure all of these techniques have individual risk factors – the ones that the rather than scare blogs highlight.
But if people are really concerned about those then I’d suggest concentrating those of like anti-vaccination mind together and running a trial to see what the effects are when they aren’t freeloading on the rest of the populations immunity.
Alternatively they could band together financially to do the R&D to find a viable public health alternative. Say about a thousand per year as an involuntary contribution put in a R&D fund. We will call it a fine?
Anything to show that they are trying to do something about what they see as an issue rather than simply ignoring the statistical benefits to the whole population rather than the individual disadvantages to them and theirs.
Of course extending criminal manslaughter charges related to those that they infect and kill might work as well. No different to drunk driving as far as I can see.
btw, there are some other dietary sources of Fluoride linked below; jolly stuff is everywhere, Oh no! What to nibble on while awaiting that file. 😀 (read Coleridge, or Watch).
Of course fluorine is kind of chemically clingy so you find low levels of it through almost everything naturally – usually as some kind of fluoride. Humans probably require it because we did quite a lot of our developmental evolution doing garbage collection near seashores where there are adequate amounts of it. But we kind of spread into many other places in the world where it was rarer both in water and in diets and where humans found they had health issues because of that. It is much the same as salt was an issue as we moved inland. The old prehistoric salt trade routes were pretty extensive.
When they fluoridate water supplies, they don’t use the same concentrations everywhere. That is because they’re boosting the level of the existing fluoride in the environment up to the level that we naturally require. Yes there may be ill-effects if people overdose on it or are particularly susceptible to to it because of genetics, growth phase, or interactions with the other chemicals in our personal chemical composition (ie we are naturally just a mix of chemicals – mostly dihydride oxide). But the health risks of having rotting teeth are invariably a *lot* higher.
If you don’t wish to participate in the public health measure, then you are perfectly entitled to figure out how to pay for avoiding the mass public health provisions. Moving to where you can use a roof tank is probably the best idea. Unlike skipping vaccinations defluoridation of your diet is unlikely to harm others.
yes, (being the deep well of research that you are Lynn), infections of the gum can be very unpleasant, lead to complications, and Might Just Take Your Life.
Accurate though and I notice that you don’t deal with the public health aspect. Perhaps you haven’t bothered to study it in your narcissistic libertarian pursuits.
There is a reason that almost of the diseases that were endemic when I was a kid (and which I caught) are now quite rare. In fact the rare cases that do show up as an outbreak that do show up are often reported as news. Quite unlike when I was a kid.
The food is no different. The water, sewerage, and waste disposal systems are pretty much the same. The human populations haven’t suffered the levels of deaths that are required to leave a much smaller but more resistant population (ie what happened with the black death in europe or the smallpox and measles in south america). The diseases themselves without treatment are just as virulent as they were, and probably more so. We’re better at preventing them from killing and maiming if they are treated early.
There is exactly one reason that these diseases are no longer causing occasional deaths, frequent maiming and massive productivity losses across the whole population. That is because they no longer have enough susceptible hosts in the human population of this country to cause outbreaks. The reason for that is that most of the possible hosts either had the diseases in their youth like me and are now resistant, or they had (like me with polio) a *vaccine* that induced resistance. That protected not only myself from the pain that Margaret Wilson and others of the previous generation have had to live with throughout their lives, but also protected everyone else around me.
But vaccinations are not perfect. People have varying levels of resistance after vaccinations. So they provide only a *partial* protection for any one person. They just make it harder for diseases to get a foothold. If the surrounding population has a large infected and carrier population then the disease will have a high rate of speciation. Even people who are resistant to a disease will get the sick from new variants.
So vaccinations are only really effective if the whole population is made resistant as a whole community. This pushes the recombination rate of a disease well down because it has a much more limited population for those lucky “accidents” that change their genome. Those libertarians (like yourself) who are so individualistic that they don’t think about the risks they are putting on everyone else provide potential reservoirs for disease populations to speciate and produce new virulent variations.
So as I said, if you don’t vaccinate in a public health program for whatever reason, then you should be isolated and live with those others who also do not. Or pay in some other way for your individualistic stupidity. You are freeloading on the carefully built up resistances in the community and effectively wasting the resources put into the programmes both now and into the future.
Personally I think that any case where the disease DNA is matched (the populations speciation varies infections and can be traced with a high degree of probability) from a unvaccinated; and where it causes injury or death, then it should be treated as a criminal matter like drunken driving. That is a offense where the legal test of mens rea is severely diminished compared the mens actus.
It doesn’t matter what your intent was. The mere act of not vaccinating (or drinking) before getting the disease and passing it others (or driving while drunk and crashing into someone) provides the most of the requirement for a legal intent to cause injury to others. It makes you as much of danger to your community as it would if your were a habitual drunk who likes to drive.
That is an argument that is quite separate to the question of if a particular brand of vaccination or car is safe to use – which is all that I have seen you argue..
well, last time I checked, I was pretty “far left” and I support the Public Health initiatives you identify (love the pic Contrarian); now, according to the wonderful Wendyl Nissen, our natural diet has plenty of fluoride as well; here we go Foods highest in fluoride lots of fruit and veges in there! (oh, and merlot) 😀
A few years back quite a few Auckland righties got their knickers in a twist about iodine. A few of em getting goitre sorted that out.
I know one switching to sea salt sufferer and she basically lost her voice for a few years.
Half the problem with the young un’s these days is that the victims of many of these diseases just aren’t around. Growing up we knew people with polio, children brain damaged by rubella, many of our parents no longer had their own teeth in their 30’s and 40’s and so on. We’ve seen some of our peers get post-polio syndrome and seen their muscle tissue waste away in their fifties.
People older than me would have known even more of these people.
On the other hand, in that time we’ve also seen an increase in heart disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic illness generally that belies the idea that we always get it right when it comes to the health of the population.
Much of the numerical increase is logically due to an increase in population and some due to an ageing population.
Urbanisation brings it’s own woes as well.
The biggest factors in my view is the removal of weekends for families to be together, people to have a break from working, to have time to be part of their communities and play sport etc.
The over commercialisation of food with it’s added sugar and salt esp is a big problem. There’s quite a good doco somewhere about the sugar companies influence in ensuring that the maximum recommended level of sugar in food was not put into WHO guidelines as recommended by the scientists behind the guidelines – including a New Zealander. That limit if imposed would reduce significantly the amount of processed sugar in foods and we’d all be much healthier.
Evolutionary wise we are designed to store the rare amount of sugar we would have come across and equally meat we would only have eaten if we caught it.
Millions of years of evolution say less meat,less sugar and less salt. We have all three available in abundance.
Sure Ssssmith. I’m just pointing out that public health doesn’t always get it right, and neither does scientific consensus. And sometimes individuals do despite that.
Try this for an obvious example (which fits nicely with your thoughts on sugar).
and note that alongside the research, there are swathes of people now adjusting their diets based on rejection of the fat hypothesis and finding significant improvements in their health. Those improvements will be written off as anecdotal, and it will take decades for the research to filter through and influence public health policy. I suspect that eventually public pressure will mean the research gets done more quickly, but at the moment there are too many vested interests.
What I’m suggesting here is a more nuanced approach than the ‘there is a scientific consensus so it must be true’ approach.
btw, I agree with much of what you say about diet and lifestyle, except for the meat bit. We know that there some cultures thrive on high meat diets, with good health outcomes (and little heart disease).
The orthodoxy likes to pretend it is “scientific” but really that is just another belief complex system, one where adherence marks those who are the “in crowd” and those who practice or speak differently as “other”.
Once someone delves into how the original food pyramid and follow up farm bills were constructed by industry lobby groups, and promulgated by the medical profession ad nauseaum, it becomes very hard to take anything presented by these authorities at face value.
EDIT
ahhhh frak, waddya know. Phosphate rock used to create fertilisers used in NZ are a major source of fluoride additives for water. Maybe this explains why our food chain is contaminated with fluoride.
Sources of Fluoride Additives
Most fluoride additives used in the United States are produced from phosphorite rock. Phosphorite is used primarily in the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer. Phosphorite contains calcium phosphate mixed with limestone (calcium carbonates) minerals and apatite—a mineral with high phosphate and fluoride content. It is refluxed (heated) with sulfuric acid to produce a phosphoric acid-gypsum (calcium sulfate-CaSO4) slurry.
The heating process releases hydrogen fluoride (HF) and silicon tetrafluoride (SiF4) gases which are captured by vacuum evaporators. These gases are then condensed to a water-based solution of 23% FSA with the remainder as water.
Approximately 95% of FSA used for water fluoridation comes from this process. The remaining 5% of FSA is generated during the manufacture of hydrogen fluoride or from the use of hydrogen fluoride in the manufacturing of solar panels and electronics.
+1 DoSsss, Ghost and all re left and public health.
I do wonder about the foods highest in fluoride – If we stopped adding fluoride to the water in places where it doesn’t occur naturally, would the fruit and veg from these places have lower levels of fluoride in them? Have there been comparisons between produce from the ‘has’ and ‘hasn’t’ got fluoride areas?
Actually dentists are unhappy. Sure, they want to make a buck, but I suspect most of their profits come from expensive adult-type surgeries, not fillings for kids (who are a pain to deal with, I’m sure).
DavidH
I liked the Spike Milligan comment on British teeth. He came to Britain after having been in India where people’s teeth apparently were better. He said that the people in the streets had teeth that looked like Merry Xmas written in Gothic or something like that.
Shows what a complete farce local body politics are
In 2006 there was a binding referendum held in Hamilton about fluoridation, the result was overwhelming to keep fluoridation.
Completely undemocratic decision by the Hamilton council, these individuals represent no one but themselves.
A democratic decision based on ignorance is still an ignorant decision.
The earliest occurrence of fluoridated drinking water on Earth was found in Russia’s gulags and then Germany’s Nazi prison camps.
“Using the fluoride in the water supplies in their gulags (concentration camps), to make the prisoners stupid, docile, and subservient.” ~ The Crime and Punishment of I. G. Farben by Joseph Borkin
The Canadian father of water fluoridation was the president of the eugenics society of Canada.
Kills all known germ-ans. And anybody or animal in the appropriate doses. Note – It was scientifically measured to be enough to kill – that was its purpose in its use in the war.
There is no difference in health problems between fluoridated and non-fluoridated populations. No statistical correlation, no identified harm and no spikes in the many ailments fluoridation poisoning would lead to.
UT
Can you find any more facts? to damn fluoride in drinking water. They are talking about a measured dose, it must be appropriate for the health of the people. Referring to torture camps where the authorities have no concern about their prisoners wellbeing is not a controlled test. It also is insulting to our population and our authorities to imply that they would behave and we would be subject to, such callous and uncaring treatment.
Prism, mass medication is NEVER acceptable, and the terminology of measured dose, is an oxymoron!
Human reaction to any medication, will vary from individual to individual. Why do you think western medics, ask *what else are you taking*.
Why might they ask that!
Talk of measured doses, en masse, is the stuff of lunacy – The scandinavians understand this concept, and they lead the world in looking after their people, based on knowledge/science/education and understanding. If the Scandinavians have removed it from their water supplies, there is very good cause, that we should be copying them!
