Not good enough the ‘incentives’ to work, high inflation and no net tax cuts have had a predictable outcome, it seems.
Susie Harris-Wright and her five children spent a week living in darkness before a candle-sparked fire destroyed their rented home.
Her 10-year-old son, who would later save her life, went three days without a shower before Tuesday night’s blaze after she was unable to stretch the budget far enough to pay the power bill.
The Hamilton mum, who also cares for her 24-year-old nephew, works two part-time jobs – as a Red Badge security guard and a Novotel room maid – while studying to become an emergency medical technician.
The family spent that week scrambling: visiting friends, sneaking a shower and eating where and whenever they could. In the days before the fire, takeaways were the food of choice…. Ms Harris-Wright had visited the Dinsdale Winz branch office several times, trying to bring forward her appointment, which had been scheduled for Wednesday morning.
Personally I think it should be a scandal that someone in paid work should still have to go to WINZ for anything.
This article highlights the real costs that a crippling New Zealanders — rent and power bills. No point in having GST off fruit and veges or price controlled milks if you cannot afford the power to cook them with.
The sell down of our power companies, plus the changes to state housing, will only make things worse.
I wept when I read this. No surprise that we should come to this after 42years of neo liberal ideology (counting the years I spent under Thatcher when it was simply known as Thatcherism.) It was evil and cruel then, and changed a hard -fought -for better nation for the worse, and it is still doing its evil work in New Zealand in 2011.
Unfortunately it is aided in these times by John Key giving greed and avarice an acceptable ‘smiley’ face and a ‘positive’ spin.
How his followers love him as he spins his lies making it hunky dory and ‘respectable’ to be as selfish, thoughtless,ruthless and greedy as him. He makes them as fit for hell as himself and his party. Good job Key doesn’t believe in an afterlife , or maybe it isn’t, he might behave better towards his country and fellow citizen if he believed something nasty awaited him for his (and nacts) appalling actions and deceptions.
Apologies for the apparent emotion, but this story was too much, and I know there are hundreds more out there. Oh dear.
NO apology needed. I felt exactly the same when I read this. It was made worse by the reporter’s sly suggestion that some of the blame for this should have been placed on this poor woman “they began using tealight candles despite knowing it was dangerous”. In situations such as this sometimes risks have to be taken – through no fault of their own. No wonder many people just give up – worn out and beaten down by circumstance and callousness.
I wonder how many people know that WINZ have to see you for a food grant on the day you turn up. Sure, you might have to wait a bit, but they can’t send you away with an appointment time (though they will try to).
So, best to pay a portion of the necessary bill and apply for a food grant instead.
Meanwhile. I’m guessing she wouldn’t have had house and content insurance. And it won’t be the first time a landlord has ‘whacked’ a tennant for the replacement value of a house following a fire.
“No wonder many people just give up – worn out and beaten down by circumstance and callousness.”
Exactly Rosy. I so admire this woman that she is still trying, but I can only imagine her exhaustion. How dare others on this planet ignore such suffering, including the thoughtless reporter and the insensitive and ghoulish WINZ.
Reading the article it sounds as if her last month’s power bill was $730 and the current one was $900. That is such a hefty sum to find.
Waikato can be cold and damp but perhaps there needs to be workshops for beneficiaries about using power affordably. It is so easy to turn on the heater, have long hot showers, but those two things mount up to a huge bill if not controlled. I wonder if they have a heat pump. Those things should have a meter box in them so they either stop or you turn down the thermostat to avoid being billed for unnecessary heating if they are going all the time.
How can she do all these things and remain sane? She should be able to draw a benefit for her maternal and family care while she studies for her qualifications.
“perhaps there needs to be workshops for beneficiaries”
Except that she works two jobs and is in training, as well as caring for family. Where would she find the time? Perhaps her children should attend?
I agree with Millsy – this is a scandal. People shouldn’t have to make such choices in a rich country – and NZ is a rich country. Added to that she is in group that will be damned by others whatever she does (take your pick – Maori, solo mother, or the area she lives). I can’t imagine how hard it is for her to keep going.
Unfortunately Their reception at WINZ is the usual now a days, their staff have been gutted to bugger all they are over worked, underpaid, stressed to the max, and then they have US the beneficiary already stressed out due to circumstances beyond our control and this is the out come, or as I saw one day in a winz office a particularly rude and unhelpful staff member was ‘punched out’ . And I noticed here in Levin that one or two of the more ‘unhelpful’ staff members has disappeared and upon querying as to whether or not he’s been given the boot found out that he has been sent to CHCH. Now if all winz offices have done the same and sent the ‘worst’ of their staff to sort out CHCH I really do pity them. Puddin Bennett and co have got a lot to answer for.
Such an effective article against fracking, I had to check I really was reading the Herald.
