While it may seem to be of central interest to the people involved, for me it is something that exploded from out of my peripheral vision – actually, pretty much outside of my vision altogether.
I’m more focused on some significant political issues.
Sorry, I must be really unhip, because I read the comment and the link again, and all it looks like to me is the usual abuse between two people that regularly abuse each other on ts. What am I missing?
UK Labour selection dispute worsens; police called
there is the fact that a row over selections between the Blairite right and the Unite-led left says a huge amount about Labour’s moribund model of organisation. If constituency Labour parties are open to abuses from those factions of the party – the Westminster-endorsed parachute in the case of the former; the packing of local memberships when it comes to the latter – that’s simply more proof that Labour cannot go on with a dwindling membership, and processes that tend not to reach beyond the walls of damp meeting rooms on Wednesday evenings.
Sooner or later, the people in charge of the party will have to face facts: the orthodox mass party is a dead idea, and Labour will have to reorganise itself and be reintroduced to a pluralistic, politically sophisticated world. A party machine essentially run along the same lines as it was before the second world war no longer cuts it: the Falkirk controversy is merely the latest evidence. On Tuesday, I advocated open primaries as a way out of this mess: a remedy also proposed by the Times and that great leftist Daniel Hannan MEP. It’s the right solution.
Labour is leaving the political foreground dangerously empty, which is also why the Unite brouhaha and every utterance from Len McCluskey have acquired such clout.
When this disaster first struck, before the miners bodies had even cooled, and the mine manager was still being lauded in the MSM as a hero in the face of adversity, and before the problems in restarting the mine had become apparent. I remember reading that, (still feeling bullish), Pike River directors and investors said that they were able, and prepared, to put up $70million to restart the mine.
Now in the grim grey light of the aftermath, when even the bodies of the dead are proven beyond recovery. And now that the Company has been convicted of criminal disregard of these workers safety. And the MSM hero of the time, is facing individual charges for which he is also likely to be convicted. These same directors and shareholders have long since removed their money from the company, no hardship has been visited on them. As the report below shows while the families of the miners are doing it hard, those found guilty are living it up in “opulent” splendor.
The Weekend Herald can reveal that Mr Dow is the director of four companies, and owns four properties in Nelson and Whangaparaoa totalling $3,525,000. The most expensive is valued at $1,675,000.
Mr Nattrass is listed as a director of eight companies and owns at least five properties in Christchurch and Geraldine worth a total of $8,943,000. According to QV, one of those is in the upmarket Christchurch suburb of Fendalton and has a rateable value of $2,320,000. The property next door, worth $658,000, is also owned by Mr Nattrass.
Of the other directors, Mr Radford owns a luxury home in Sydney which a local real estate website estimated was worth between A$1,469,800 and A$1,657,800.
And Mr Jagatramka, a major player in the Australian mining industry, reportedly spent $5 million on a property in Illawarra.
According to the Illawarra Mercury, he built a two-storey “palace” on the site, boasting an underground carpark and marble flooring imported from India. He held an open day to show off the “opulent” house and invited local personalities and a sports team he sponsors, the newspaper said.
Anna Leask for the Week end Herald
In the face of this cruel injustice, Judge Farish was moved to say that, (the winding up of the company by the directors), that let the shareholders get away with paying for their crimes “showed a total lack of remorse”.
In my opinion there should be grounds to corral that $70million that was initially put up in greed by these same shareholders, this would be lesson to all those who hope to make money from the blood of workers.
Pike River Coal says there is no cash in its coffers to pay court-ordered compensation to the families of victims of the 2010 mine explosion – despite the personal wealth of its former directors and the assets of its biggest shareholder.
We are the 99%.
An on-line poll conducted by the Herald showed that a combined total of 89 percent of respondents thought the directors and shareholders should pay up. A further 11 percent thought the government should put in money as well. A combined grand total of 99%.
Taking the discretionary $70million investment that these investors and directors said they had available to reopen the mine, as a base line. This would see a more realistic compensation of $2million per family. While no amount of compensation will heal the wound suffered by these families, this amount would be more in line with the losses of these men’s income for the their expected working lives.
Instead the families are being offered $5,000. This risible amount is comparable to the amount the company would be expected to pay in the case of a wrongful dismissal and for which they are insured for. In effect these men’s deaths have cost these investors nothing. And the dead miners and their grieving families, suffering hardship at their loss, are subsidising the rich investors and directors luxury lifestyles.
In light of the “total lack of remorse” and zero cost of human life for investors and directors. Nothing has been learned, and death and disaster is made easy and cost free, and therefore more likely.
What is also more likely is the growing loss of legitimacy for a government and a society that puts the interest of the 1% above everyone else.
Good points Jenny, especially when it comes to the shareholders willingness to pump $70 million into the company to do more mining….
yet they are unwilling to pump $4 million into the company to put the families to right….
Pigs.
Fucking pigs.
There is no other description. Their pigness has been described almost completely by their actions post-deaths, not pre-deaths. And that is the telling thing……
And the dead miners and their grieving families, suffering hardship at their loss, are subsidising the rich investors and directors luxury lifestyles.
That has always been true. You don’t get rich by being held accountable.
In light of the “total lack of remorse” and zero cost of human life for investors and directors. Nothing has been learned, and death and disaster is made easy and cost free, and therefore more likely.
QFT
We need to change legislation so that companies, the directors of those companies and the shareholders when their companies cause such disasters.
What is also more likely is the growing loss of legitimacy for a government and a society that puts the interest of the 1% above everyone else.
We can hope so as it makes it easier to change the system if everyone has become sick of the way things are done now.
This is a perfect reason why companies such as this, that have a massive Event (there is NO such thing as an accident, (There are Incidents, that when combined make a huge event,))
We should make the directors (and the list of riches is spectacular) Pay the damages. And it’s not as if they would miss it. They also should NOT be able to run a company in NZ, until they pay it and they should also lose ALL directorships, lets hit this scum where it hurts in the pocket, as they HAVE no other love except money.
Also it had 2 mil in insurance I see the leeches(lawyers) have hoovered up their fees insultingly quickly, so that the 2 mil is about 150k. This from the Herald.
“It had $2 million worth of liability insurance, but after legal fees were paid, just $156,000 – or about $5380 a family – was still available for compensation payments.”