I understand you are looking for more info, as you’re one of the more pragmatic commentators on here. My response is not designed to get at you, I’m pointing out some rather basic, principles!
muzza
Stop being so precious. We wouldn’t be here typing probably without the benefit of controls on bacteria and health-diminishing processes.
Sorry about being rude to your well-written post but I just get sick of the scare tactics of those who are negative about improvements that offer advantages if done in a reasonable way.
Prism, its not scare tactics, nor am I being precious.
Adding a toxic by-product to water supplies, removing the right of many people to choose, NOT to injest the posion, is simply a ridiculous scenario to defend!
TC below, attempts to conflate with talk of salt, and overturned referendums.
I’m not talking about the referndum, and the human body requires salt, it does NOT require flouride, to function!
We are adding iodine to salt. That’s mass medication too.
“Adding a toxic by-product to water supplies, removing the right of many people to choose, NOT to injest the posion, is simply a ridiculous scenario to defend!”
The people did choose, you idiot. They voted to keep it.
No , TC. I’m not even talking about the referendum/Hamilton, I have explained that already!
For example, we in AKL, have not had a referendum, nor do locations around the world, that have the posion added into the water, and who may not have a choice other than to injest it, because its a necessity of life!
Your iodine argument, is poor, as is your avoidance of the questions.
“No , TC. I’m not even talking about the referendum/Hamilton, I have explained that already!”
Errr, no you didn’t. The council overturned the wishes of the people who wanted to keep it. So in the Hamilton case, the people made their preference clear.
“Your iodine argument, is poor…”
No, it’s exactly the same. Everytime you salt your food, you medicate yourself.
“as is your avoidance of the questions.”
What questions haven’t I answered?
Why don’t actually address some points i.e. on public health, about how every major public health body and international organisation agree that fluoridation is advantageous to public health and that there have been no major public health problems with water fluoridation? Instead of just making weird hand-waving comments and no addressing a single item of contention.
You got a sales pitch, as to why I wouldn’t? (Listen to the Scandinavians)
Edit- do they have flouride in the water where you live?
If no – are you out lobbying to get it added, or are you simply chewing on loads of topical application toothpaste, taking note of the, do not swallow, medical warning, to ensure you get enough of the poison into your system?
Your contention
Why don’t actually address some points i.e. on public health, about how every major public health body and international organisation agree that fluoridation is advantageous to public health and that there have been no major public health problems with water fluoridation?
Point me to where *every major public health body & internatioanl organisation agree….*
You’re trying to tell us how safe it is, you prove it, and while you’re at it, lobby the Scandinavians, to add it back in to their water supply, clearly the people of those nations, are missing the benefit of all that anglo-moron pseudo, corrupted, public health body and international organisation evidence, you refer to, lap up, swallow and support!
Go on, see if you can make a case for them, that leads to a change to their policy!
It isn’t my job to lobby the Scandinavians. I live in NZ.
Yes, Wellingtons water is fluoridated.
“every major public health body & international organisation agree…”
The CDC
The UN
The WHO
The American Medical Association
and so forth, and so forth.
Your turn:
So, why don’t actually address some points i.e. on public health, about how every major public health body and international organisation agree that fluoridation is advantageous to public health and that there have been no major public health problems with water fluoridation?
Iodine is very nearly as toxic as fluoride from what I can make out. depending on exactly which forms you’re talking about. We have mass medicated with iodised salt all my life, over half a century, but I couldn’t tell exactly when it was introduced. It’s a very similar issue of mass medication for the good of public health.
The CDC
The UN
The WHO
The American Medical Association
and so forth, and so forth.
And you complained to Ugly Truth that the N*zi argument carried no weight, why would you believe the entities above are not simply the same ideology wrapped up in pretty labels, fooling mugs lik yourself – Next you will be quoting the FDA, saying that you hoover up E951, because they passed it as acceptable to injest by human beings – Thanks Donald Fumsfeld for that one, fyi!
Your turn:
So, why don’t actually address some points i.e. on public health, about how every major public health body and international organisation agree that fluoridation is advantageous to public health and that there have been no major public health problems with water fluoridation?
Same answer as above – UN, WHO, CDC – Same people as WTO, IMF, UNESCO, World Bank, and other corrupted, thieving, murderous criminal entities.
*Every Major international organisation* – Is that what the list you provided is? Oops, I think the words *every & major*, were hyperboles bro, and that list means approximately nothing to me, as I said, youre selling the poison, I’m happy for it not to be in the water, the human body does not need it, so the onus on evidence lies with your camp, to prove benefits, and safety, sonny jim!
In any case, drink it up, swallow the toothpaste, take it all into your system, gargles it, swallow it, bath in it actually, it matters not!
Ignore CV’s comments too, nothing to see there, kids are just unlucky these days, throw some more prescription medicine at them, maybe a few more of them, there shots!, that will straighten them out!
on the subject of children’s exposure to media, there was a brief article on te News concerning infants interacting with i-pads; the footage displayed the infants in question prefering the gadget to their primary care-giver when ‘summoned’, a Strange Situation Test indeed; I T has begun Skywalker. (artricle stated no research has been conducted into long-term effects; “…we can rebuild him, we have the technology OSCAR). 😉
muzza
I can’t resist nit picking. It’s fluoride right. And the fluoride is added in small doses. Too much of anything can be toxic and when it is something that requires strict controls for safety like fluoride then they are applied and then the benefits occur.
And then the scare mongers stop and find something else to cogitate about, and there are plenty more really important new things to crusade about. It would be great if anti-fluoride and anti-vaccine people could find a new bandwagon and high-tail it off into the setting sun.
Don’t nit pick Prism, its too important a subject , for such flippancy!
You’re a believer in the *strict controls for safety*. yet you can’t see how flawed that statement is, so until you can understand the issue, leave such subjects alone!
How much raditation, of certian isotops, are safe for the human body, just because some governing body *says so*!
Your dismissal of poisons, which are scientifically known to build up inside the brain, and be toxic on the body, is as brazenly ridiculous, as the fact you have merged it with the subject of, *anti vaccine people*. (The give away of Prisms bias, right there)!
More important issues, than the poisoning of human beings.
Prism, you are a fool, in this instance, and your showing your old school thinking, is past it on certain subject matter!
Thanks muzza for your very extensive analysis of me and summary.
I think the same of you. So guess we are locking horns like a couple of rutting deer – such flippancy.
I think people like yourself are getting confused by the plethora of things to understand in a modern scientific era. You are the one showing your old school thinking which is to be ready to believe any emotional argument and scare tactic instead of to apply yourself as an individual to the argument for the positives which far outweigh the negatives.
Human reaction to any medication, will vary from individual to individual. Why do you think western medics, ask *what else are you taking*.
Why might they ask that!
Probably because the drugs may react with each other. Cleaning compounds have a warning on them not to mix with other cleaning compounds for the same reason.
The scandinavians…
You keep mentioning them but you still haven’t produced any research showing that putting fluoride in water is bad for us.
Chemist Charles Eliot Perkins documented the Nazi use of flouride.
Dr. Phyllis Mullenix investigated the toxicology of flouride and pushblished her work in the Journal of Neurotoxicology and Teratology. She then lost her job.
“Studies in mainstream peer-reviewed medical journals and government reports now document the fact that serious harms are associated with exposure to small amounts of fluoride-including hip fracture, cancer, and intellectual impairment. ” ~ David Hill
“It also is insulting to our population and our authorities to imply that they would behave and we would be subject to, such callous and uncaring treatment.”
You are assuming that they are in full possession of the facts.
“You are assuming that they are in full possession of the facts.”
They get their info from the CDC, WHO etc etc. Who are pretty well know for their access to factual information.
“The Nazi’s used therefore bad” is not an argument.
David Hill is going against the mainstream, well documented and well tested science. There is still no correlation of public health issues between non fluoridated and fluoridated areas.
CALGARY HEALTH SERVICES (undated-some time in the 80s) Dental Hygiene Unit. Science Teaching Unit (originally for Science 25 and later used in similar classes) (back to main text)
CALGARY HEALTH SERVICES (1989) Focus on fluoridation Calgary Herald Oct 8th (back to main text)
CARTON RJ (1993) Affidavit of Dr. Robert J. Carton in support of motion for summary judgement. Case No. 92 CV 579 Safe Water Foundation vs. City of Fond du Lac, State of Wisconsin Circuit Court, Fond du Lac County, Feb 10th (back to main text)
[deleted]
[lprent: It isn’t original thought with you so you already did everything you needed to do when you linked to it. If you are going to quote from it, then a short clearly marked quote is all that is required (like I just did for you) is all that is required. A comment from you explaining why you think people should go down the link is helpful.
Don’t waste any more of my time cleaning up behind you after you violate the policy about copy-paste. I tend to get irritated about it. ]
The overwhelming consensus is against Hill’s conclusion (from 1997 I might add – nearly 20 years old) and some of his references date back to the 1940’s.
“Nice list, but so what?”
So you have no clue what “mainstream, well documented and well tested science” is. Here’s a hint: it’s not consensus, either.
Yes, well I have a similarly low opinion of global warming deniers…
and anti-abortionists, anti-vaccinationists, anti-fluoridationists, anti-iodinists, creationists, flat earthers, fundementalist religious types and every other example of head-up-your-arse fringe voodoo quackery
Yes. Paying accurate wages to employees is something that is done all around the world. The complexity of professional pays is also a fact of life all around the world.
Only the current New Zealand Government seems to stuff things up so woefully.
Just don’t forget that Labour selected an Australian IT provider who was clearly in over their head, in preference to a NZ company with a solid track record. For what reason? Cost, the saving of a few dollars over a few years, I would suggest. Well that rationale has proven fucked.
The funding for Mangere Budgeting Service has just been and they are having to make redundant 5 of their 8 staff. This is at a time when applications for a special grant from WINZ is met with a requirement that applicants get budgeting advice. Of course according to this Government poverty is the result of bad budgeting and not a lack of resources.
Head of the Mangere Budgeting Service Darryl Evans is outspoken about poverty and I wonder if he has been targeted. Paula Bennett is claiming that there is extra funds for budgeting in the latest budget but it does not appear to be making its way to the MBS. I suspect that the claim of an increase is just smoke and mirrors.
To really add insult to injury Bennett is saying that the Service gets more now than it did under Labour in 2008. She has obviously forgotten that unemployment then was half of the level that it is now and there was no compulsion to receive budgeting advice.
“The funding for Mangere Budgeting Service has just been [WHAT?] and they are having to make redundant 5…”
Looks like you missed a word out there. If you were going to say “cut”, you are wrong, as their funding has been increased, the problem is that they were already running at a large deficit and the funding increase isn’t enough to meet their needs.
“Paula Bennett is claiming that there is extra funds for budgeting in the latest budget but it does not appear to be making its way to the MBS. I suspect that the claim of an increase is just smoke and mirrors.”
Their funding has been increased by $45,000. Unfortunately they were already in deficit by $155,000. So now they get government funding of $317,000 a year, which is kinda difficult to employ 8 people on for a demanding service such as this, when you also consider overheads like insurance, rent, electricity, office supplies, computers etc.