Interesting that she challenges the astroturfers, and asks that commenters front-up with their real identities.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10743290
AN interesting timeline between request from Cameron Slater and the SIS meeting with Goff. The day after the supposed meeting with Goff and Slater is requesting the exact documents.
Suspicions of a setup anyone?
An excellent article in todays Herald .Well worth reading. Sorry, don’t know how to direct link.
It shouldn’t be just the rich getting rich getting richer
By Brian Gaynor
5:30 AM Saturday Aug 6, 2011
He summarises with
‘A large number of government policies, including capital gains taxes, death duties, income tax, superannuation policies and government income transfers, play big roles as far as wealth and income inequality are concerned.’
If the National Business Review’s Rich List figures are accurate then there has been a dramatic concentration of wealth at the top end since the 1980s.
The increase in income inequality has been checked in recent years only through the introduction of Working for Families and lower investment returns for the wealthy.
There seem to be inconsistencies regarding the latter point as the National Business Review reports that its Rich List group is doing very well, yet the ministry argues that income inequality is contracting because the wealthy are experiencing low investment returns.
The most appropriate way to solve the wealth and income inequality problem is to find ways to raise the wealth and income of all New Zealanders.
This should be one of the main issues for debate in the upcoming general election campaign’.
“The increase in income inequality has been checked in recent years only through the introduction of Working for Families and lower investment returns for the wealthy.” And now the screams of the ‘wealthy’ saying that WFF should be stopped. And all regulation to them getting richer, should be removed. And if this bunch of thieves get back into power just watch them do just what the rich want.
Reading Armstrong in granny you’d think the sky had fallen simply because labour was doing it’s job opposing rabid roy’s bill…….blatant one eyed reporting. This guys meant to be an experienced political reporter, what a fn joke.
I think Armstrong makes fair comments that are fairly plain outside devout the Labour circle. Labour have blocked all private members bills this year, that’s a terrible way to abuse democracy, in this case the only (outside) chance non government MPs have of getting anything through parliament.
Anyone doing so would have witnessed a spectacle which would immediately have brought several words to mind – words such as pitiful, pathetic, embarrassing and disgraceful.
It is a further black mark on Labour that not only has an innocent third party been caught in the crossfire, but the presence of the Royal Society’s measure on the order paper has been exploited for purely political motives.
And not only Labour.
The Greens should likewise hold their heads in shame over being party to Labour’s shoddy behaviour. They put much stock in parliamentary probity.
Selfish, desperate and petty party politics shits on our democracy.
Reading Armstrong’s column one would wonder if he has ever seen Parliament before, let alone being one of the Herald’s senior political journalists who has made a career out of watching it.
It is a petty, stupid farce on the best of days. And that applies to all parties, usually excepting the Greens and the Maori Party.
John does a nice line in outraged on this one, getting his knickers in a real knot over something that is no more and no less abuse of Parliament than National’s overuse of urgency or Gerry Brownlee’s flat refusal to even stand up and answer a question during Question Time.
Perhaps John just found himself with nothing to write about this week, given that Audrey Young was writing the piece about Goff and the SIS.
oh Pete SS George, you really do try and spin. But what about the bloody NACTS abusing the parliamentary process through the use of urgency, to ram their bullshit policies through without debate??? Oh or is that ok?
When John Armstrong starts describing Labour’s antics as pitiful, pathetic, embarrassing and disgraceful, deemeaning itself and the institution of parliament, you know the sky really is falling.
What a sea-change for a once respectable political party!
No mention of the NACTs constant abuse of process and urgency to stuff NZ as far as possible, in case they lose the election and cannot get their, so called, mandate for burglery.
Seem to remember Nat’s fillibusters on occasions.
If Labour are doing their job they should not allow any more NACT policy to get through until after the election.
Mind you, if politicians were really representing us, they would be legislating for democracy.
The problem that Armstrong misses is that this is a private member’s bill in name only. It is in fact a government bill. They have just allowed a minor partner to run it so that they won’t lose any popularity of it. If it was a private members bill it would be a conscience vote and not a whipped vote.
you avoid the whole thrust of Armstrong’s article – it’s not about the filibustering process. It’s about the shameful behaviour of Labour’s MPs after they got caught out.
Eric Roy’s authority as the Chairman of the Committee of the House was constantly being questioned and challenged.
Labour made repeated demands that Speaker Lockwood Smith be recalled to the chamber to rule on decisions made by Roy.
For the best part of an hour, Labour MPs raised timewasting points of order and forced a series of pointless votes to try to stop debate.
Trevor Mallard was ordered to leave the chamber but did not…
As Armstrong said: A clear line can be drawn between trying to delay a measure’s progress through Parliament by filibuster and trying to find and exploit gaps, loopholes and apparent anomalies in Parliament’s rules to subvert the will of the majority. Labour crossed that line.