Women chiefs being dumped from throughout UK publishing houses. My cynical comment – there may certainly be a problem here, perhaps an industry quota will solve it?
This report touches only briefly on the how, so ably dealt with elsewhere,42 choosing instead to focus more on ‘why there should be more women on boards.’
These data support twin conclusions: that the service of women on boards is symbolically impor- tant, particularly as the face of culture, society, and the workplace change so rapidly, and that the service of women on boards makes a practical difference to how the board functions, the strength of its governance, and how this contributes to better overall performance.
In short, women on boards is not only the “right” thing to do, it is also the “bright” thing to do.
Ah, because addressing inequality is electoral suicide.
Given that you’re a self-loathing Labour member, I’m surprised you haven’t volunteered your own party. Make it “electoral disaster” number three or four. According to you, the sky has fallen so many times for Labour that they’d need to open-cast mine just to have a sunny day.
“Ah, because addressing inequality is electoral suicide.”
Not that I ever said that. Of course if you do it in a shockingly hamfisted and ineffective way, it certainly is. Gets played out again in a few months, so enjoy the experience.
My apologies. Over the last few days you have been a champion in forwarding solutions to gender inequality in parliament, in the boardroom, and in society as a whole.
Oh no, wait, over the last few days you’ve been channeling the tortured soul of Henry Wright.
Mmm, that’s an idea. Gender quota for stock market and foreign exchange traders.
“Testosterone and high finance do not mix: so bring on the women”
“Gender inequality has been an issue in the City [of London] for years, but now the new science of ‘neuroeconomics’ is proving the point beyond doubt: hormonally-driven young men should not be left alone in charge of our finances…”
For all those in the Assange dispute who view Sweden as such a trustworthy paragon of EU human rights.
1) a few weeks ago news came to light that Sweden cooperated with the US in the extraordinary rendition of two Swedish citizens of Somali decent. Thanks Sweden.
2) Sweden has just helped the UK veto a broad European inquiry into the US/UK electronic surveillance scandal against various EU governments including France and Germany, and the EU itself.
Conclusion – Sweden is deeply cooperative with US intelligence and internal security activities.
Dear Morrissey,
For over 21 years Toyota has been supporting Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) in the quest for the America’s Cup. And this year we are urging all Kiwis to show their support during our ‘Lean with us’ campaign!
Why lean?
’Lean with us’ is a play on the boat’s ability to lean at an incredible angle before it foils at spectacular high speeds. The more Emirates Team New Zealand can foil, the faster the boat goes. And the same goes for your support. The more Kiwis that lean, the more motivated our ETNZ crew will be to win. It’s a simple, fun way to show the team that you’re really behind them.
Emirates Team New Zealand Director Grant Dalton knows the magical power of having the whole country supporting you, telling us: “It’s no coincidence that our greatest America’s Cup successes over the years have come on the back of nationwide support from Kiwis, and that’s what will make the difference in 2013.” …..[continues]…..
—Letter from Toyota New Zealand, 4 July 2013
Humbug Corner is dedicated to gathering, and highlighting, the most striking examples of faux solicitude, insincere apologies, and particularly stupid recycling of official canards. It is produced by the Insincerity Project®, a division of Daisycutter Sports Inc.
More humbug….
No. 12 Pem Bird: “We’re there to do the business of advancing our people.”
No. 11 Whenua Patuwai: “They’re my brothers and to see one of them goes [sic]—it’s tough.”
No. 10 “Sir” Owen Glenn: “I do care that every person, especially children, have [sic] the right to feel safe.”
No. 9 “Sir” Owen Glenn: His abuse inquiry is floundering after revelations he was accused of physically abusing a young woman in 2002.
No. 8 Barack Obama: “…people standing up for what’s right…yearning for justice and dignity…”
No. 7 Barack Obama: “Nelson Mandela is my personal hero…”
No. 6 John Key: “Yeah well the Greens’ answer to everything is rail, isn’t it.”
No.5 Dr. Rodney Syme: “If you want good, open, honest practice, you have to make it transparent.”
No. 4 Mike Bush: “Bruce Hutton’s… integrity beyond reproach…such great character…”
No. 3 Dean Lonergan: “Y’ know what? The only people who will mock them are people who are dwarfists.”
No. 2 Peter Dunne: “What a load of drivel and sanctimonious humbug…”
No. 1 Dominic Bowden: “It’s okay to be speechless.”
Overly simplistic Tigger. But, on that simplistic take, if it is solely money then why do so many corporate men receive knighthoods for their services? Surely the knighthood should go to the money.
——-
Money was not in charge at Pike River, people were. They were driven by money – or more accurately, they were driven by greed.
G R E E E E E E D
This is the way our world (or rather, their world) is today. You may also have noticed the comment by Yes somewhere here where hisher vote for National was right because it made hisher house worth one million dollars. The world is awash with lust for money. Money money money.
As highlighted by our very own Prime Minister. The fact of his popularity also indicates how far this lust has permeated into our core. Watch his slimy eyes light up when any converstion turns to money and its making.
So, Tigger, I suggest that it is not money that was the problem at Pike River (in the sense you speak) but rather it was the inability of corporate men to control their greed and lust for money.
And that is why you should never trust corporate man. Corporate man cannot control the lust and greed such is the pedestal upon which money has been placed today.
And that is why the New Zealand corporate man is a pig. Pike River paints the pig.
Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.
Good question, Joe! There is no recording device in the sorting machines themselves, but a similar scheme to that applied to Pickering’s mail is possible. But I would assume that would require a warrant in NZ. Though given what we now know about our spy agencies loose engagement with lawfullness, who knows for sure?
This might sound a bit weird but… A chap who manages a fruit packing shed says as every apple enters the system it is photographed 3 different ways and this decides the ultimate bin it ends up in. Once it has been processed washed, fumigated etc, that individual apple ends up with identical apples ready for export.
So for people sorting, the technology is there but…
“Jaffa city” (not pejorative, moving back for a couple of years) mayor “Lenslide” is on a downslide.
Minto for Mayor!
All working class people of Auckland should vote for him. It is a postal vote so prob half the population have never posted a letter in recent internet days. So if more candidates pop up from the right it would not worry me if John got in on a minority vote given the participation rate.