Same with so many families out there. The basic situation is that their benefits are insufficient to live on, and no number of spreadsheets will change that.
I can’t recall this ever happening before; hosts have gone on leave for 2-3 weeks and been replaced by other presenters, sometimes in a bit of an ad-hoc manner. I suspect in this case Geoff has taken a ‘break’ for something health related so they wanted to do something a bit more formal for his absence.
Yes, it’s possible he’s ‘just on annual leave’, but as I mentioned in my comment, in the past people have gone on annual leave and they haven’t put out special press releases and have managed on just fine with their small roster of stand-ins. Geoff’s also in his 80s, 82 I believe, so it’s not too much of a reach to guess that maybe it’s more than ‘just on annual leave’.
Kim certainly asks the questions. She is very direct and insistent. She has a very strong bullshit detector and shows no mercy to anyone in Public Office. Be interesting if she gets to interview (not available) Mr Key.
Yes, her interview with Catherine Isaac yesterday was very good, with Kim insisting that Isaac actually did strongly personally believe in Charter Schools, therefore she expected answers and not fob-off “read the legislation” answers that Isaac tried to give.
Kim Hill played a magnificent role in the 90s day after day on air battling duplicitous politicians, particularly the dirty NZ1 tight five and certain tory ministers and helped usher in one way or another a change of government. I never begrudged her the sweet Sat morning spot because of her efforts then.
Hope she is back to stay, and it would be good to see her reduce ShonKey to the gibbering idiot the electorate deserves to see him as, if he had the fortitude to front one of her inquisitions, er, interviews.
Budgeting and other beneficiary support and advisory services all over New Zealand seem to increasingly be hitting serious funding issues and crisis, not being able to deliver services while demand by poor beneficiaries and working people have substantially increased.
I have heard from a fair number working at the front line that they are inundated with requests for help and struggle to cope.
In the Budget English and his “muppet puppet” Bennett hailed the additional and “generous” 1.5 million funding for such services, which are though only pittance, when looked at more closely!
WINZ are sending thousands of people to see budget advisors, after applying for special needs grants for food and other urgent needs, due to being unable to survive and feed their kids, as rents are sky-high in much of Auckland, as electricity, water and other basic costs increase every year.
So while whipping beneficiaries left right and centre, and also the working poor needing extra help, Bennett is indeed keeping close purse-strings for the services that are supposed to advise and assist such people.
The true face of the “great budget” by the National led government on the social warfare front:
And already the ‘New Zealand Federation for Family Budgeting Service’s’ seem to rely heavily on volunteers to offer such services, as this quote from their website shows:
“Membership representatives
At the grassroots level, member services are supported by a network of NZFFBS volunteers. Over 30 experienced representatives currently volunteer for the NZFFBS. Categorised as Tangata Whenua, District, and Regional Representatives these people work actively to support members, create opportunities for networking, coordinate communications across the country, and ensure that a consistently high level of quality service is delivered by NZFFBS members.”
So we will get more “welfare” and “support services” USA style, I suppose, and that is what NatACT want to bring in, yes are already bringing in into New Zealand.
I dread to think what all those to be forced into biased assessments by MSD trained “designated doctors” and the MSD “Health and Disability Advisors” under Dr David Bratt, will get as “support”, when they get thrown off health related benefits, to go out and find jobs on the open job market from mid July onwards? They will face sanctions if they cannot find a “sympathetic” doctor taking a stand for them.
Budgeting services are very much bottom of the cliff services, many do only tell people to try and live off what WINZ pay them, and perhaps send them off to pick up a food-parcel, they do not, and will not have the time and resources, to advise people on having been treated unfairly in the high numbers that will come to them.
Grim and horrible prospects for the ones at the very bottom. Thank you Paula, life is good on your salary, I suppose, you look so well nourished and well made up, when facing the media!
Bill English was a lucky dip from Dipton for the National Party. His comments this morning about NZ and its course were so upbeat, conveying the comforting feeling of wellbeing – steady as she goes, all good. FFS
Brian Coffey spokesperson from Ministry of Education is speaking on Radionz and the Principal of Paeroa Central School having to take back a violent and assaulting primary-age boy with ‘extreme behaviour’ badly affecting others. She is responsible for providing a safe environment at the school so is being forced into an impossible situation. If she takes the child back, she knows that she is not providing a safe environment so is open to censure, and it will badly affect the other children’s learning and the happy environment of the school, but if she refuses to accept the child, she will be thrown out of the job also the Board of Trustees sacked if they refuse to take the child back and a Commissioner put in. What an autocratic, military decision. She says that 85 children are being disregarded to favour one who is very disturbed. Hekia Parata says it’s an ‘operational matter’.
The Ministry spokesman aims to ‘reduce the likelihood of violence recurring.’ And there will be a plan to build up the boys skills. And high level of support to stop him threatening to cut up other kids, and punch teachers.
How can teachers provide quality education when they have to cope with this?? It is wrong that the whole school be held hostage by the failures of NZ societal system. The school is being used as a therapeutic tool. That is not the job of the school – it is to provide education to children in a way that is suitable for each age in a good stable learning environment. How can public schools provide good education if they are being made to fill in for the mental health facilities that have been continually removed by past governments?
The sole right wing challenger to Auckland Mayor Len Brown (from the left, the Labour-leaning Mr Brown faces Penny Bright and John Minto; postal voting opens September).
What does the US import have to offer 1.3 million super city inhabitants?
Can you please list your proven achievements to date, where you have taken on Auckland Council, or any of the former 8 Councils in the Auckland region, on any matter, which have resulted in improvements for the public majority of citizens and ratepayers?
Catalonia and the Basque Country, the Basque Country and Catalonia, are two cancers in the body of the nation! Fa**ism, choice of Spain, comes to exterminate them, cutting into the flesh alive and well as a cold scalpel!
Spanish and Portuguese fascism never had to answer for their crimes due to the Cold War, when they were seen as useful to the US. I’ve met quite a few ageing Iberians who look back nostalgically to the days of Franco and Salazar, and younger ones who openly admire those scum. It’s no surprise to see them back, they never went away.
It’s pretty damn scary. The governments and institutions who have imposed austerity have thrown many, many ordinary workers into the arms of these people. They’ve learned nothing from their own history. Especially Merkel.
and then there is the UK, Hungary, Romania, France, Spain, Russia, the opposition to Islam, to same-sex relationships, to immigration, increasing unemployment, …
…Syria, Hezbollah, Turkey, Iraq, soon Afghanistan, the US and China over African resources.
In December 1975 we were heading to Mundaka in the Basque country but the death of Franco meant that there was the real possibility that Spain would go another round in the civil war so we spent an anxious few weeks waiting in Hendaye before we flagged it and went elsewhere.
We returned in October 1976 and made it to Mundaka where I met people who had a living memory of the civil war and were genuinely terrified of the state apparatus and in fear of a return to the bad old days. They lived behind curtains and were very suspicious of us as a group but once they’d worked out who we were it all changed because the young Antipodeans of the International Brigades were still held in high regard.
On the first anniversary of the death of Franco we went to a celebration held behind closed doors just in case the Guardia were in the town and happy birthday to you was sung in English. People were scared witless by the Guardia Civil.
The horror of the civil war was brought home by a visit to Guernica where damage from the 1937 bombing remained unrepaired and I met elderly people who had lived through it. It was a life changing event and an awful lot for 21 year old Taranaki boy to take in and close to forty years later the memory is as vivid as it ever was.
Pre-thruster too vto. The singles and twinnies of the day made for some damn hairy down the line shenanigans to go with the worst beatings before or since.
More info on Professor Mansel Aylward, the “wayward” medical expert from the ‘Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research’, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Wales, UK, an extreme proponent of the “work will make you healthy” (and set you free) philosopy, based on a perverted “bio-psycho social model” for health and disability diagnosis and treatment:
He has been teaching his philosophy, based on the presumption that many claiming to be ill are simply clinging to a form of “illness belief” and not really sick and/or incapacitated, to Paula Bennett, Minister for Social Development here in New Zealand. She made her own convictions clear in her speech to medical professionals on 26 September last year:
Mansel Aylward and Dame C. Black also “advised” a set up Health and Disability Board panel at MSD, responsible for overseeing the implementation of the new welfare reforms to come into effect 15th July 2013.
Aylward will be speaking to a national conference of general practitioners in Rotorua on 21 June, to spread his message there. There are plans to bring in UK style work ability assessments, which will see that thousands of sickness and invalid’s beneficiaries (soon to be “Jobseeker Allowance” and “Supported Living” beneficiaries) will be kicked off their benefits, and coerced into seeking work on the open job market.
Those affected, those working with and advocating sick and disabled beneficiaries better have a look at the cabinet paper C of the government on this:
It does to some degree tell you what is in store (hints it at least). Officially it is all about PC language like “support” and “assist” into work, but it will NOT be nice stuff that is coming!
Aylward is an incredibly dangerous ideologue, at least as disconnected from reality as Monckton. He provides a pseudoscientific basis for the official sadism beloved by Bennett, Collins and the Whale Army. I cannot understand why the Medical Association doesn’t denounce him. His perverted views have caused deaths in Britain and will do so here. He should be charged in a court of law.
The Medical Association is not gutless, they are basically the “union” of medical professionals and practitioners, so naturally they are their advocates, rather than a standards enforcing body.
The Medical Council would have more to say and more clout, but also they are not that interested. NZ doctors also avoid criticising each other, hence no doctor will complain openly about Bratt, and any layperson or “patient” would first have to successfully complain and get a decision out of the Health and Disability Commissioner, before any other steps will be taken by the Medical Council or even a court.
Actually none of all above will see any reason or chance to take any action against Dr Bratt, as he is not delivering any medical service, he is merely a madcap and mean spirited “advisor” for MSD. That means he gets away with it all, and he knows it full well. I am not having you on, that is the way the law is.
Forget the powers of a beneficiary, nobody takes them/us serious enough anyway, they/we are free game for all, the whipping boys and girls of the nation so to say!
Hence Bratt can carry on playing the mad cowboy doctor in the OK corral.
Gutless is a value judgment, and I know doctors who are far from gutless. In this case, I was thinking about their professional self-interest. Aylward’s and Bratt’s plans make them nothing more than the signers of rejection slips, with no recognition that they might actually have some skills to bring to the table. I know I’d be extremely pissed off in my professional life if the government told me there were new laws of nature that I must now follow and got some moron out from Oral Roberts College of Creation Science to lecture about them.
However, I think xtasy is right. It should be the Medical Council. It should also be mass mobilisation, action in Parliament, and union involvement. These developments should be fought on every front possible.
It’s going to be unpleasant for those with ME or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It’s a deviation in the body from normal functioning and hard to test for, though its results can be debilitating. It can sometimes passover months or years but till then the body’s physical and mental energy once used up is not renewed easily. The result is apparent laziness.
As can be imagined it’s stressful and becomes more so with a punitive half-bake as this Mansel whatever sounds. They do a lot of this hounding and labelling of invalids as slack or psychologically unsound in Britain. It must have the most judgmental medical personnel in the developed world.