Worth a read.
Last Para
I’d like to visit Arab countries one day. I’d like to trust this Government to protect the integrity of my passport. But I don’t.
On the open mike post of the 3th of August I started a thread about the new video of the Architects and Engineers for 911 truth.
Two questions were posted and I promised to respond so here it is:
If they wanted to attack Iraq then why didn’t they do so instead of planning this highly risky (in case of being found out) attack?
The issue of course is much more complex then that. First of all they did not want to attack just Iraq but to have an enemy they could call upon whenever the reached the next stage of gaining dominance in another one of the most oil rich areas on the planet the Caspian basin and the south Mediterranean countries. One book that is very enlightening is the “Grand Chess board” written by Zbignew Brezinski and I greatly advise those of you interested and inclined to read rather than watch to go out get the book and read it.
For those of you who like to watch videos here is the link to a presentation of Michael Ruppert.
Michael Ruppert is an ex Los Angeles cop who broke the CIA drug dealing scandal and who presents the case for 911 and what motivated the perpetrators to plan and execute 911. THis presentation is a couple of years old and at the time Michael still adhered to the LIHOP (Let it happen on purpose) scenario but he has since deserted that for the MIHOP (Make it happen on purpose) scenario.
The presentation is a whopping 2.5 hours but he is a very entertaining intelligent raconteur and the connections he makes with the finance world, their drug dealing and robber baron empire building methods are very well supported with evidence and very compelling as presents the evidence as he would do to a prosecutor to make his case in a crime.
It pays to remember that John Key at the years leading up to 911 was at the peak of his game and that Merrill Lynch was too. They were involved in most of the financial scandals he mentions in the years leading up to 911 and while that does not mean that John Key was necessarily involved in these scandals he did earn his name of the “Smiling Assassin” when he fired many of his colleagues in the aftermath of the collapse of one of the biggest hedge funds LTCM in which Merrill Lynch lost billions of dollars. So to think that John Key was an innocent dolphin swimming with sharks is naive to say the least.
The other issue was the free fall speed of WTC 7 and I found two videos back of two scientists David Chandler and prof. Jones who confronted NIST in the peer to peer review stage of the WTC 7 investigation which took 7 years to complete and they forced NIST to admit that during 2.5 sec (or thereabouts) the building did indeed come down in freefall speed which begs the question. How did the material of at least 8 floors disappear into nothing to allow for the building to come down in freefall speed.
There is only one answer to that question. Explosives were used to bring it down!!
Do you really think the US government and intelligence services have the competence and ability to organise such a complex conspiracy. And keep it secret.
The engineering behind what happened and how the twin towers collapsed is easily understood.
We were talking about WTC 7, the third building that collapsed on that day but for your information steel framed buildings do not collapse due to a carbon fire. Not even with planes hitting them.
Conspiracy theorists like to say “no other steel framed building has ever fallen down from a fire, some of which have raged for much longer than the twin towers did”.
How many other steel framed buildings, of that height, have had two planes flown into them deliberately?
Only two but the third building is what we are talking about. And about the theorist part: Buildings do not collapse breaking all three laws of motion. Impossible. So what we want is a new investigation. Has nothing to do with theory.
Engineers cannot be 100% certain exactly what was going on inside the building at the time.
To more easily express it in terms of alternate universes, maybe there was only a 1 in 1,000,000 combination of factors that lead to the building collapsing in the way it did. We happen to be in that universe. In all of the other universes where it didn’t collapse, or collapsed in a different fashion, there is no conspiracy theory. But we happen to live in this one.
Just because something is very very unlikely to happen, when it does happen that doesn’t mean there must have been some other factor that caused it.
LOL,
That is idiotic L. even by your standards. You are willing to accept a 1,000,000 factors just so long as they are different from the one obvious one: 19 Arabs had no access to WTC 7 and the only building to collapse in a controlled demolition fashion did so because a 1,000,000 factors other the OCT “conspired” to do so!!!
Here are 1500 Engineers and Architects who have an issue with that!
Oh, and by the way Fukushima is still killing and we are still importing foodstuffs from Japan!!! I hope like hell it isn’t beef.
Once again, you’re simply saying that the collapse of the building was so unlikely for the given reasons, that it must have been something else that caused it.
Unlikely things happen all the time, like people winning lotto (or no one winning lotto for 16 weeks in a row so the jackpot gets to 30m), or hurricanes being set on a bullseye path towards New Orleans.
As I understand the NIST explanation the support for the building was compromised in the bottom half of the building. That is, there was no support holding the building up.
It is natural that it would free fall while there is nothing holding it up.