Looking back things like Ports of Auckland only survived thanks to the likes of Bruce Jesson. Auckland needs to go left.
A provocative read for a Saturday morning .. a view into the crystal ball of what is happening here in precious Aotearoa … from Le Monde Diplomatique, English edition
“In this new war, politics, as the organiser of the nation state, no longer exists. Now politics serves solely in order to manage the economy, and politicians are now merely company managers.
The world’s new masters have no need to govern directly. National governments take on the role of running things on their behalf. This is what the new order means – unification of the world into one single market. States are simply enterprises with managers in the guise of governments, and the new regional alliances bear more of a resemblance to shopping malls than political federations. The unification produced by neoliberalism is economic: in the giant planetary hypermarket it is only commodities that circulate freely, not people.”
and more …
“Neoliberalism thus imposes the destruction of nations and of groups of nations in order to fuse them into one single model. The war which neoliberalism is conducting against humanity is thus a planetary war, and is the worst and most cruel ever seen.
What we have here is a puzzle. When we attempt to put its pieces together in order to arrive at an understanding of today’s world, we find that a lot of the pieces are missing. Still, we can make a start with seven of them, in the hope that this conflict will not end with the destruction of humanity. Seven pieces to draw, colour in, cut out and put together with others, in order to try to solve this global puzzle.
The first of these pieces is the two-fold accumulation of wealth and of poverty at the two poles of planetary society. The second is the total exploitation of the totality of the world. The third is the nightmare of that part of humanity condemned to a life of wandering. The fourth is the sickening relationship between crime and state power. The fifth is state violence. The sixth is the mystery of megapolitics. The seventh is the multiple forms of resistance which humanity is deploying against neoliberalism.”
Superb clarity. I am so pleased I found it this morning.
Then you might dive deep into this excellence also, DTB … once again, a clear and horrible perspective of exactly what it is we are facing with new GCSB legislation …
“In a democracy rule is by consent. In a dictatorship it is by control.
Which do we have in the West? It seems to me, it is no longer clear. We certainly still have the rituals of rule by consent. But behind the elected front men and women is a shadow state. It’s people ritually swear allegiance to those we elect. They declare themselves there to serve and protect. But when it is us they spend their time spying on, whose interests are they protecting? Can you really serve those you do not trust?
In 2008 we discovered that behind the banking system we knew about, there was a vast shadow banking system whose size most of us never suspected. In 2013 we have glimpsed not only the scale of the shadow state but the degree to which it, like the shadown banking system, is out of control and not working for us at all.”
Concluding, he writes:
“But what I want to emphasize is that there is a New Cold War but it is not like the old one. It is not country against country. It is the shadow state in every nation against its own people, with the collusion of an inner core within the regular State. If this is correct, and I believe Mr Snowden has made it very difficult to believe otherwise, then we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by politicians and media barons telling us stories in the familiar mold of the old cold war, of one whole country against another, America against Germany, Britain against France, or Greece against Europe. There are, of course, still real rivalries between nations and they do compete with each other and do try to destabilize each other – but this is not our most pressing problem as citizens, as free men and women. I believe our real problem is what I have called the New Cold War. Because our enemy in that war is here among us.
Nominally we live in democracies but the trust which makes government by consent work is eroding fast. Distrust, fear and control are replacing it. And it is not you and me pushing that change. It is the shadow state allied, as I believe it is, with the shadow financial world, which is pushing it.
As I have said before, we are at war – a frighteningly cold war – of austerity and spying, poverty and trial without jury – but the lines are not between nations any more. They are between you and me on one side and an elite who style themselves as technocrat experts and cyber praetorians, here to help, but in reality here to control us and do away with democracy wherever they can.”
And the comments in reply are magnificent to read. Gives me hope !
Saturday 6 July 2013
Outside Smith and Caugheys
253-261 Queen St Assetkeepers Auckland
12:00pm until 1:00pm
Smith and Caughey’s have asked Auckland City Council to ban all beggars from the streets. We’re going to beg Smith and Caughey’s to leave the beggars alone. Bring a sign to beg with, but beware the Millionaires Against Moochers, dressed to impress with top hats or formal gowns who may try to sweep us all under the carpet and out of their sight.
“The ‘Heartless’ of the City must stop this war on the poorest of the poor,” says Auckland Mayoral candidate Penny Bright.
“For homeless beggars, especially in winter, how can Auckland be the ‘most liveable city in the world’, particularly when this corporate-controlled Auckland Council wants bylaw changes to move them ‘out of sight – out of mind’?”
“This is not the first time that this corporate-controlled Auckland Council has attempted to deny the lawful rights of citizens to what I consider to be ‘freedom of expression’.”
“As an Auckland Mayoral candidate – I support those who are amongst the most marginalised of the 99%, who choose to make the world aware of their plight through signage and some container for those who care and are able to make personal donations to help them.”
“During the Occupy Auckland movement, a number of Auckland homeless became involved in our struggle against the 1%.
At Aotea Square, we lived together, ate together, learned about each other, and collectively made decisions about how we could improve the lot of the 99%. – the public majority.”
“At Occupy Auckland, the homeless had a home, shelter, food, community and above all hope – for a genuinely ‘brighter future’.”
“Auckland Council, representing the corporate 1%, in whose interests the Auckland region really operates, attempted to crush the Occupy Auckland movement, by removing us by an injunction, which was eventually deemed unlawful in the Auckland High Court.”
“As one of the two successful Appellants in the Occupy Auckland vs Auckland Council Appeal – I am prepared to help challenge the ‘legality’ of Auckland Council’s proposed by-law, by raising this matter directly with Council.”
” I do hope that Auckland Council have not been taking legal advice from their General Counsel, Wendy Brandon, who, in my considered opinion, is unprofessional, incompetent and has proven to be a LIAR (over the amount of Auckland Council public monies that were spent on Occupy Auckland legal proceedings).”
Yeah they eventually unbanned it. Nick said in a later interview that his friend who is the head of TED was actually sympathetic to the message, but felt pressure from his elite peer group to suppress the talk.
Goodness me, who is this Nick chap. That is such a mumbling, stumbling, mumbo, jumbo geeky presentation. Let’s wait till Shearer starts his political campaigning with ‘Operation Stun and Awe’ and show how he will be far more articulate, fluent and persuasive.