Carter has to go, he is not able to perform and uphold authority as Speaker, as he does apparently fail to, or intentionally chooses to, not abide by Standing Orders and Speaker’s rulings.
There is too much apparent bias, and hence the House got into tumultuous disorder prior to and during question time.
Also is Dunne now the focus of attention, his party being given quasi party status by the Speaker, while in effect and under law it is presently not accepted as a party – represented in Parliament. Dunne is able to continue receiving appropriation for a party that does not exist. Appalling stuff, really!
I think Carter stuffed up big, and it may cost him his position now.
With Tau things would possibly be even worse by now, I dare to presume. He would be out there throwing fists around, to sort his colleagues out, I fear.
“I think Carter stuffed up big, and it may cost him his position now.”
No it won’t. John Key needs that bit of sewage called Dung to keep his majority and Carter will obliged as much as possible and look after his mates on the right. Forget about Parliamentary rules and democracy, this shower of shit of a government will break the rules on the hour and half hour if it suited there goals.
Another day has passed in exciting times, and we see, Peters was right onto it, when he suspected Dunne had something to hide. Dunne continues to hide his emails with Vance, and that has cost him his job as minister, and the trust of Key.
So going back to the Speaker, the Speaker gave a very liberal and under the law questionable determination to allow United Future defacto party status, until Dunne and his underlings deliver proof of 500 membership.
As of today, we know, Carter as Speaker gave lenient and special treatment to Dunne, who has become such a dodgy person sitting in Parliament in his last numbered days, the Speaker himself has now been put in question for his actions, based on giving any credit and trust to Dunne.
The Speaker will be gone by the end of the month, or at least within the coming few months, I am sure!
Why can I not edit my comment above, when the time is still ticking??? Something is wrong, or did I write something yesterday, that breached the rules???
I wanted to state that Carter’s days as Speaker are numbered, as he gave credit and leniency to Dunne, which has been for a person now considered untrustworthy by action, and by the Prime Minister.
Hence Carter will be gone very soon, giving special leniency for Dunne to present evidence of 500 or more members. Some of the ones that may have signed up with UF may as of today withdraw that decision anyway, to create yet more of a mess, I presume.
I am on a benefit and was sent to a budgetting service seminar. I found it really good. The speaker had been in our situation and knew exactly what it was like for us. She was encouraging and realistic. It was comforting as I felt I was not alone listening to her and also being with other people in the same position as me. I got a part-time job shortly after that so things have improved.
Rose – so they now already hold complete budgeting seminars, advising and informing whole groups at one time, that is impressive. The people I know went and saw a budget advisor on a face to face basis. So numbers of beneficiaries must be so large, they now get “mass processing”.
I am happy for you that you found it helpful. I know someone who had to pay so much rent, he would never have enough money to pay for food. WINZ repeatedly, endlessly told him, he was getting all he was entitled to, and there was no chance for him to get more.
So he had to move and stayed in a boarding house with endless issues there (noise, cockroaches, over-crowding, dampness, tiny room, unfriendly cohabitants). As he had serious health issues they worsened extremely, and upon applying for proper housing from Housing NZ, he was there fobbed off endlessly.
We had to go to the media, who wanted to know, finally wrote about it, and bang, suddenly Housing NZ offered him a half derelict home, which at least was a roof over the head with peace and quiet.
You can be grateful you are healthy and able to work, there is little mercy even for the sick and incapacitated. WINZ generally do not care, and they are happy with you, because you went off the benefit a.s.a.p., doing exactly what they want people to do.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
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TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
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Nick Smith, like so many Nats, is a bully. He’s also shortsighted.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10888666
National want a quick fix for Auckland. They’re also not prepared to pay for or support the infrastructure the city needs (public transport, good intensive housing, adequate green spaces and amenities) you bozos, it’s not rocket science!)
“The minister has warned that Aucklanders may need to sacrifice quality for affordability.”
This is a joke. It stinks of the 1990s, the decade that gave us leaky homes. It will be a disaster and cost Auckland in the short and long term.
National have ignored Wellington and pushed Christchurch around. Now, like a shonkey salesman they want to strong arm Auckland into one buying one white elephant after another (an unnecessary convention centre, low quality development…).
The next year just got fascinating.
It stinks alright. The Government is looking for someone else to blame for the housing crisis. And at the same time it is centralising power so that local voices become quieter and quieter.
There is no need to sacrifice quality for affordability. Unless your dream is for a outer ring of shanty towns.
Yep, this government is all about big government, picking winners, and marketplace intervention.
Far more so than Helen Clark’s government
It is noticeable how fst Nick Smith talks. It’s like he’s on speed. His brain is running on the Roger Douglas track – charge forward with your policies, push them through fast, before any opposition can be organised.
What you describe, re Smith’s talk. is his mumbling, that of a currupted human being, Prism.
The John Banks school of speed talk.
muzza +1
He is also really good at presenting the most complex of problems with the most black and white analysis through the use of words and making it sound so simple even though he does not have a frack what he is talking about.
Nick Smith’s “smart”, affordable, convenient, easy and swift housing solution for Auckland and Christchurch:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/rebuilding-christchurch/8397429/All-the-pod-cons-for-250-a-week
http://www.containersdirect.co.nz/container_housing
http://www.containerarchitecture.co.nz/portfolio/index.html
http://www.ecobob.co.nz/forum/ForumPosts/2652/Re-Living-in-a-shipping-container.aspx?PageNumber=2
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/shipping-containers-refitted-quake-workers-video-5456632
Stop bloody moaning, folks, the solution is already here, move on, face up to the “brighter future”! Get a life, and work and earn your own way, if you want to join the ones in Remmers, in Eastern Suburbs or the better quarters on the North Shore of Auckland, or other cherished residential areas!
Forget this:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/canterbury-earthquake/132487/housing-plan-for-rebuild-workers-scrapped
Greetings
Nick the mighty, smiling “Dick”
Charter schools are apparently perfect for this sort of pupil who is obviously failing in the state system.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/8761374/Boy-threatens-safety-of-schoolmates.
Would the ministry insist on him being enrolled? Yeah … naah!!
The fact that the government is unable to pay its employees, the school teachers, because its rules and rates and regulations around employment and pay are so incredibly complex that nobody not even the government can work it out then surely that is an indicator of something, is it not?
It is probably the biggest failure of the government, as a system, ever. It has created something it doesn’t even know how to work and gets lost in its own maze.
It is frightfully funny and scary at the same time. Why do we give these people so much power if this is all they can achieve?
Teacher pay rates are ridiculously complex, serious amounts of cleaning up and simplification is desperately needed.
oh poppycock, all large institutions have complex pay grades, think of the police, defence force, health department and large corporates. BM please engage your brain before I just start calling you Steven Joyce, then we will all know what to expect.
I read some where that the NZ teacher pay agreement is considered one of the most complex in the world.
Oh good, then you won’t have any trouble backing up that statement with a citation.
Funny how datacom did it just fine
Idle Hands (and other appendages)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10888764
The US government has created a major concentration camp and slave labour tribe within it’s borders. Of course they are mostly blacks and hispanics.
2.3M in prisons (State and Federal)
4.8M on parole or other correctional supervision
The population of the entire cities of Sydney and Melbourne
Have you read the teachers pay agreements?
Secondary school
http://www.minedu.govt.nz/NZEducation/EducationPolicies/SchoolEmployment/TeachersPrincipals/SecondaryTeachers/CollectiveAgreement/PartFour.aspx
Primary
http://www.minedu.govt.nz/NZEducation/EducationPolicies/SchoolEmployment/TeachersPrincipals/PrimaryTeachers/SalaryAndAllowances.aspx
These are just two, there are othe variants.
It does look like a complex system, I have worked on software projects doing payroll including DHB’s and this looks considerable more complex.
Standard employment pay scales, Jane, nothing difficult there at all. You should have a look at Fonterra’s CEA, makes that one look like a note scribbled on the back of a napkin. Difference is, Fonterra pay correctly, and on time.
+1 If it was so difficult, how did Datacom do it without fail for years?
They didn’t.
Thats right Datacom didn’t fail.
I know a teacher who worked several reliving jobs in different schools for a couple of years and never had a problem.
Yes they did, go do a bit of reading.
Best you do some reading yourself BM. A little less making stuff up when you don’t have a clue would also be useful.
BM
Yep have done.
Nothing like the Novapay stuff up
Oh the joys of living in a socialist paradise.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10888569
I notice that Venezuela isn’t held up as a shining socialist utopia as much now as it used to be.
I wonder why?
A socialist government in a capitalist world. It looks to me the rationing is the outcome of a struggle between the government’s price controls and the combination of pressures from outside the country plus businesses within the country operating on market principles.
And, of course, one should always take an NZ Herald article on such things at face value.
Maybe because the article looks like a direct cut and paste from an anti-government website. Venezuela imports 70% of it’s food so the opportunities for disruption of supply by anti-government agents are huge.
Here is a different view: Poor Utilization of the Land Behind Food Shortages in Venezuela
So Jimmie, any thoughts on why the evil dictatorship in Venezuela, you know, the one headed by that tyrant Hugo Chavez, didn’t just collapse ‘before lunchtime’ following his death?
A miracle? Magic? Luck? The fact they still have Maduro as an interim president and there hasn’t been enough time to see what will happen?
DId you actually read that, Jimmie? It’s about a problem they have with stuff being smuggled into Colombia, a country which is the darling of the neocons. Ask yourself why things can be smuggled from Venezuela to Colombia and subsequently be sold at a profit? Maybe market forces aren’t working too well in the capitalist paradise?
Try harder.
Vto the teachers were paid ok until the system shift
Yes I am aware of that Dv, just taking some artistic licence to poke the system in the ribs. I think the point still stands though – how can it be that hard? Why try to reinvent the wheel all the time?
It is like pretty much all tech – slower and more comvoluted. Ever queued behind people paying by eftpos compared to cash? Is it actually quicker to pay by internet banking than writing and posting a cheque?
It’s all a con. A con I tell ya….
Go the pen and paper!
Nice going morons, banning one of the top 10 public health advancements of the last 100 years.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/8761398/Health-officials-alarmed-as-fluoridation-voted-out
Well at least the Dentists will be happy. And as someone who was born in England before the introduction on Fluoride into the water there. I have paid for it, both in monetary terms, and in bad teeth
I am sure Muzza will be pleased but I am unhappy that conspiracy theory and anti-science have trumped public health.
I think you might find, as I mentioned yesterday, http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-05062013/#comment-643987
the Scandinavians banned it a long time ago, and based on that alone, given they are far ahead of the anglo-file idiots, is enough for me to accept that its the right decision.
I’ll take their position, over people who share yours, every day of the week!!!
TC – Anti science, you mate, are poorly read, as anyone else who foolishly believe, mass medication, is the reason their teeth are good or bad or otherwise!
Answer this – What percentage of the western world, adds flouride to its water supply, and what percentage of NZ towns/cities do the same?
here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoridation_by_country
But what’s your point?
“you mate, are poorly read”
Nope on this I am very well read.
My point is its being removed faster than nations/towns/cities are adding the poison to the water supplies, including in NZ!