It falls in three phases. A slower initial phase as the support disappears, a free fall phase as that which is not supported falls, and a final slow phase as that which is falling starts to meet resistance from all the rubble.
On the motivations, you still haven’t adressed my point. If they were after a casus belli, then the AQ attacks provided it, and indeed, they went on to use the attacks in a clumsy fashion. Getting involved themselves in the way truthers allege would only add little at great risk.
The question is not ‘did neocons or whomever want an event that they could use to justify things they wanted to do’. The question is ‘why would they need to rig 3 buildings to blow up when AQ had already hijacked commercial airliners and flown them into buildings.’
As I said before, why launch the most risky and audacious false flag op in history, when a genuine flag is being waved in the form of the most audacious terror attack in history?
I’m not seeing what extra value was gained for the enormous risk to have been worth it. And I’m not seeing the ground work laid.
By that I mean that the propaganda efforts, both before and after the attack were clumsy. After the attack the propaganda worked long enough to get the job done, but if they were really in on it, it wouldn’t have been so clumsy. They would have already laid the groundwork so that people automatically thought ‘saddam’ when people heard ‘AQ’. As it turned out they had to go and try and create those links and work them into their previous narrative based on WMDs. They pulled it off, but it wasn’t as smooth as one would expect of people that had known what was going to happen.
PB,
I can see from the time it took you you basically responded based on your believes and you are entitled to them.
I just spend 2.5 hours watching the doco again and I suggest you do the same. Added to that I spend another hour watching both Chandler and Jones in their response to the NIST report and what they think about the “phase” hypothesis.
You on the other hand think that buildings of 47 floors collapsing into a pile of dust as the result of office fires within 5.7 seconds is reasonable which begs the question; do you still dare to go into steel framed high rises now that you know that simple office fires can bring them down into a pile of dust within 5.7 seconds?
So for now let’s agree to disagree and if and only if you are prepared like me to seriously study links I give you like I study yours I think I’m going to stop responding to you because it seems like a huge waste of time to me
It wasn’t a ‘simple office fire’. 25% of the structure over several floors had been scooped out by debris from WTC1. The fire burned, uncontrolled, for several hours.
As did the fire in this Madrid, Much hotter and much longer but no collapse of the steel frame. The WTC 7 walls did not even disappear and the damage to adjacent buildings was much more extensive but they did not collapse into a pile of dust in 5.7 seconds
What truthers don’t mention is that the Madrid building, or at least the section of it that didn’t collapse, was steel reinforced concrete. So not the same at all.
The top section, which didn’t have the concrete, did collapse.
All three fucking buildings were twice reinforced with fucking steel. The twin towers both on the inside and the outside and WTC throughout the whole fucking building. You fuckwit.
Please come up with any other instance of a steel framed building collapse due to fire.
We have been using steel framed buildings for more than half a century, and they have suffered many fires.
You should be able to point to some other building collapses due to fire, right?
travellerev is correct IMO. There is nothing to suggest that a steel framed building is more likely to collapse due to fire vs a building based on steel reinforced concrete. Or vice versa.
Its as irrelevant as saying that one had a sign hanging outside and the other didn’t, and that makes all the difference.
Please be aware the McCormick building collapse was a roof collapse. You can also see in photos on the net that large parts of the roof structure framework collapsed but remained intact.
That is, the steel structures were not disintegrated by the fire
Re: the Madrid fire, I can see references to parts of the building having come down, but that most of the structure stayed upright (not just the bottom half) and had to be deliberately demolished at the cost of millions of euros.
Engineering. Steel framed buildings fire resistance.
Of course a reinforced concrete building is less likely to collapse due to fire than a steel frame. Concrete does not weaken in the same heat range and insulates the steel reinforcing from heat.
“Under continuous loading, carbon steel is usually limited to a maximum temperature of 700F (370C). (3, 4) By the time steel reaches 930F (500C), it has lost about 30% of its tensile strength. Unprotected weathering steel loses about half of its tensile strength above 1000F (539C)”.
Average temperature in a house fire, WITHOUT JET FUEL ACCELERANT, 593 C (1100 degrees F) for 27 minutes. (Victoria University Engineering Dept. Fire resistance studies).
Saying that planes could not have bought the world trade centre down is nonsense.
Engineers who studied the construction afterwards concluded that, even though a plane crashing into the building was one of the design criteria, the buildings, as built, would not have been able to withstand a crash at the actual speed and size that occurred.
Don’t let facts get in the way of a good story though.
I also read a thing from about 2004 or so, linked from here, I think it was a popular mechanics website.
The article said that in W7 there was a fuel pump leading to the basement high up into the upper stories and that this likely continued to pump fuel into the fire for 5-6 hours after the debris first struck it.
I have no idea if that’s the case or not, but if it is, then it really wasn’t a “simple office fire”.