Use Google – he does provoke discussion (or as you demonstrate: affronted indignation with no actual points) but he is firmly in top income bracket he speaks of, part owner of a venture capitalist group based in the Seattle area.
Also, what do you expect from a five minute presentation, especially one that is intended only to invite people to think differently, rather than provide a nuanced, and completely spun debate on the issue? Isn’t that the premise of TED talks?
Thanks for pointing out the clip, Molly. Much appreciated, truly. My comments at 12:13pm could have been clearer but then I may not be as practised as a certain political so-called leader with mumbling, stumbling, fumbling and bumbling.
Tried to search Hanauer on the TED site, and only came up with the comments regarding it’s non-posting. But found references that it had been published later on, although still can’t find it through the search engine, – there may be a direct link.
Did come across this reference to an email from Chris Anderson (TED) regarding the original choice not to publish on one of the YouTube posters –
” Published on May 2, 2013
A TED Talk on Income Inequality by Nick Hanauer…
Chris Anderson, director of TED, refuses to release the video of the talk on its website, saying that the message is overtly controversial and too partisan for broad consumption.
In an email sent to Hanauer and shared with Jim Tankersley at the National Journal, Anderson wrote:
“… even if the talk was rated a home run, we couldn’t release it, because it would be unquestionably regarded as out and out political. We’re in the middle of an election year in the US. Your argument comes down firmly on the side of one party. And you even reference that at the start of the talk. TED is nonpartisan and is fighting a constant battle with TEDx organizers to respect that principle….
“Nick, I personally share your disgust at the growth in inequality in the US, and would love to have found a way to give people a clearer mindset on the issue, without stoking a tedious partisan rehash of all the arguments we hear every day in the mainstream media.
“Alas, my judgment – and it is just a judgment, and that’s why my job title is ‘curator’ – is that publishing your talk would not meet that goal.””
kweewee and kit.condom are birds of a feather.
they both think its ok to go through life taking what they want and to hell with anybody who gets in the way.
losers and counterparties are expected to just flake off and security at the door keeps them from becoming a nuisance
however in a democracy everybody has a say!
.condom thinks he can steal the intellectual property of anyone and escape to the south seas but they are gonna get him.
tough luck to both I say
Just when I thought I couldn’t like or respect shane jones less he says this shit,
Mr Jones said he had spent yesterday in and around Kerikeri and Kaitaia talking about the proposal, “and the overwhelming response is the public doesn’t want the country run by geldings”.
A gelding is a castrated horse or other equine such as a donkey or a mule. Castration, and the elimination of hormonally driven behavior associated with a stallion, allows a male horse to be calmer and better-behaved, making the animal quieter, gentler and potentially more suitable as an everyday working animal. As a verb, “gelding” or “to geld” refers to the castration procedure itself.
I may have it wrong but I cannot remember any proposal to castrate men. It may seem extreme but I really wish shane jones would politically fuck off forever.
What it means is that Shane wants the country run by men who will put women in their place, by whatever means necessary. He really is in the wrong party*, but I tend to agree, it would be better if he just fucked off out of politics altogether.
*although it’s hard to see exactly what party he would fit in. Maybe he could start his own – the macho shithead party, except I think he would find that most of the members wouldn’t want a maaari for leader.
Jones continues his corporate behavioural ways as an MP.
Labour has picked some real lazy self serving troughers over the past 10 years, none more typical than Shane. The fishing industry I heard were happy to see the back of him, one nasty piece of work is Mr jones.
‘historical, social and economic conditions (have) laid the groundwork for society to return to religion”- Geneive Abdo http://www.opednews.com/articles/Egypt-s-revolution-betraye-by-Eric-Walberg-130705-644.html?
-Islamaphobes imperialist backed?
-a civil war like in Algeria, US supported secularists?
A need for Egypt to disconnect from the US- dominated world order (while their Navy requires the canal).
… the largest change (or even second or third largest) change is not to the most recent decade. And, in fact, the largest observed decadal increase is actually from the average of 1987-1996 to the average of 1997-2006, at +0.24K.
… 2001-2010 is the warmest 10-year period in the instrumental record. This is evidence enough of a warmer climate, but NOT of an accelerated warming rate.
Here’s a hint Vodafone – if you put the link to the network status back on the front page of your website in an easy to find place, then when you have a network problem your call centre won’t get overloaded.
And btw, the word ‘communication’ in the term telecommunication actually means something. Look it up.
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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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 Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
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 ...
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The “Ouch!” file
No. 2: Te Reo Putake gets served by Professor Longhair
Friday 5 July 2013
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-03072013/#comment-658247
The “Ouch!” File is dedicated to public slapdowns of the hapless, the hopeless, the horrible and the hypocritical.
Feel the humiliation one more time….
No. 1 ratesarerevolting gets served by L. Prent
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-27052013/#comment-639510
Classy.
Classy.
Classy indeed. Made even classier by Te Reo’s response. One couldn’t make that up.
Take it outside. Schoolboy playground stuff. Why continue to perpetuate it on open mike?
Fair comment, karol. I urge Te Reo Putake to take heed of your admonishment and refrain from further comments on this issue.
Thanks, Morrissey.
While it may seem to be of central interest to the people involved, for me it is something that exploded from out of my peripheral vision – actually, pretty much outside of my vision altogether.
I’m more focused on some significant political issues.
Keep up the good work, karol. Your contributions are always worth reading.
Unlike yours.
Unlike yours.
Ouch! That’s one for the file.
+1 Karol.
And it doesn’t even make sense (the opening post and links).
And it doesn’t even make sense (the opening post and links).
Errr, yes it does.
Come ON, weka, I didn’t think you were that unhip.
Sorry, I must be really unhip, because I read the comment and the link again, and all it looks like to me is the usual abuse between two people that regularly abuse each other on ts. What am I missing?
What am I missing?
You just missin’ that slight bit of bein’ hip enough.
Piss off, noddy.
UK Labour selection dispute worsens; police called
http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/04/tom-watson-resignation-labour
Interesting.
This:
Yep- its a vacuum which then gets filled by Tory media spin doctors. It has this annoying familiarity about it.
jolly politically sophisticated and plural of your bad self Viper 😉
.