Ill take the Scandinavians reasoning for removing it, over your position for adding/leaving it, all day long , champ!
You got a sales pitch, as to why I wouldn’t?
Edit- do they have flouride in the water where you live?
If no – are you out lobbying to get it added, or are you simply chewing on loads of topical application toothpaste, taking note of the, do not swallow, medical warning, to ensure you get enough of the poison into your system!
“My point is its being removed faster than nations/towns/cities are adding the poison to the water supplies”
In the quantities added it is not poisonous which is confirmed by every major medical and public health body.
There has never been a correlation between water fluoridation and major public health problems.
“In the quantities added it is not poisonous which is confirmed by every major medical and public health body.”
Another statement of faith, Contrarian?
Does non-fluoridated toothpaste also have a “do not swallow” warning? The tube I’ve got is fluoridated, so I can’t check.
My non-fluoridated toothpaste doesn’t say not to swallow. Please note I don’t use it because I’m against fluoride but because it’s the only no animal testing toothpaste I can get locally.
Fluoride is tested on humans
Not sure what relevance it has on my choice of no animal testing toothpaste.
Funny how mention of vaccination, iodisation or fluoridisation suddenly turns the most hardened left wing Commissar into a screaming Libertarian. Suddenly it’s all about the patriarchal middle class white privileges of “choice” and “personal responsibility” and never a flying fuck for underprivileged children who benefit from such public health programmes.
@Pop1
https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/p480x480/164908_513366655400015_1282669878_n.png
An oldie but a goodie
oddly, not really, I’m with you two; let ‘the middle class’ check ‘their’ privilege (and consume all the ‘fluoridated’ foods they can afford.
I support both fluoridation and vaccination and I’m left.
Funnily those I know who are opposed are firmly right ( as opposed to left ) in their views. They complain of fluoridation as part of the nanny state complex. They are quite clear that if you teeth rot it’s your own damn fault and would have the poor chose between toothpaste or food.
Of course we all know the patriachal daddy state is much much worse and we are seeing that unfold in real time.
I’m not sure how you can assume the anti-fluoride brigade are left in any way shape or form.
Ditto. You only have to read history to see the benefits to the public from the public health risk factors in a society that it eliminates. Sure all of these techniques have individual risk factors – the ones that the rather than scare blogs highlight.
But if people are really concerned about those then I’d suggest concentrating those of like anti-vaccination mind together and running a trial to see what the effects are when they aren’t freeloading on the rest of the populations immunity.
Alternatively they could band together financially to do the R&D to find a viable public health alternative. Say about a thousand per year as an involuntary contribution put in a R&D fund. We will call it a fine?
Anything to show that they are trying to do something about what they see as an issue rather than simply ignoring the statistical benefits to the whole population rather than the individual disadvantages to them and theirs.
Of course extending criminal manslaughter charges related to those that they infect and kill might work as well. No different to drunk driving as far as I can see.
btw, there are some other dietary sources of Fluoride linked below; jolly stuff is everywhere, Oh no! What to nibble on while awaiting that file. 😀 (read Coleridge, or Watch).
Of course fluorine is kind of chemically clingy so you find low levels of it through almost everything naturally – usually as some kind of fluoride. Humans probably require it because we did quite a lot of our developmental evolution doing garbage collection near seashores where there are adequate amounts of it. But we kind of spread into many other places in the world where it was rarer both in water and in diets and where humans found they had health issues because of that. It is much the same as salt was an issue as we moved inland. The old prehistoric salt trade routes were pretty extensive.
When they fluoridate water supplies, they don’t use the same concentrations everywhere. That is because they’re boosting the level of the existing fluoride in the environment up to the level that we naturally require. Yes there may be ill-effects if people overdose on it or are particularly susceptible to to it because of genetics, growth phase, or interactions with the other chemicals in our personal chemical composition (ie we are naturally just a mix of chemicals – mostly dihydride oxide). But the health risks of having rotting teeth are invariably a *lot* higher.
If you don’t wish to participate in the public health measure, then you are perfectly entitled to figure out how to pay for avoiding the mass public health provisions. Moving to where you can use a roof tank is probably the best idea. Unlike skipping vaccinations defluoridation of your diet is unlikely to harm others.
yes, (being the deep well of research that you are Lynn), infections of the gum can be very unpleasant, lead to complications, and Might Just Take Your Life.
Truly, and utterly contemptuously, the most pathetic argument, ever, is that!
Accurate though and I notice that you don’t deal with the public health aspect. Perhaps you haven’t bothered to study it in your narcissistic libertarian pursuits.
There is a reason that almost of the diseases that were endemic when I was a kid (and which I caught) are now quite rare. In fact the rare cases that do show up as an outbreak that do show up are often reported as news. Quite unlike when I was a kid.
The food is no different. The water, sewerage, and waste disposal systems are pretty much the same. The human populations haven’t suffered the levels of deaths that are required to leave a much smaller but more resistant population (ie what happened with the black death in europe or the smallpox and measles in south america). The diseases themselves without treatment are just as virulent as they were, and probably more so. We’re better at preventing them from killing and maiming if they are treated early.
There is exactly one reason that these diseases are no longer causing occasional deaths, frequent maiming and massive productivity losses across the whole population. That is because they no longer have enough susceptible hosts in the human population of this country to cause outbreaks. The reason for that is that most of the possible hosts either had the diseases in their youth like me and are now resistant, or they had (like me with polio) a *vaccine* that induced resistance. That protected not only myself from the pain that Margaret Wilson and others of the previous generation have had to live with throughout their lives, but also protected everyone else around me.
But vaccinations are not perfect. People have varying levels of resistance after vaccinations. So they provide only a *partial* protection for any one person. They just make it harder for diseases to get a foothold. If the surrounding population has a large infected and carrier population then the disease will have a high rate of speciation. Even people who are resistant to a disease will get the sick from new variants.
So vaccinations are only really effective if the whole population is made resistant as a whole community. This pushes the recombination rate of a disease well down because it has a much more limited population for those lucky “accidents” that change their genome. Those libertarians (like yourself) who are so individualistic that they don’t think about the risks they are putting on everyone else provide potential reservoirs for disease populations to speciate and produce new virulent variations.
So as I said, if you don’t vaccinate in a public health program for whatever reason, then you should be isolated and live with those others who also do not. Or pay in some other way for your individualistic stupidity. You are freeloading on the carefully built up resistances in the community and effectively wasting the resources put into the programmes both now and into the future.
Personally I think that any case where the disease DNA is matched (the populations speciation varies infections and can be traced with a high degree of probability) from a unvaccinated; and where it causes injury or death, then it should be treated as a criminal matter like drunken driving. That is a offense where the legal test of mens rea is severely diminished compared the mens actus.
It doesn’t matter what your intent was. The mere act of not vaccinating (or drinking) before getting the disease and passing it others (or driving while drunk and crashing into someone) provides the most of the requirement for a legal intent to cause injury to others. It makes you as much of danger to your community as it would if your were a habitual drunk who likes to drive.
That is an argument that is quite separate to the question of if a particular brand of vaccination or car is safe to use – which is all that I have seen you argue..
well, last time I checked, I was pretty “far left” and I support the Public Health initiatives you identify (love the pic Contrarian); now, according to the wonderful Wendyl Nissen, our natural diet has plenty of fluoride as well; here we go
Foods highest in fluoride lots of fruit and veges in there! (oh, and merlot) 😀
A few years back quite a few Auckland righties got their knickers in a twist about iodine. A few of em getting goitre sorted that out.
I know one switching to sea salt sufferer and she basically lost her voice for a few years.
Half the problem with the young un’s these days is that the victims of many of these diseases just aren’t around. Growing up we knew people with polio, children brain damaged by rubella, many of our parents no longer had their own teeth in their 30’s and 40’s and so on. We’ve seen some of our peers get post-polio syndrome and seen their muscle tissue waste away in their fifties.
People older than me would have known even more of these people.
Just so…
On the other hand, in that time we’ve also seen an increase in heart disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic illness generally that belies the idea that we always get it right when it comes to the health of the population.
Much of the numerical increase is logically due to an increase in population and some due to an ageing population.
Urbanisation brings it’s own woes as well.
The biggest factors in my view is the removal of weekends for families to be together, people to have a break from working, to have time to be part of their communities and play sport etc.
The over commercialisation of food with it’s added sugar and salt esp is a big problem. There’s quite a good doco somewhere about the sugar companies influence in ensuring that the maximum recommended level of sugar in food was not put into WHO guidelines as recommended by the scientists behind the guidelines – including a New Zealander. That limit if imposed would reduce significantly the amount of processed sugar in foods and we’d all be much healthier.
Evolutionary wise we are designed to store the rare amount of sugar we would have come across and equally meat we would only have eaten if we caught it.
Millions of years of evolution say less meat,less sugar and less salt. We have all three available in abundance.
Sure Ssssmith. I’m just pointing out that public health doesn’t always get it right, and neither does scientific consensus. And sometimes individuals do despite that.
Try this for an obvious example (which fits nicely with your thoughts on sugar).
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
and note that alongside the research, there are swathes of people now adjusting their diets based on rejection of the fat hypothesis and finding significant improvements in their health. Those improvements will be written off as anecdotal, and it will take decades for the research to filter through and influence public health policy. I suspect that eventually public pressure will mean the research gets done more quickly, but at the moment there are too many vested interests.
What I’m suggesting here is a more nuanced approach than the ‘there is a scientific consensus so it must be true’ approach.
btw, I agree with much of what you say about diet and lifestyle, except for the meat bit. We know that there some cultures thrive on high meat diets, with good health outcomes (and little heart disease).
The orthodoxy likes to pretend it is “scientific” but really that is just another belief complex system, one where adherence marks those who are the “in crowd” and those who practice or speak differently as “other”.
Once someone delves into how the original food pyramid and follow up farm bills were constructed by industry lobby groups, and promulgated by the medical profession ad nauseaum, it becomes very hard to take anything presented by these authorities at face value.
EDIT
ahhhh frak, waddya know. Phosphate rock used to create fertilisers used in NZ are a major source of fluoride additives for water. Maybe this explains why our food chain is contaminated with fluoride.
+1 DoSsss, Ghost and all re left and public health.
I do wonder about the foods highest in fluoride – If we stopped adding fluoride to the water in places where it doesn’t occur naturally, would the fruit and veg from these places have lower levels of fluoride in them? Have there been comparisons between produce from the ‘has’ and ‘hasn’t’ got fluoride areas?
Actually dentists are unhappy. Sure, they want to make a buck, but I suspect most of their profits come from expensive adult-type surgeries, not fillings for kids (who are a pain to deal with, I’m sure).
DavidH
I liked the Spike Milligan comment on British teeth. He came to Britain after having been in India where people’s teeth apparently were better. He said that the people in the streets had teeth that looked like Merry Xmas written in Gothic or something like that.
Shows what a complete farce local body politics are
In 2006 there was a binding referendum held in Hamilton about fluoridation, the result was overwhelming to keep fluoridation.
Completely undemocratic decision by the Hamilton council, these individuals represent no one but themselves.
A democratic decision based on ignorance is still an ignorant decision.