That could be because it was Benjamin Chertoff nephew of the Chertoff of NSA and x-ray airport machine infamy wrote the bloody articles. And he wrote a bunch of unsupported crap easily debunked.
Sure, a puddle of fuel in an open space may not get hot enough.
But in an enclosed space it’s possible the heat could have been amplified. Probably still not enough to melt steel, but I can imagine it could weaken it more than would be expected from flame in a pure pool.
I’m not claiming to be an expert or know more than the experts, but no one knows for 100% sure exactly what conditions inside the building were like during the whole drama.
Enclosed spaces have extraordinarily limited air supply – fires would have largely gone out. In the footage of the building you can see that the fires suffer from a lack of oxygen – they are not ‘bright’ or ‘raging’ or ‘inferno’-like. They are taking their sweet time, struggling along for air for a lot of it.
Blast furnaces are enclosed spaces that have air fed in at the bottom.
The heat in a blast furnace is much hotter than you can get from just a pile of burning material, and yet it still gets enough air to continue burning. In fact the act of combustion in a blast furnace helps to draw more air into the chamber.
Bringing up blast furnaces is simply to illustrate that the physical environment in which a fire is burning can greatly increase heat while not depriving it of oxygen.
Clearly an office building is not akin to a modern industrial blast furnace that uses pure oxygen force-fed into the fire. But the concept of a blast furnace has existed for several thousand years.
If a physical structure resembling a blast furnace exists, it doesn’t matter whether it was deliberately constructed by a man, or created by pure random chance of structural debris falling down in the right configuration.
Note I’m not suggesting it was a blast furnace, I’m just giving you an example of a physical structure that results in hotter than normal temperatures while also not exhausting it’s oxygen supply.
“Buildings are deliberately designed to do just the opposite: to impede feeding a fire.”
Buildings are also designed not to have huge chunks missing out of them due to planes crashing into them, too.
meh. When I think of a fire in a skyscraper, I can’t but notice liftshafts and emergency stairwells. Assuming all the doors are shut, cool, but if they were breached by debris or opened by people evacuating, there’s a pretty strong air feed.
Shoot – when I worked venue security and there were 2k people in an unventilated auditorium, we’d open the lower and upper level doors to cool the place down and the windspeed got very noticable.
So where are the cases of steel framed skyscraper collapses? 😈
Don’t forget with Deepwater that you had the small effect of massive oceanic tidal forces pushing the thing over, along with several large explosions, explosives onsite, and not just a simple fire 🙂
As I understand the NIST explanation the support for the building was compromised in the bottom half of the building. That is, there was no support holding the building up.
In that case, large areas of the top half of the building should have stayed largely structurally intact in big recognisable ‘blocks’ and floors as we saw with the CTV building collapse.
It didn’t. The building was pulverised into fine dust and small debris. How did that happen to the top half of the building from a structural failure in the bottom half of the building?
The question is ‘why would they need to rig 3 buildings to blow up when AQ had already hijacked commercial airliners and flown them into buildings.’
As I said before, why launch the most risky and audacious false flag op in history, when a genuine flag is being waved in the form of the most audacious terror attack in history?
Potential whys, off the top of my head in 20s: higher death toll, more psychological impact, deeper and longer lasting political reverberations, additional leverage with international allies, destruction of event evidence, destruction of other materials on sites, replacement insurance pay out,…
I’ve decided that labour have been defeated using a rope a dope tactic,
The Govt have let them flail away fillibusting all year to prevent the vsm in the knowledge that that they could use procedure to allow the vsm to pass before the end of the cycle, (which is what we saw the other day)
All this has prevented more important and perhaps popular labour members bills from been drawn from the ballott which I suspect was the end game,
I’d have to say labour have been out manouvered on this one, or am I barking up the wrong tree?
When the contract for VSM passing before the election was first launched, it was up around 60%. It stayed around 40% for quite a long time, all while Labour was successfully filibustering it.
On Wednesday morning the stock spiked up from 20% to 40%, before eventually spiking around 95% prior to 2pm when parliament actually sat.
Clearly there was insider trading on this past Wednesday. Those same insiders may have been pumping the stock back as early as when it was first launched.
I guess the iPredict admin could probably investigate this – if the accounts involved in the recent insider trading were also the accounts that held up the price when the contract first announced, it would point towards this being the plan all along. Of course you can also just say that when they first bought up the stocks there were just hopeful of the outcome or expecting the filibuster to fail and didn’t specifically know that it would be broken in the way that it was.
Being President of an association carries responsibilities. Acting (and posting) in a manner that reflects badly on the organisation can have consequences.
Not that I think such environments would be conducive to anything but extremophiles, on top of the little problem of “energy sources” required to keep cellular metabolism kicking over. This does however make terraforming possibly more viable 😛
New evidence from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft supports a long-held suspicion that much of the Red Planet’s atmosphere was simply blown away — by the solar wind.