John Dow and other directors at Pike River…
Corporate pigs.
Human pigs.
Didn’t even attend. Haven’t fronted up. Didn’t do their job. Killed 29 men dead.
Greedy pigs.
Fuck off Dow, never return to the Coast.
When this disaster first struck, before the miners bodies had even cooled, and the mine manager was still being lauded in the MSM as a hero in the face of adversity, and before the problems in restarting the mine had become apparent. I remember reading that, (still feeling bullish), Pike River directors and investors said that they were able, and prepared, to put up $70million to restart the mine.
Now in the grim grey light of the aftermath, when even the bodies of the dead are proven beyond recovery. And now that the Company has been convicted of criminal disregard of these workers safety. And the MSM hero of the time, is facing individual charges for which he is also likely to be convicted. These same directors and shareholders have long since removed their money from the company, no hardship has been visited on them. As the report below shows while the families of the miners are doing it hard, those found guilty are living it up in “opulent” splendor.
In the face of this cruel injustice, Judge Farish was moved to say that, (the winding up of the company by the directors), that let the shareholders get away with paying for their crimes “showed a total lack of remorse”.
In my opinion there should be grounds to corral that $70million that was initially put up in greed by these same shareholders, this would be lesson to all those who hope to make money from the blood of workers.
We are the 99%.
An on-line poll conducted by the Herald showed that a combined total of 89 percent of respondents thought the directors and shareholders should pay up. A further 11 percent thought the government should put in money as well. A combined grand total of 99%.
Taking the discretionary $70million investment that these investors and directors said they had available to reopen the mine, as a base line. This would see a more realistic compensation of $2million per family. While no amount of compensation will heal the wound suffered by these families, this amount would be more in line with the losses of these men’s income for the their expected working lives.
Instead the families are being offered $5,000. This risible amount is comparable to the amount the company would be expected to pay in the case of a wrongful dismissal and for which they are insured for. In effect these men’s deaths have cost these investors nothing. And the dead miners and their grieving families, suffering hardship at their loss, are subsidising the rich investors and directors luxury lifestyles.
In light of the “total lack of remorse” and zero cost of human life for investors and directors. Nothing has been learned, and death and disaster is made easy and cost free, and therefore more likely.
What is also more likely is the growing loss of legitimacy for a government and a society that puts the interest of the 1% above everyone else.
Good points Jenny, especially when it comes to the shareholders willingness to pump $70 million into the company to do more mining….
yet they are unwilling to pump $4 million into the company to put the families to right….
Pigs.
Fucking pigs.
There is no other description. Their pigness has been described almost completely by their actions post-deaths, not pre-deaths. And that is the telling thing……
Stuart Natrass is a pig
John Dow is a pig.
Moving post, Jenny.
Major shareholder, NZ Oil and Gas, reported a recent full-year profit of $19.9M.
That has always been true. You don’t get rich by being held accountable.
QFT
We need to change legislation so that companies, the directors of those companies and the shareholders when their companies cause such disasters.
We can hope so as it makes it easier to change the system if everyone has become sick of the way things are done now.
utterly vacuous post Jenny…
What debt do they have against the properties?
This is a perfect reason why companies such as this, that have a massive Event (there is NO such thing as an accident, (There are Incidents, that when combined make a huge event,))
We should make the directors (and the list of riches is spectacular) Pay the damages. And it’s not as if they would miss it. They also should NOT be able to run a company in NZ, until they pay it and they should also lose ALL directorships, lets hit this scum where it hurts in the pocket, as they HAVE no other love except money.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10895115
Also it had 2 mil in insurance I see the leeches(lawyers) have hoovered up their fees insultingly quickly, so that the 2 mil is about 150k. This from the Herald.
“It had $2 million worth of liability insurance, but after legal fees were paid, just $156,000 – or about $5380 a family – was still available for compensation payments.”
Actually, I think it should be that they lose all their wealth as fines and that they never be in a position of management again.
http://guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/05/women-publishing-gail-rebuck-victoria-barnsley
Women chiefs being dumped from throughout UK publishing houses. My cynical comment – there may certainly be a problem here, perhaps an industry quota will solve it?
personally I’d be in favour of a “quota” that all boards of directors are 50% female.
Jan Logie linked this today
http://www.europeanpwn.net/files/women_on_boards_canada.pdf
This report touches only briefly on the how, so ably dealt with elsewhere,42 choosing instead to focus more on ‘why there should be more women on boards.’
These data support twin conclusions: that the service of women on boards is symbolically impor- tant, particularly as the face of culture, society, and the workplace change so rapidly, and that the service of women on boards makes a practical difference to how the board functions, the strength of its governance, and how this contributes to better overall performance.
In short, women on boards is not only the “right” thing to do, it is also the “bright” thing to do.
Sure McFlock, which political party would you like to push for this boardroom gender quota?
don’t care which party.
Make it a party you hate, and don’t want around any more.
Ah, because addressing inequality is electoral suicide.
Given that you’re a self-loathing Labour member, I’m surprised you haven’t volunteered your own party. Make it “electoral disaster” number three or four. According to you, the sky has fallen so many times for Labour that they’d need to open-cast mine just to have a sunny day.
More BS from McFlock
“Ah, because addressing inequality is electoral suicide.”
Not that I ever said that. Of course if you do it in a shockingly hamfisted and ineffective way, it certainly is. Gets played out again in a few months, so enjoy the experience.
My apologies. Over the last few days you have been a champion in forwarding solutions to gender inequality in parliament, in the boardroom, and in society as a whole.
Oh no, wait, over the last few days you’ve been channeling the tortured soul of Henry Wright.
My apologies you are full of shit as usual.
But I can take a dump before bed, whereas you will always be a simple-minded hypocrite.
Taking a dump is indeed what you excel at.
Gracias.
Imagining overwhelming shortcomings of others from a perspective of wilful ignorance is your particular forte.
Mmm, that’s an idea. Gender quota for stock market and foreign exchange traders.
“Testosterone and high finance do not mix: so bring on the women”
“Gender inequality has been an issue in the City [of London] for years, but now the new science of ‘neuroeconomics’ is proving the point beyond doubt: hormonally-driven young men should not be left alone in charge of our finances…”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/19/neuroeconomics-women-city-financial-crash
For all those in the Assange dispute who view Sweden as such a trustworthy paragon of EU human rights.