The earliest occurrence of fluoridated drinking water on Earth was found in Russia’s gulags and then Germany’s Nazi prison camps.
“Using the fluoride in the water supplies in their gulags (concentration camps), to make the prisoners stupid, docile, and subservient.” ~ The Crime and Punishment of I. G. Farben by Joseph Borkin
The Canadian father of water fluoridation was the president of the eugenics society of Canada.
http://canadianawareness.org/2012/03/water-fluoridation-directly-linked-to-eugenics/
““Using the fluoride in the water supplies in their gulags (concentration camps), to make the prisoners stupid, docile, and subservient.””
Which is why everywhere they fluoridate water the people become stupid, docile, and subservient..oh wait, that’s right – they don’t.
The only difference between communities with fluoridated water and non-fluoridated are the levels of tooth decay.
“The earliest occurrence of fluoridated drinking water on Earth was found in Russia’s gulags and then Germany’s Nazi prison camps.”
Bullshit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_water_fluoridation
Nice work, TC!
Also if we look at IQ by State vs. Fluoridation by State we find no statistical correlation whatsoever:
IQ:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/general-u-s/547133-states-ranked-iq-how-does-yours.html#b
Fluoride in water supply:
http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/DataStatistics/FindDataByTopic/WaterFluoridation/CommunityWaterFluoridationState.htm
And what about the gas they used in the first world war- Clorine
Actually, that was Mustard Gas
It was both
Kills all known germ-ans. And anybody or animal in the appropriate doses. Note – It was scientifically measured to be enough to kill – that was its purpose in its use in the war.
“Which is why everywhere they fluoridate water the people become stupid, docile, and subservient..oh wait, that’s right – they don’t.”
Dosage is everything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_water_fluoridation
Wikipedia? Same shit as Wikileaks.
“Dosage is everything.”
Exactly, and the dosage in our water is not enough to cause any health issues and none have been documented.
Who told you that?
Ummmm, the CDC, WHO, the UN etc etc.
There is no difference in health problems between fluoridated and non-fluoridated populations. No statistical correlation, no identified harm and no spikes in the many ailments fluoridation poisoning would lead to.
You got nufin’
“Who told you that?”
In a round-about way, you did actually.
Arsenic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_biochemistry#Organoarsenic_compounds_in_nature
Aunt Agatha Bears no malice Rodrigo, unlike Hawksmoor.
A pity it doesn’t seem to have much effect in our prisons
UT
Can you find any more facts? to damn fluoride in drinking water. They are talking about a measured dose, it must be appropriate for the health of the people. Referring to torture camps where the authorities have no concern about their prisoners wellbeing is not a controlled test. It also is insulting to our population and our authorities to imply that they would behave and we would be subject to, such callous and uncaring treatment.
If fluoride was really being used by governments to pacify and dull the populace you gotta wonder the logic behind fluoridating their own water:
http://www.dcwater.com/waterquality/faqs.cfm
Uh, only poor people drink tap water in DC.
Everyone else drinks perrier. Or evian.
What bullshit.
Prism, mass medication is NEVER acceptable, and the terminology of measured dose, is an oxymoron!
Human reaction to any medication, will vary from individual to individual. Why do you think western medics, ask *what else are you taking*.
Why might they ask that!
Talk of measured doses, en masse, is the stuff of lunacy – The scandinavians understand this concept, and they lead the world in looking after their people, based on knowledge/science/education and understanding. If the Scandinavians have removed it from their water supplies, there is very good cause, that we should be copying them!
I understand you are looking for more info, as you’re one of the more pragmatic commentators on here. My response is not designed to get at you, I’m pointing out some rather basic, principles!
muzza
Stop being so precious. We wouldn’t be here typing probably without the benefit of controls on bacteria and health-diminishing processes.
Sorry about being rude to your well-written post but I just get sick of the scare tactics of those who are negative about improvements that offer advantages if done in a reasonable way.
Muzza also forgets that the council overturned a binding referendum in which the people voted to keep fluoridation.
Prism, its not scare tactics, nor am I being precious.
Adding a toxic by-product to water supplies, removing the right of many people to choose, NOT to injest the posion, is simply a ridiculous scenario to defend!
TC below, attempts to conflate with talk of salt, and overturned referendums.
I’m not talking about the referndum, and the human body requires salt, it does NOT require flouride, to function!
We are adding iodine to salt. That’s mass medication too.
“Adding a toxic by-product to water supplies, removing the right of many people to choose, NOT to injest the posion, is simply a ridiculous scenario to defend!”
The people did choose, you idiot. They voted to keep it.
No , TC. I’m not even talking about the referendum/Hamilton, I have explained that already!
For example, we in AKL, have not had a referendum, nor do locations around the world, that have the posion added into the water, and who may not have a choice other than to injest it, because its a necessity of life!
Your iodine argument, is poor, as is your avoidance of the questions.
True to form, you ignore!
I can see right through you, TC, its rather easy!
“No , TC. I’m not even talking about the referendum/Hamilton, I have explained that already!”
Errr, no you didn’t. The council overturned the wishes of the people who wanted to keep it. So in the Hamilton case, the people made their preference clear.
“Your iodine argument, is poor…”
No, it’s exactly the same. Everytime you salt your food, you medicate yourself.
“as is your avoidance of the questions.”
What questions haven’t I answered?
Why don’t actually address some points i.e. on public health, about how every major public health body and international organisation agree that fluoridation is advantageous to public health and that there have been no major public health problems with water fluoridation? Instead of just making weird hand-waving comments and no addressing a single item of contention.
TC – Mine from above – The questions you ignored!
Your contention
Point me to where *every major public health body & internatioanl organisation agree….*
You’re trying to tell us how safe it is, you prove it, and while you’re at it, lobby the Scandinavians, to add it back in to their water supply, clearly the people of those nations, are missing the benefit of all that anglo-moron pseudo, corrupted, public health body and international organisation evidence, you refer to, lap up, swallow and support!
Go on, see if you can make a case for them, that leads to a change to their policy!
It isn’t my job to lobby the Scandinavians. I live in NZ.
Yes, Wellingtons water is fluoridated.
“every major public health body & international organisation agree…”
The CDC
The UN
The WHO
The American Medical Association
and so forth, and so forth.
Your turn:
So, why don’t actually address some points i.e. on public health, about how every major public health body and international organisation agree that fluoridation is advantageous to public health and that there have been no major public health problems with water fluoridation?
Iodine is very nearly as toxic as fluoride from what I can make out. depending on exactly which forms you’re talking about. We have mass medicated with iodised salt all my life, over half a century, but I couldn’t tell exactly when it was introduced. It’s a very similar issue of mass medication for the good of public health.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine#Toxicity
Over last 100 years, intelligence falling, aspergers/autism/ADHD skyrocketing, move on please folks nothing to see here.
there may be more environmental factors than food at play indicated in the expansion of those spectrums Colonel.
“When i was just a little boy, I asked my mother what will I be, will I be pretty, will I be rich, here’s what she commanded me…” 😉
Oh no doubt. TV before the age of 3 too 😉
(and you think I’m kidding)
And you complained to Ugly Truth that the N*zi argument carried no weight, why would you believe the entities above are not simply the same ideology wrapped up in pretty labels, fooling mugs lik yourself – Next you will be quoting the FDA, saying that you hoover up E951, because they passed it as acceptable to injest by human beings – Thanks Donald Fumsfeld for that one, fyi!
Same answer as above – UN, WHO, CDC – Same people as WTO, IMF, UNESCO, World Bank, and other corrupted, thieving, murderous criminal entities.
*Every Major international organisation* – Is that what the list you provided is? Oops, I think the words *every & major*, were hyperboles bro, and that list means approximately nothing to me, as I said, youre selling the poison, I’m happy for it not to be in the water, the human body does not need it, so the onus on evidence lies with your camp, to prove benefits, and safety, sonny jim!
In any case, drink it up, swallow the toothpaste, take it all into your system, gargles it, swallow it, bath in it actually, it matters not!
Ignore CV’s comments too, nothing to see there, kids are just unlucky these days, throw some more prescription medicine at them, maybe a few more of them, there shots!, that will straighten them out!
on the subject of children’s exposure to media, there was a brief article on te News concerning infants interacting with i-pads; the footage displayed the infants in question prefering the gadget to their primary care-giver when ‘summoned’, a Strange Situation Test indeed; I T has begun Skywalker. (artricle stated no research has been conducted into long-term effects; “…we can rebuild him, we have the technology OSCAR). 😉
So Muzza, still no statistics, no links, no correlation of health problems between fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities?
No actual evidence of harm, just throwing out comments about the WTo and World Bank (for some weird reason).
You got nuthin, son
muzza
I can’t resist nit picking. It’s fluoride right. And the fluoride is added in small doses. Too much of anything can be toxic and when it is something that requires strict controls for safety like fluoride then they are applied and then the benefits occur.
And then the scare mongers stop and find something else to cogitate about, and there are plenty more really important new things to crusade about. It would be great if anti-fluoride and anti-vaccine people could find a new bandwagon and high-tail it off into the setting sun.
Don’t nit pick Prism, its too important a subject , for such flippancy!
You’re a believer in the *strict controls for safety*. yet you can’t see how flawed that statement is, so until you can understand the issue, leave such subjects alone!
How much raditation, of certian isotops, are safe for the human body, just because some governing body *says so*!
Your dismissal of poisons, which are scientifically known to build up inside the brain, and be toxic on the body, is as brazenly ridiculous, as the fact you have merged it with the subject of, *anti vaccine people*. (The give away of Prisms bias, right there)!
More important issues, than the poisoning of human beings.
Prism, you are a fool, in this instance, and your showing your old school thinking, is past it on certain subject matter!
Once again, the amounts present in drinking water has never been shown to cause any public health problems.
If you think otherwise evidence is required. Chop, chop.
Thanks muzza for your very extensive analysis of me and summary.
I think the same of you. So guess we are locking horns like a couple of rutting deer – such flippancy.
I think people like yourself are getting confused by the plethora of things to understand in a modern scientific era. You are the one showing your old school thinking which is to be ready to believe any emotional argument and scare tactic instead of to apply yourself as an individual to the argument for the positives which far outweigh the negatives.
What, like the highly toxic chlorine that prevents us all catching typhoid? You, sir, are a prize nob.
Pop Hi I didn’t know when I read of popups on my screen that it was you doing it all. I miss you when you don’t turn up.
“mass medication is NEVER acceptable”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodised_salt
Also the controversy over this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folic_acid#New_Zealand
Probably because the drugs may react with each other. Cleaning compounds have a warning on them not to mix with other cleaning compounds for the same reason.
You keep mentioning them but you still haven’t produced any research showing that putting fluoride in water is bad for us.
Filthy Libertard! How dare your individual liberty impinge on the common good!
“Can you find any more facts?”
Chemist Charles Eliot Perkins documented the Nazi use of flouride.
Dr. Phyllis Mullenix investigated the toxicology of flouride and pushblished her work in the Journal of Neurotoxicology and Teratology. She then lost her job.