To successfully terraform Mars you’d need to get a magnetosphere there and that’s looking problematical at best. My own guess is that you’d need to get Mars’ mass up to Earth standard or better.
Or you’d just keep replenishing the atmosphere with dirty snowballs as the rate of loss is so slow that it takes geological time frames to strip the atmosphere. Though the real problem is actually the lack of plate tectonics which in geological time frames stuffs up the carbon cycle slightly 😛
Along with genetically tweaking everything to put up with slightly higher background levels of radiation.
Of course the more current problems make it all a bit of a pipe dream at present…
Dude, the wavelengths for cellphone radio only interact very, very, very weakly with biological tissue. The sort I’m taking about is standard cosmic background xray and gamma (and beta) radiation kicked out from the sun’s nuclear fusion processes + extrasolar sources that the earth’s magnetosphere shields us partly from. Combined with a nice thick atmosphere of course.
With a bit of tweaking to up-regulate DNA repair or splicing in relevant enzymes from radiation tolerant organisms, it would lead to plants (or rather algae) capable of surviving on Mars after initial terraforming steps, such as thickening the atmosphere.
There have been some really good doco’s on sky, one I watched was about storms on earth and other planets A force 5 huricane is just a gentle breeze on Jupiter where they have a storm thats been raging for hundreds of years. Or the nice Methane rain on a moon or two
There’s been a lot written about the possibility that Israeli spies gained false New Zealand passports and whether Phil Goff was briefed on the situation by the head of the SIS, Warren Tucker…
@jackal 2.25pm
I agree with everything in your link,”Request Ignored by SIS” including the word ‘besmirch’ which I was using earlier in relation to this unsavoury situation. ‘Besmirching Phil Goff’ is just what the Nats under john key are trying to do via that misguided being Cameron Slater.
They used this tactic to bring down Winston Peters in 2008 and through him tried to get to Helen Clark. john key was aided and abetted in this by rodney hide and the msm,not to mention simon power later.
I know this because I recorded every TV news report/interview/newspaper clipping/utterance/ etc. that I could for 18 months so that I had proof of the manipulation that I could see unfolding before me.(I knew nothing of Winston P. at the time just noticed Guyon Espiner and Barry Soper doing an untruthful hit job when Peters was speaking with John McCain and followed it from there.)
Here we go again , I thought, as I watched this SIS story unfold and then read Andrea Vance, subtly tilting the story towards besmirching Goff and whitewashing her beloved key on Stuff today
However I have to say that key has not got hide (the arch besmircher) with him this time so I think he has had to use slater which might not be so successful. (Act are really good at defaming others in order to get into power. In fact in order to get into power I think they will stop at very little- quite ruthless.No wonder the trickle down effect from such people creates such a horrible horrible world to live in.)
I really hope the truth comes out and that key,his party and all who sail in her are shown up for who and what they really are- selfish, manipulating, power hungry, robbers of reputation and integrity (having none themselves) and worthless robber barrenz (cretainly not a government of any merit) of New Zealand.
PS also agree with logie97-“there are only two dots to join here …..”
I completely agree with your summation there seeker. It’s exactly the same tactics, which must have a compliant media that does not dig any deeper than a scratch on the surface. I’m optomistic this time re Phil Goff that there’s a stronger alternative media presence, the public is becoming more aware of such propaganda and that the perpetrators have overreached themselves. It would be good to see some documentation re the Peter’s besmirch, there’s at least a documentary to be made there. The part Owen Glenn played needs special attention.
Siege of Gaza has become a moral blockade of Israel
by YITZHAK LAOR Haaretz, July 5, 2011
Israel is indeed connected to the centers of power in the world. The predictions of a tsunami at present seem to be exaggerated, but nevertheless, before the victory ball, it is worth remembering – the Israeli occupation is the longest military occupation of modern times. The subjects of the occupation in its two forms – the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – live under a brutal regime that few other occupations allowed themselves, without any law – the blockade and the morbidity rate among children, the roadblocks and the arbitrariness of the soldiers, breaking in to people’s homes (imagine your children being awakened at night by the shouting of armed men, breaking down doors and blinding them with flashlights; imagine living without any protection ), the prolonged occupation, a disaster for us and for the Palestinians – because Israel enjoys the support of the West.
The settlements have turned the occupation into something insolvable, at least in the next few decades, so that the occupation will not merely raise another generation of Israeli troopers, egged on by the rabbis of the rabble, but also a third and fourth generation of Palestinians without another kind of life.