1) a few weeks ago news came to light that Sweden cooperated with the US in the extraordinary rendition of two Swedish citizens of Somali decent. Thanks Sweden.
2) Sweden has just helped the UK veto a broad European inquiry into the US/UK electronic surveillance scandal against various EU governments including France and Germany, and the EU itself.
Conclusion – Sweden is deeply cooperative with US intelligence and internal security activities.
Yes, finally watched TPB – AFK (The Pirate Bay – Away From Keyboard which demonstrates the trend.
🙄
Humbug Corner
No. 13: Toyota New Zealand
Dear Morrissey,
For over 21 years Toyota has been supporting Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) in the quest for the America’s Cup. And this year we are urging all Kiwis to show their support during our ‘Lean with us’ campaign!
Why lean?
’Lean with us’ is a play on the boat’s ability to lean at an incredible angle before it foils at spectacular high speeds. The more Emirates Team New Zealand can foil, the faster the boat goes. And the same goes for your support. The more Kiwis that lean, the more motivated our ETNZ crew will be to win. It’s a simple, fun way to show the team that you’re really behind them.
Emirates Team New Zealand Director Grant Dalton knows the magical power of having the whole country supporting you, telling us: “It’s no coincidence that our greatest America’s Cup successes over the years have come on the back of nationwide support from Kiwis, and that’s what will make the difference in 2013.” …..[continues]…..
—Letter from Toyota New Zealand, 4 July 2013
Humbug Corner is dedicated to gathering, and highlighting, the most striking examples of faux solicitude, insincere apologies, and particularly stupid recycling of official canards. It is produced by the Insincerity Project®, a division of Daisycutter Sports Inc.
More humbug….
No. 12 Pem Bird: “We’re there to do the business of advancing our people.”
No. 11 Whenua Patuwai: “They’re my brothers and to see one of them goes [sic]—it’s tough.”
No. 10 “Sir” Owen Glenn: “I do care that every person, especially children, have [sic] the right to feel safe.”
No. 9 “Sir” Owen Glenn: His abuse inquiry is floundering after revelations he was accused of physically abusing a young woman in 2002.
No. 8 Barack Obama: “…people standing up for what’s right…yearning for justice and dignity…”
No. 7 Barack Obama: “Nelson Mandela is my personal hero…”
No. 6 John Key: “Yeah well the Greens’ answer to everything is rail, isn’t it.”
No.5 Dr. Rodney Syme: “If you want good, open, honest practice, you have to make it transparent.”
No. 4 Mike Bush: “Bruce Hutton’s… integrity beyond reproach…such great character…”
No. 3 Dean Lonergan: “Y’ know what? The only people who will mock them are people who are dwarfists.”
No. 2 Peter Dunne: “What a load of drivel and sanctimonious humbug…”
No. 1 Dominic Bowden: “It’s okay to be speechless.”
$3.41 million – small change the ex gratia payment of which would do nothing to displace the hell the families endure.
No, we and our accountants and our lawyers and our brokers have expressed our sadness many, many times.
Be uncorrupted by the lippy Judge Farish. There might easily have been a judge with a contrary view.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10895115
“Total lack of remorse” indeed !
Yep North, the stinking rotten stench of the worst of human behaviour….
The New Zealand corporate man.
In all his glory – exposed for the cruel and dirty pigs they are…
Never trust the corporate world. Never. Always keep an escape route up your sleeve and never ever trust them with your money……
How many times do we need be shat on by these c…ts?
……..
NEVER TRUST CORPORATE MAN
Money was in charge at Pike River. And money feels not loss nor remorse.
Overly simplistic Tigger. But, on that simplistic take, if it is solely money then why do so many corporate men receive knighthoods for their services? Surely the knighthood should go to the money.
——-
Money was not in charge at Pike River, people were. They were driven by money – or more accurately, they were driven by greed.
G R E E E E E E D
This is the way our world (or rather, their world) is today. You may also have noticed the comment by Yes somewhere here where hisher vote for National was right because it made hisher house worth one million dollars. The world is awash with lust for money. Money money money.
As highlighted by our very own Prime Minister. The fact of his popularity also indicates how far this lust has permeated into our core. Watch his slimy eyes light up when any converstion turns to money and its making.
So, Tigger, I suggest that it is not money that was the problem at Pike River (in the sense you speak) but rather it was the inability of corporate men to control their greed and lust for money.
And that is why you should never trust corporate man. Corporate man cannot control the lust and greed such is the pedestal upon which money has been placed today.
And that is why the New Zealand corporate man is a pig. Pike River paints the pig.
So from what you’re saying I get that ultimately money was in charge at Pike River.
Is NZ post doing this?.
Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?hp&_r=3&
Good question, Joe! There is no recording device in the sorting machines themselves, but a similar scheme to that applied to Pickering’s mail is possible. But I would assume that would require a warrant in NZ. Though given what we now know about our spy agencies loose engagement with lawfullness, who knows for sure?
This might sound a bit weird but… A chap who manages a fruit packing shed says as every apple enters the system it is photographed 3 different ways and this decides the ultimate bin it ends up in. Once it has been processed washed, fumigated etc, that individual apple ends up with identical apples ready for export.
So for people sorting, the technology is there but…
“Jaffa city” (not pejorative, moving back for a couple of years) mayor “Lenslide” is on a downslide.
Minto for Mayor!
All working class people of Auckland should vote for him. It is a postal vote so prob half the population have never posted a letter in recent internet days. So if more candidates pop up from the right it would not worry me if John got in on a minority vote given the participation rate.
Looking back things like Ports of Auckland only survived thanks to the likes of Bruce Jesson. Auckland needs to go left.
A provocative read for a Saturday morning .. a view into the crystal ball of what is happening here in precious Aotearoa … from Le Monde Diplomatique, English edition
http://mondediplo.com/1997/09/marcos
“In this new war, politics, as the organiser of the nation state, no longer exists. Now politics serves solely in order to manage the economy, and politicians are now merely company managers.