“Studies in mainstream peer-reviewed medical journals and government reports now document the fact that serious harms are associated with exposure to small amounts of fluoride-including hip fracture, cancer, and intellectual impairment. ” ~ David Hill
http://www.fluoridation.com/calgaryh.htm
“It also is insulting to our population and our authorities to imply that they would behave and we would be subject to, such callous and uncaring treatment.”
You are assuming that they are in full possession of the facts.
“You are assuming that they are in full possession of the facts.”
They get their info from the CDC, WHO etc etc. Who are pretty well know for their access to factual information.
“The Nazi’s used therefore bad” is not an argument.
David Hill is going against the mainstream, well documented and well tested science. There is still no correlation of public health issues between non fluoridated and fluoridated areas.
“David Hill is going against the mainstream, well documented and well tested science.”
Wrong. Here are his references (from http://www.fluoridation.com/calgaryh.htm):
[deleted]
[lprent: It isn’t original thought with you so you already did everything you needed to do when you linked to it. If you are going to quote from it, then a short clearly marked quote is all that is required (like I just did for you) is all that is required. A comment from you explaining why you think people should go down the link is helpful.
Don’t waste any more of my time cleaning up behind you after you violate the policy about copy-paste. I tend to get irritated about it. ]
Nice list, but so what?
The overwhelming consensus is against Hill’s conclusion (from 1997 I might add – nearly 20 years old) and some of his references date back to the 1940’s.
“Nice list, but so what?”
So you have no clue what “mainstream, well documented and well tested science” is. Here’s a hint: it’s not consensus, either.
“So you have no clue what “mainstream, well documented and well tested science” is. Here’s a hint: it’s not consensus, either.”
Yeah, I do. This paper is extremely out of date and completely out of step with the majority of research worldwide.
Isn’t that what climate change deniers also say?
Populuxel, yes flouride and AGW are similar issues.
Contrarian, put up or shut up.
Yes, well I have a similarly low opinion of global warming deniers…
and anti-abortionists, anti-vaccinationists, anti-fluoridationists, anti-iodinists, creationists, flat earthers, fundementalist religious types and every other example of head-up-your-arse fringe voodoo quackery
So since you have it so right you must be a glowing healthy specimen of manhood
“and every other example of head-up-your-arse fringe voodoo quackery”
Like denial of the existence of the eugenics movement, you mean?
Unlikely, you can read the state of health via words, quite easily in fact!
“Contrarian, put up or shut up.”
What? What the fuck do i have to ‘put up’?
You have asked for anything, you idiot.
Absolute madness.
Hi VTO
Yes. Paying accurate wages to employees is something that is done all around the world. The complexity of professional pays is also a fact of life all around the world.
Only the current New Zealand Government seems to stuff things up so woefully.
Just don’t forget that Labour selected an Australian IT provider who was clearly in over their head, in preference to a NZ company with a solid track record. For what reason? Cost, the saving of a few dollars over a few years, I would suggest. Well that rationale has proven fucked.
The fact that Banks had shares in it was obviously entirely coincidental:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10872534
It wasn’t the government that stuffed up but the private provider. This government isn’t making anything better though.
The funding for Mangere Budgeting Service has just been and they are having to make redundant 5 of their 8 staff. This is at a time when applications for a special grant from WINZ is met with a requirement that applicants get budgeting advice. Of course according to this Government poverty is the result of bad budgeting and not a lack of resources.
Head of the Mangere Budgeting Service Darryl Evans is outspoken about poverty and I wonder if he has been targeted. Paula Bennett is claiming that there is extra funds for budgeting in the latest budget but it does not appear to be making its way to the MBS. I suspect that the claim of an increase is just smoke and mirrors.
To really add insult to injury Bennett is saying that the Service gets more now than it did under Labour in 2008. She has obviously forgotten that unemployment then was half of the level that it is now and there was no compulsion to receive budgeting advice.
The report is at http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/136952/south-auckland-budget-service-cuts-staff
“The funding for Mangere Budgeting Service has just been [WHAT?] and they are having to make redundant 5…”
Looks like you missed a word out there. If you were going to say “cut”, you are wrong, as their funding has been increased, the problem is that they were already running at a large deficit and the funding increase isn’t enough to meet their needs.
“Paula Bennett is claiming that there is extra funds for budgeting in the latest budget but it does not appear to be making its way to the MBS. I suspect that the claim of an increase is just smoke and mirrors.”
Their funding has been increased by $45,000. Unfortunately they were already in deficit by $155,000. So now they get government funding of $317,000 a year, which is kinda difficult to employ 8 people on for a demanding service such as this, when you also consider overheads like insurance, rent, electricity, office supplies, computers etc.
Oops I meant to say CUT.
And right you are Lanth. They have received an increase of $45k but have a shortfall of $155k.
Simply unbelievable.
hardly a ringing endorsement for their service
what part of “underfunded” do you not understand?
Same with so many families out there. The basic situation is that their benefits are insufficient to live on, and no number of spreadsheets will change that.
Anyone wondering why Kim Hill is on Morning Report, here’s the press release:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1305/S00436/kim-hill-returns-to-morning-report.htm
I can’t recall this ever happening before; hosts have gone on leave for 2-3 weeks and been replaced by other presenters, sometimes in a bit of an ad-hoc manner. I suspect in this case Geoff has taken a ‘break’ for something health related so they wanted to do something a bit more formal for his absence.
Perhaps the other senior person usually on RNZ Morning Report is having his annual leave?
Yes, it’s possible he’s ‘just on annual leave’, but as I mentioned in my comment, in the past people have gone on annual leave and they haven’t put out special press releases and have managed on just fine with their small roster of stand-ins. Geoff’s also in his 80s, 82 I believe, so it’s not too much of a reach to guess that maybe it’s more than ‘just on annual leave’.
Kim certainly asks the questions. She is very direct and insistent. She has a very strong bullshit detector and shows no mercy to anyone in Public Office. Be interesting if she gets to interview (not available) Mr Key.
Yes, her interview with Catherine Isaac yesterday was very good, with Kim insisting that Isaac actually did strongly personally believe in Charter Schools, therefore she expected answers and not fob-off “read the legislation” answers that Isaac tried to give.
Kim Hill played a magnificent role in the 90s day after day on air battling duplicitous politicians, particularly the dirty NZ1 tight five and certain tory ministers and helped usher in one way or another a change of government. I never begrudged her the sweet Sat morning spot because of her efforts then.
Hope she is back to stay, and it would be good to see her reduce ShonKey to the gibbering idiot the electorate deserves to see him as, if he had the fortitude to front one of her inquisitions, er, interviews.
Budgeting and other beneficiary support and advisory services all over New Zealand seem to increasingly be hitting serious funding issues and crisis, not being able to deliver services while demand by poor beneficiaries and working people have substantially increased.
I have heard from a fair number working at the front line that they are inundated with requests for help and struggle to cope.
In the Budget English and his “muppet puppet” Bennett hailed the additional and “generous” 1.5 million funding for such services, which are though only pittance, when looked at more closely!
WINZ are sending thousands of people to see budget advisors, after applying for special needs grants for food and other urgent needs, due to being unable to survive and feed their kids, as rents are sky-high in much of Auckland, as electricity, water and other basic costs increase every year.
So while whipping beneficiaries left right and centre, and also the working poor needing extra help, Bennett is indeed keeping close purse-strings for the services that are supposed to advise and assist such people.
The true face of the “great budget” by the National led government on the social warfare front:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/136952/south-auckland-budget-service-cuts-staff
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10888667
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/8652077/Belt-tightening-for-budget-service
And already the ‘New Zealand Federation for Family Budgeting Service’s’ seem to rely heavily on volunteers to offer such services, as this quote from their website shows:
“Membership representatives
At the grassroots level, member services are supported by a network of NZFFBS volunteers. Over 30 experienced representatives currently volunteer for the NZFFBS. Categorised as Tangata Whenua, District, and Regional Representatives these people work actively to support members, create opportunities for networking, coordinate communications across the country, and ensure that a consistently high level of quality service is delivered by NZFFBS members.”
http://www.familybudgeting.org.nz/join-our-federation/
So we will get more “welfare” and “support services” USA style, I suppose, and that is what NatACT want to bring in, yes are already bringing in into New Zealand.
I dread to think what all those to be forced into biased assessments by MSD trained “designated doctors” and the MSD “Health and Disability Advisors” under Dr David Bratt, will get as “support”, when they get thrown off health related benefits, to go out and find jobs on the open job market from mid July onwards? They will face sanctions if they cannot find a “sympathetic” doctor taking a stand for them.
Budgeting services are very much bottom of the cliff services, many do only tell people to try and live off what WINZ pay them, and perhaps send them off to pick up a food-parcel, they do not, and will not have the time and resources, to advise people on having been treated unfairly in the high numbers that will come to them.
Grim and horrible prospects for the ones at the very bottom. Thank you Paula, life is good on your salary, I suppose, you look so well nourished and well made up, when facing the media!
Bill English was a lucky dip from Dipton for the National Party. His comments this morning about NZ and its course were so upbeat, conveying the comforting feeling of wellbeing – steady as she goes, all good. FFS
Brian Coffey spokesperson from Ministry of Education is speaking on Radionz and the Principal of Paeroa Central School having to take back a violent and assaulting primary-age boy with ‘extreme behaviour’ badly affecting others. She is responsible for providing a safe environment at the school so is being forced into an impossible situation. If she takes the child back, she knows that she is not providing a safe environment so is open to censure, and it will badly affect the other children’s learning and the happy environment of the school, but if she refuses to accept the child, she will be thrown out of the job also the Board of Trustees sacked if they refuse to take the child back and a Commissioner put in. What an autocratic, military decision. She says that 85 children are being disregarded to favour one who is very disturbed. Hekia Parata says it’s an ‘operational matter’.
The Ministry spokesman aims to ‘reduce the likelihood of violence recurring.’ And there will be a plan to build up the boys skills. And high level of support to stop him threatening to cut up other kids, and punch teachers.
How can teachers provide quality education when they have to cope with this?? It is wrong that the whole school be held hostage by the failures of NZ societal system. The school is being used as a therapeutic tool. That is not the job of the school – it is to provide education to children in a way that is suitable for each age in a good stable learning environment. How can public schools provide good education if they are being made to fill in for the mental health facilities that have been continually removed by past governments?
See logie97 – 2. for link
Seen this?
http://www.nbr.co.nz/ask-john
Who is John Palino?
The sole right wing challenger to Auckland Mayor Len Brown (from the left, the Labour-leaning Mr Brown faces Penny Bright and John Minto; postal voting opens September).
What does the US import have to offer 1.3 million super city inhabitants?
……………………….
___________________________________________________________
My question ( yet to be published)
Hi John!
Can you please list your proven achievements to date, where you have taken on Auckland Council, or any of the former 8 Councils in the Auckland region, on any matter, which have resulted in improvements for the public majority of citizens and ratepayers?
Kind regards,
Penny Bright
Fellow 2013 Auckland Mayoral candidate 🙂
A number of commenters have wondered why the right cannot find any credible candidate to put up for candidacy in the Auukland Mayoral race.
It might be because the right couldn’t do better than Brown.
What does the US import have to offer 1.3 million super city inhabitants?