The fact that the Gaza Strip has become an international symbol of cruelty is yet further proof of the stupidity of our leaders. Operation Cast Lead and the blockade of Gaza – both of them with broad national consensus – have turned Gaza into a symbol that no longer needs coordination on the part of the Palestinians. Israeli democracy appears as it actually is: In the name of the majority (six million Jews ) it is permitted to do to the minority (five million, in Israel and the territories ) almost anything.
The national minority in Israel has the right to vote but it does not have television of its own ; it has health insurance but also heavy unemployment and infant mortality rates that are much higher than among the Jews (8.3 compared with 3.7 for every 1000 births ). Tel Aviv, which sells itself to the world as a liberal city, is the only metropolis in the West that does not have a Muslim population. Its “coolness” is racist – the 20 percent minority does not appear at all in the life of the city. And it is advisable for propagandists not to point to Jaffa as proof of diversity – Jaffa with its yuppie immigration is a perfect example of apartheid carried out by “secular” and “liberal” Tel Aviv.
Official propaganda, too, will not help. The more pressure Israel brings to bear on centers in the West – countries and media giants – the more the wave against it grows, because the hatred of the occupation and of Israeli racism springs from the knowledge that what Israel does is funded by the West, gets assistance from the West, and from connections with the focuses of power – as a living memorial to colonialism. There is nothing better than the way in which the Greeks thwarted the Gaza aid flotilla’s departure to reinforce this. It was not just Greece that thwarted it.
The coalitions that are being organized against Israel in the West include members of the left. There are also many others and not all of them are humanistic. They are not always Jew-lovers. These coalitions will continue to grow as long as the western political community presents itself as “helpless” in the face of Israeli obduracy. Of course it is not helpless, and when it has actual interests, it is capable of behaving in typically western barbaric fashion, as it is doing now in Libya and in Iraq.
The loathing of Israel fits in with the growing anti-establishment wrath, within the context of politics where there is no difference between the parties. The protests in Greece are an example of lack of faith of this kind, which does not spring from the Israeli occupation but from the powerlessness of the masses to influence what is taking place in their countries – economics and war.
Israel is merely one subject out of several that the political – or the apolitical – complaining is busy with. Very few people join flotillas, but many more participate in sending them and even more internalize their oppression. The complaining and mumbling is part of a burgeoning anti-establishment consensus. The record of what is always known as “the hypocritical politicians” has been joined by the hypocritical attitude toward Israeli cruelty.
It is not surprising therefore that the blockade of Gaza is getting tighter in the form of a moral blockade of Israel. Slowly but surely, in a world filled with injustice and war crimes and racism toward minorities and migrants, Israel has learned, during decades of stupidity, how to become the symbol of injustice and these crimes. We are no longer the embodiment of progress, as we were trumpeted as being for a long time, but the exact opposite. And this is truly just the beginning.
How do they print this in Israel and get away with it???
The same way that diligent and honest reporters like Seymour Hersh survive in the United States, and the likes of Gordon Campbell and Jon Stephenson survive in New Zealand—because the government simply ignores them as far as possible. No need to worry about intelligent and informed critics when you have a guaranteed faithful government mouthpiece like the Jerusalem Post—or the New York Post or the New Zealand Herald to support you no matter what crimes you commit, or what stupid and offensive statements you make after a massacre in Norway.
By the way, Haaretz is where you can read many other great Israeli writers, such as Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.
The Trident programme was excluded from the UK defence review while conventional forces were reduced and public austerity measures were implemented. Priorities like this do my head in.
But with today the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, that other image of destruction from Japan leaves many questioning why on Earth we would countenance building a new nuclear weapons capable of causing death and destruction thousands of times worse than the havoc wreaked by a natural disasters and the fall-out from Fukushima.
Given that we are lumbered with the “dirge” that is now our national song, it is interesting that the two most important words in the first verse are “the” and “of”.
Have a listen next time and it won’t matter if it is a highly trained opera singer or a wailing two bit celebrity they will emphasise those two words. Seems we will have to get the Minister of Education to order that the song be taught correctly at primary school. It’s going to be a long process.
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
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Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
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Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
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Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
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Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
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Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
The campaign will engage the community and encourage submissions on the bill to the New Zealand government by the closing submission deadline of Friday 31st of May 2024 4pm. ...
The paper raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand's political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency plays in that. ...
The Urban Habitat Collective was an attempt to built an innovative new form of apartment building in Wellington. Here’s why it failed, and why the idea could still work, writes co-founder Bronwen Newton. When we started the Urban Habitat Collective in November 2018, we thought we were starting a revolution, ...
Two decades ago this week, a controversial law that attempted to define ownership of the foreshore and seabed prompted a formidable display of outrage and kōtahitanga as 15,000 marched to parliament. Jamie Tahana looks back.‘Hīkoi, hīkoi,” they chanted by the thousands as the biggest Māori march in a generation ...