The world’s new masters have no need to govern directly. National governments take on the role of running things on their behalf. This is what the new order means – unification of the world into one single market. States are simply enterprises with managers in the guise of governments, and the new regional alliances bear more of a resemblance to shopping malls than political federations. The unification produced by neoliberalism is economic: in the giant planetary hypermarket it is only commodities that circulate freely, not people.”
and more …
“Neoliberalism thus imposes the destruction of nations and of groups of nations in order to fuse them into one single model. The war which neoliberalism is conducting against humanity is thus a planetary war, and is the worst and most cruel ever seen.
What we have here is a puzzle. When we attempt to put its pieces together in order to arrive at an understanding of today’s world, we find that a lot of the pieces are missing. Still, we can make a start with seven of them, in the hope that this conflict will not end with the destruction of humanity. Seven pieces to draw, colour in, cut out and put together with others, in order to try to solve this global puzzle.
The first of these pieces is the two-fold accumulation of wealth and of poverty at the two poles of planetary society. The second is the total exploitation of the totality of the world. The third is the nightmare of that part of humanity condemned to a life of wandering. The fourth is the sickening relationship between crime and state power. The fifth is state violence. The sixth is the mystery of megapolitics. The seventh is the multiple forms of resistance which humanity is deploying against neoliberalism.”
Superb clarity. I am so pleased I found it this morning.
Seven
Good link
Then you might dive deep into this excellence also, DTB … once again, a clear and horrible perspective of exactly what it is we are facing with new GCSB legislation …
http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2013/07/nsagchq-the-new-praetorians/
“In a democracy rule is by consent. In a dictatorship it is by control.
Which do we have in the West? It seems to me, it is no longer clear. We certainly still have the rituals of rule by consent. But behind the elected front men and women is a shadow state. It’s people ritually swear allegiance to those we elect. They declare themselves there to serve and protect. But when it is us they spend their time spying on, whose interests are they protecting? Can you really serve those you do not trust?
In 2008 we discovered that behind the banking system we knew about, there was a vast shadow banking system whose size most of us never suspected. In 2013 we have glimpsed not only the scale of the shadow state but the degree to which it, like the shadown banking system, is out of control and not working for us at all.”
Concluding, he writes:
“But what I want to emphasize is that there is a New Cold War but it is not like the old one. It is not country against country. It is the shadow state in every nation against its own people, with the collusion of an inner core within the regular State. If this is correct, and I believe Mr Snowden has made it very difficult to believe otherwise, then we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by politicians and media barons telling us stories in the familiar mold of the old cold war, of one whole country against another, America against Germany, Britain against France, or Greece against Europe. There are, of course, still real rivalries between nations and they do compete with each other and do try to destabilize each other – but this is not our most pressing problem as citizens, as free men and women. I believe our real problem is what I have called the New Cold War. Because our enemy in that war is here among us.
Nominally we live in democracies but the trust which makes government by consent work is eroding fast. Distrust, fear and control are replacing it. And it is not you and me pushing that change. It is the shadow state allied, as I believe it is, with the shadow financial world, which is pushing it.
As I have said before, we are at war – a frighteningly cold war – of austerity and spying, poverty and trial without jury – but the lines are not between nations any more. They are between you and me on one side and an elite who style themselves as technocrat experts and cyber praetorians, here to help, but in reality here to control us and do away with democracy wherever they can.”
And the comments in reply are magnificent to read. Gives me hope !
FYI:
6 July 2013
Press Release from Auckland Mayoral candidate Penny Bright:
“Leave the poor beggars alone!”
“I support the following protest, in support of the homeless, who, because of their circumstances, beg for money, in order to live.”
https://www.facebook.com/events/384259328352958/
Saturday 6 July 2013
Outside Smith and Caugheys
253-261 Queen St Assetkeepers Auckland
12:00pm until 1:00pm
Smith and Caughey’s have asked Auckland City Council to ban all beggars from the streets. We’re going to beg Smith and Caughey’s to leave the beggars alone. Bring a sign to beg with, but beware the Millionaires Against Moochers, dressed to impress with top hats or formal gowns who may try to sweep us all under the carpet and out of their sight.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10894464
___________________________________________________________________________
“The ‘Heartless’ of the City must stop this war on the poorest of the poor,” says Auckland Mayoral candidate Penny Bright.
“For homeless beggars, especially in winter, how can Auckland be the ‘most liveable city in the world’, particularly when this corporate-controlled Auckland Council wants bylaw changes to move them ‘out of sight – out of mind’?”
“This is not the first time that this corporate-controlled Auckland Council has attempted to deny the lawful rights of citizens to what I consider to be ‘freedom of expression’.”
“As an Auckland Mayoral candidate – I support those who are amongst the most marginalised of the 99%, who choose to make the world aware of their plight through signage and some container for those who care and are able to make personal donations to help them.”
“During the Occupy Auckland movement, a number of Auckland homeless became involved in our struggle against the 1%.
At Aotea Square, we lived together, ate together, learned about each other, and collectively made decisions about how we could improve the lot of the 99%. – the public majority.”
“At Occupy Auckland, the homeless had a home, shelter, food, community and above all hope – for a genuinely ‘brighter future’.”
“Auckland Council, representing the corporate 1%, in whose interests the Auckland region really operates, attempted to crush the Occupy Auckland movement, by removing us by an injunction, which was eventually deemed unlawful in the Auckland High Court.”
http://www.occupyaucklandvsaucklandcouncilappeal.org.nz/?p=113
“As one of the two successful Appellants in the Occupy Auckland vs Auckland Council Appeal – I am prepared to help challenge the ‘legality’ of Auckland Council’s proposed by-law, by raising this matter directly with Council.”
” I do hope that Auckland Council have not been taking legal advice from their General Counsel, Wendy Brandon, who, in my considered opinion, is unprofessional, incompetent and has proven to be a LIAR (over the amount of Auckland Council public monies that were spent on Occupy Auckland legal proceedings).”
http://www.occupyaucklandvsaucklandcouncilappeal.org.nz/?p=130
_______________________________________________________
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption / anti-privatisation’ campaigner
2013 Auckland mayoral candidate
Banned TED talk from 2012 (who knew there was such a thing? perhaps not published is more accurate):
Nick Hanauer “Rich people don’t create jobs”
Worth the five minute watch – if only to see the mix of responses in the audience afterwards….