– About as much as an aussie import I’d suggest
Facile and irrelevant, given that great NZ PMs of history have often been from overseas.
😎
Wants all future intensification to be in Manukau even though it’s failed to become a second CBD for 40 years.
For most part he’s just a stupid restaurant man who’s fronted some stupid restaurant reality TV shows.
All need to know really, stupid restaurant man
“¡Muera la inteligencia! ¡Viva la Muerte!” – they’re back.
Catalonia and the Basque Country, the Basque Country and Catalonia, are two cancers in the body of the nation! Fa**ism, choice of Spain, comes to exterminate them, cutting into the flesh alive and well as a cold scalpel!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/05/spanish-civil-war-monument-court
http://www.helpcatalonia.cat/2013/05/spanish-government-representative-in.html
muerte a la avaricia
Spanish and Portuguese fascism never had to answer for their crimes due to the Cold War, when they were seen as useful to the US. I’ve met quite a few ageing Iberians who look back nostalgically to the days of Franco and Salazar, and younger ones who openly admire those scum. It’s no surprise to see them back, they never went away.
Golden Dawn, BNP
It’s pretty damn scary. The governments and institutions who have imposed austerity have thrown many, many ordinary workers into the arms of these people. They’ve learned nothing from their own history. Especially Merkel.
The IMF is apologising for the damage. It may be too late – the rise of the far right has already happened.
and then there is the UK, Hungary, Romania, France, Spain, Russia, the opposition to Islam, to same-sex relationships, to immigration, increasing unemployment, …
…Syria, Hezbollah, Turkey, Iraq, soon Afghanistan, the US and China over African resources.
Oh no say the MSM, the US dollar is climbing…
IMF apologising, they bloody well knew what would happen, the IMF promoted it, because that is what the IMF represent, its what they are!
Fasc*sm runs this world, what part of that do people not connect, still!
In December 1975 we were heading to Mundaka in the Basque country but the death of Franco meant that there was the real possibility that Spain would go another round in the civil war so we spent an anxious few weeks waiting in Hendaye before we flagged it and went elsewhere.
We returned in October 1976 and made it to Mundaka where I met people who had a living memory of the civil war and were genuinely terrified of the state apparatus and in fear of a return to the bad old days. They lived behind curtains and were very suspicious of us as a group but once they’d worked out who we were it all changed because the young Antipodeans of the International Brigades were still held in high regard.
On the first anniversary of the death of Franco we went to a celebration held behind closed doors just in case the Guardia were in the town and happy birthday to you was sung in English. People were scared witless by the Guardia Civil.
The horror of the civil war was brought home by a visit to Guernica where damage from the 1937 bombing remained unrepaired and I met elderly people who had lived through it. It was a life changing event and an awful lot for 21 year old Taranaki boy to take in and close to forty years later the memory is as vivid as it ever was.
Your description there joe90 mirrors a near identical time spent in that same area some time later from you. It was as real as you describe.
(As was the aim at Mundaka – that long firing lefthander of world class quality….)
Pre-thruster too vto. The singles and twinnies of the day made for some damn hairy down the line shenanigans to go with the worst beatings before or since.
lush
More info on Professor Mansel Aylward, the “wayward” medical expert from the ‘Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research’, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Wales, UK, an extreme proponent of the “work will make you healthy” (and set you free) philosopy, based on a perverted “bio-psycho social model” for health and disability diagnosis and treatment:
http://www.gpcme.co.nz/speakers/aylward_2013.php
http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_210440_en.pdf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/12/private-firms-disability-assessment-regime
http://100greatestbootlegs.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/austerity-kills.html
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?view=topic&catid=10&id=97090
http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/models-of-disability.html
He has been teaching his philosophy, based on the presumption that many claiming to be ill are simply clinging to a form of “illness belief” and not really sick and/or incapacitated, to Paula Bennett, Minister for Social Development here in New Zealand. She made her own convictions clear in her speech to medical professionals on 26 September last year:
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/speech-medical-professionals
Mansel Aylward and Dame C. Black also “advised” a set up Health and Disability Board panel at MSD, responsible for overseeing the implementation of the new welfare reforms to come into effect 15th July 2013.
Aylward will be speaking to a national conference of general practitioners in Rotorua on 21 June, to spread his message there. There are plans to bring in UK style work ability assessments, which will see that thousands of sickness and invalid’s beneficiaries (soon to be “Jobseeker Allowance” and “Supported Living” beneficiaries) will be kicked off their benefits, and coerced into seeking work on the open job market.
Those affected, those working with and advocating sick and disabled beneficiaries better have a look at the cabinet paper C of the government on this:
http://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/newsroom/media-releases/2013/wr-cab-paper-c-health-and-disability.pdf
It does to some degree tell you what is in store (hints it at least). Officially it is all about PC language like “support” and “assist” into work, but it will NOT be nice stuff that is coming!
Aylward is an incredibly dangerous ideologue, at least as disconnected from reality as Monckton. He provides a pseudoscientific basis for the official sadism beloved by Bennett, Collins and the Whale Army. I cannot understand why the Medical Association doesn’t denounce him. His perverted views have caused deaths in Britain and will do so here. He should be charged in a court of law.
“I cannot understand why the Medical Association doesn’t denounce him.”
Because they’re gutless, and professional self-interest is contrary to taking action?
The Medical Association is not gutless, they are basically the “union” of medical professionals and practitioners, so naturally they are their advocates, rather than a standards enforcing body.
The Medical Council would have more to say and more clout, but also they are not that interested. NZ doctors also avoid criticising each other, hence no doctor will complain openly about Bratt, and any layperson or “patient” would first have to successfully complain and get a decision out of the Health and Disability Commissioner, before any other steps will be taken by the Medical Council or even a court.
Actually none of all above will see any reason or chance to take any action against Dr Bratt, as he is not delivering any medical service, he is merely a madcap and mean spirited “advisor” for MSD. That means he gets away with it all, and he knows it full well. I am not having you on, that is the way the law is.
Forget the powers of a beneficiary, nobody takes them/us serious enough anyway, they/we are free game for all, the whipping boys and girls of the nation so to say!
Hence Bratt can carry on playing the mad cowboy doctor in the OK corral.
Gutless is a value judgment, and I know doctors who are far from gutless. In this case, I was thinking about their professional self-interest. Aylward’s and Bratt’s plans make them nothing more than the signers of rejection slips, with no recognition that they might actually have some skills to bring to the table. I know I’d be extremely pissed off in my professional life if the government told me there were new laws of nature that I must now follow and got some moron out from Oral Roberts College of Creation Science to lecture about them.
However, I think xtasy is right. It should be the Medical Council. It should also be mass mobilisation, action in Parliament, and union involvement. These developments should be fought on every front possible.
It’s going to be unpleasant for those with ME or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It’s a deviation in the body from normal functioning and hard to test for, though its results can be debilitating. It can sometimes passover months or years but till then the body’s physical and mental energy once used up is not renewed easily. The result is apparent laziness.
As can be imagined it’s stressful and becomes more so with a punitive half-bake as this Mansel whatever sounds. They do a lot of this hounding and labelling of invalids as slack or psychologically unsound in Britain. It must have the most judgmental medical personnel in the developed world.
Ross Robertson retiring! Thanks for the work Ross.
Go for it Louisa.
More deadwood retirements please.
Pity he’s hanging on till the next election – double dipping is that one.
Fucking chaos in the House. Carter has basically lost control.
Carter has to go, he is not able to perform and uphold authority as Speaker, as he does apparently fail to, or intentionally chooses to, not abide by Standing Orders and Speaker’s rulings.
There is too much apparent bias, and hence the House got into tumultuous disorder prior to and during question time.
Also is Dunne now the focus of attention, his party being given quasi party status by the Speaker, while in effect and under law it is presently not accepted as a party – represented in Parliament. Dunne is able to continue receiving appropriation for a party that does not exist. Appalling stuff, really!
I think Carter stuffed up big, and it may cost him his position now.
Don’t forget Tau Henare put his hand up for this job.
At the time that seemed laughable, but I’m not the only person wondering if he could possibly have been as bad a speaker as Carter.
I’ve said it before, Key’s choice of a compliant idiot as speaker may yet be his undoing.
With Tau things would possibly be even worse by now, I dare to presume. He would be out there throwing fists around, to sort his colleagues out, I fear.
“I think Carter stuffed up big, and it may cost him his position now.”
No it won’t. John Key needs that bit of sewage called Dung to keep his majority and Carter will obliged as much as possible and look after his mates on the right. Forget about Parliamentary rules and democracy, this shower of shit of a government will break the rules on the hour and half hour if it suited there goals.
And of course “there” should have been “their”. It’s been a long day.
halfcrown: Thanks for your comment!
Another day has passed in exciting times, and we see, Peters was right onto it, when he suspected Dunne had something to hide. Dunne continues to hide his emails with Vance, and that has cost him his job as minister, and the trust of Key.
So going back to the Speaker, the Speaker gave a very liberal and under the law questionable determination to allow United Future defacto party status, until Dunne and his underlings deliver proof of 500 membership.
As of today, we know, Carter as Speaker gave lenient and special treatment to Dunne, who has become such a dodgy person sitting in Parliament in his last numbered days, the Speaker himself has now been put in question for his actions, based on giving any credit and trust to Dunne.
The Speaker will be gone by the end of the month, or at least within the coming few months, I am sure!
Why can I not edit my comment above, when the time is still ticking??? Something is wrong, or did I write something yesterday, that breached the rules???
I wanted to state that Carter’s days as Speaker are numbered, as he gave credit and leniency to Dunne, which has been for a person now considered untrustworthy by action, and by the Prime Minister.
Hence Carter will be gone very soon, giving special leniency for Dunne to present evidence of 500 or more members. Some of the ones that may have signed up with UF may as of today withdraw that decision anyway, to create yet more of a mess, I presume.
Good bye Dunny Boy!
I am on a benefit and was sent to a budgetting service seminar. I found it really good. The speaker had been in our situation and knew exactly what it was like for us. She was encouraging and realistic. It was comforting as I felt I was not alone listening to her and also being with other people in the same position as me. I got a part-time job shortly after that so things have improved.
interesting 😎
Rose – so they now already hold complete budgeting seminars, advising and informing whole groups at one time, that is impressive. The people I know went and saw a budget advisor on a face to face basis. So numbers of beneficiaries must be so large, they now get “mass processing”.
I am happy for you that you found it helpful. I know someone who had to pay so much rent, he would never have enough money to pay for food. WINZ repeatedly, endlessly told him, he was getting all he was entitled to, and there was no chance for him to get more.
So he had to move and stayed in a boarding house with endless issues there (noise, cockroaches, over-crowding, dampness, tiny room, unfriendly cohabitants). As he had serious health issues they worsened extremely, and upon applying for proper housing from Housing NZ, he was there fobbed off endlessly.
We had to go to the media, who wanted to know, finally wrote about it, and bang, suddenly Housing NZ offered him a half derelict home, which at least was a roof over the head with peace and quiet.
You can be grateful you are healthy and able to work, there is little mercy even for the sick and incapacitated. WINZ generally do not care, and they are happy with you, because you went off the benefit a.s.a.p., doing exactly what they want people to do.