Yeah they eventually unbanned it. Nick said in a later interview that his friend who is the head of TED was actually sympathetic to the message, but felt pressure from his elite peer group to suppress the talk.
Goodness me, who is this Nick chap. That is such a mumbling, stumbling, mumbo, jumbo geeky presentation. Let’s wait till Shearer starts his political campaigning with ‘Operation Stun and Awe’ and show how he will be far more articulate, fluent and persuasive.
Use Google – he does provoke discussion (or as you demonstrate: affronted indignation with no actual points) but he is firmly in top income bracket he speaks of, part owner of a venture capitalist group based in the Seattle area.
Also, what do you expect from a five minute presentation, especially one that is intended only to invite people to think differently, rather than provide a nuanced, and completely spun debate on the issue? Isn’t that the premise of TED talks?
Thanks for pointing out the clip, Molly. Much appreciated, truly. My comments at 12:13pm could have been clearer but then I may not be as practised as a certain political so-called leader with mumbling, stumbling, fumbling and bumbling.
Tried to search Hanauer on the TED site, and only came up with the comments regarding it’s non-posting. But found references that it had been published later on, although still can’t find it through the search engine, – there may be a direct link.
Did come across this reference to an email from Chris Anderson (TED) regarding the original choice not to publish on one of the YouTube posters –
” Published on May 2, 2013
A TED Talk on Income Inequality by Nick Hanauer…
Chris Anderson, director of TED, refuses to release the video of the talk on its website, saying that the message is overtly controversial and too partisan for broad consumption.
In an email sent to Hanauer and shared with Jim Tankersley at the National Journal, Anderson wrote:
“… even if the talk was rated a home run, we couldn’t release it, because it would be unquestionably regarded as out and out political. We’re in the middle of an election year in the US. Your argument comes down firmly on the side of one party. And you even reference that at the start of the talk. TED is nonpartisan and is fighting a constant battle with TEDx organizers to respect that principle….
“Nick, I personally share your disgust at the growth in inequality in the US, and would love to have found a way to give people a clearer mindset on the issue, without stoking a tedious partisan rehash of all the arguments we hear every day in the mainstream media.
“Alas, my judgment – and it is just a judgment, and that’s why my job title is ‘curator’ – is that publishing your talk would not meet that goal.””
The real big problem I have with that is that he subscribes to the ever increasing, and thus unsustainable, use of resources.
kweewee and kit.condom are birds of a feather.
they both think its ok to go through life taking what they want and to hell with anybody who gets in the way.
losers and counterparties are expected to just flake off and security at the door keeps them from becoming a nuisance
however in a democracy everybody has a say!
.condom thinks he can steal the intellectual property of anyone and escape to the south seas but they are gonna get him.
tough luck to both I say
Could Mecca’s Kaaba become a massive petri-dish for Mers
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10895122
already found to be residing in a bat population reservoir.
Good point,with filoviruses such as Ebola it is suspected that bats are a transient reservoir.
http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1002304
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/2012/04/01/another-bat-die-off-leads-to-discovery-of-first-european-ebola-virus-relative/
The Dark Night Rises.
Just when I thought I couldn’t like or respect shane jones less he says this shit,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10895113
What does that actually mean?
This is what gelding means
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelding
I may have it wrong but I cannot remember any proposal to castrate men. It may seem extreme but I really wish shane jones would politically fuck off forever.
he is embarrassment (but then, that’s Nu Zillund for ya). Give the fillies a run.
What it means is that Shane wants the country run by men who will put women in their place, by whatever means necessary. He really is in the wrong party*, but I tend to agree, it would be better if he just fucked off out of politics altogether.
*although it’s hard to see exactly what party he would fit in. Maybe he could start his own – the macho shithead party, except I think he would find that most of the members wouldn’t want a maaari for leader.
Jones continues his corporate behavioural ways as an MP.
Labour has picked some real lazy self serving troughers over the past 10 years, none more typical than Shane. The fishing industry I heard were happy to see the back of him, one nasty piece of work is Mr jones.
maybe geldings was the wrong term..I think he was talking of emasculation…..
He’s doing us all a favour in helping show just how out of touch Labour is.
Egypt:
Ultra-conservatives see an opening
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-egypt-nour-20130706,0,6204110.story?
‘historical, social and economic conditions (have) laid the groundwork for society to return to religion”- Geneive Abdo
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Egypt-s-revolution-betraye-by-Eric-Walberg-130705-644.html?
-Islamaphobes imperialist backed?
-a civil war like in Algeria, US supported secularists?
A need for Egypt to disconnect from the US- dominated world order (while their Navy requires the canal).
oh, forgot, Obama instructs a review of American aid to Egypt- The Spectator.
Venezuela and Nicaragua offer Snowden asylum
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-and-nicaragua-offer-asylum-to-nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-8691647.html
China- Russia Hold Largest Joint naval drills.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/china-russia-hold-largest-joint-naval-drills-19583632#.UdiMuzu1GR4
Climate Warming
http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/8878320/Last-decade-the-warmest
Accelerating.
“Accelerating.”
Nope.
… the largest change (or even second or third largest) change is not to the most recent decade. And, in fact, the largest observed decadal increase is actually from the average of 1987-1996 to the average of 1997-2006, at +0.24K.
… 2001-2010 is the warmest 10-year period in the instrumental record. This is evidence enough of a warmer climate, but NOT of an accelerated warming rate.
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2013/wmo-report/
A Long History of Untruthfulness by US Security Intelligence- Tim Weiner.
Here’s a hint Vodafone – if you put the link to the network status back on the front page of your website in an easy to find place, then when you have a network problem your call centre won’t get overloaded.
And btw, the word ‘communication’ in the term telecommunication actually means something. Look it up.
+1
Yes, I noticed there “network status” link became invisible a while back.
Was their a sonic boom in christchurch tonight?, people who live in
chch are saying their was a huge boom, but it wasnt lightening
or an earthquake?
How many people know what a medicine ball is?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10400939
P Lab explosion in chch, apprently.
now lightening. next it will be aliens.
HAARP.
Skynet temporal vortex.
Sideshow Bob.
Or that time traveller who went to mars with President Obama and then went to see Lincoln.
Oh well, that was fun, goodnight
???