A Labour Party Member’s Bill aims to plug a culpability gap between manslaughter and health and safety breaches The post New push for corporate killing laws appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Terence O’Brien had the rare and no doubt undesired distinction of rising to one of the most exalted positions in New Zealand diplomacy, then being unceremoniously recalled to Wellington without explanation just when his career was at its zenith. What is perhaps more surprising is that he appears to have ...
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Why has New Zealand slipped from third to 12th on Quality of Death Indexes over the past decade or so? Hospice New Zealand Chief Executive Wayne Naylor has a list of reasons. “We don’t have a current national strategy – the Government hasn’t renewed our 2001 strategy, so we don’t ...
While women’s sport is exploding in Aotearoa and around the world, you still don’t hear a lot of talk about athletes and their periods, RED-S, breastfeeding and visible panty-lines. SASS (Suze and Sez Sports)Talk isn’t afraid to have that kōrero.LockerRoom founder Suzanne McFadden and Olympian broadcaster Sarah ...
On an unusually hot night in January 2019, a little boy’s lifeless body was found face up in a small town’s sewage oxidation pond. To the police, it was an open and shut case: three-year-old Lachlan Jones had run away from his home in the Southland town of Gore, climbed ...
Rongotai MP Julie Anne Genter has apologised in Parliament after National accused her of intimidating and attacking one of its ministers in the House. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Prime Minister and state and territory leaders met on Wednesday as the national cabinet to discuss a crisis gripping Australia – the horrific number of women murdered this year. The killings have shocked ...
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Sir Robert devoted his life to disability rights after living in institutions in his younger years, says Kaihautū Tika Hauātanga | Disability Rights Commissioner Prudence Walker. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University Violence against women is not a women’s problem to solve, it is a whole of society problem to solve; and men in particular have to take responsibility. Those were the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Allen, Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Newcastle Snapshot freddy/ShutterstockPlans to revive an old coal-fired power station using bioenergy are being considered in the Hunter region of New South Wales. Similar plans for the station ...
Responding to the long-awaited release of judges’ special allowances, including free air travel and hotels for spouses, generous sabbaticals, and access to limousines, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Alex Murphy said: “In what world does your employer ...
Analysis - The United States has unveiled plans to boost the weapons trade with Australia and the UK, on the same day that Winston Peters is expected to sketch NZ's position on AUKUS. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University Since Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum in October 2023, diverse commentaries have sought to explain why it failed. But what does an analysis of media ...
Lawyers representing two iwi as well as the Māori Women’s Welfare League on Wednesday asked the Court of Appeal to overturn last week’s High Court decision on the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision to summons Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Tribunal is currently investigating the Government’s decision to repeal section 7AA of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will introduce legislation to ban deepfake pornography and provide more funding for the eSafety Commission to pilot age-assurance technologies. The contribution of internet sites to gender-based violence was one major issue ...
Average ordinary time hourly earnings, as measured by the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES), increased 5.2 percent in the year to the March 2024 quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. Annual wage cost inflation, as measured by the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dimitrios Salampasis, FinTech Capability Lead | Senior Lecturer, Emerging Technologies and FinTech, Swinburne University of Technology Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash In the digital era, the job market is increasingly becoming a minefield – demanding and difficult to navigate. According to the Australian Bureau ...
As of the March 2024 quarter, we can now look back on 20 years of data related to youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET), as collected by the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), according to figures released by Stats NZ today. "The ...
Thousands of workers attended public events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch today to celebrate International Workers’ Day (May Day), but union representatives are urging caution and vigilance over the Government’s blatantly "anti-worker" ...
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in the March 2024 quarter, compared with 4.0 percent in the previous quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
The PSA is warning the Government that the sensitive information of New Zealanders held by various agencies will fall into the wrong hands if the latest round of proposed cuts goes ahead. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karinna Saxby, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne MART PRODUCTION/Pexels Increasing income support could help keep women and children safe according to new work demonstrating strong links between financial insecurity and domestic violence. ...
ANALYSIS:By Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity. The battle of Gallipoli against ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University The telecommunications industry faces a major shakeup following the release of the post-incident report on last November’s 12-hour Optus outage. Telecommunications companies will have to share more information with customers during future ...
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NZCTU Economist Craig Renney said new data released by Statistics New Zealand shows the need for Government to act now, with unemployment rising from 3.4% to 4.3%. ...
The outpouring of anger over Maiki Sherman’s hyperbolic presentation of this week’s ‘nightmare’ poll is itself an overreaction, argues Stewart Sowman-Lund. Politicians love nothing more than to pretend they don’t care about polls. This week, deputy prime minister Winston Peters said he didn’t give a “rat’s derriere” about a TVNZ ...
Asia Pacific Report Ngāti Kahungunu in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay region has become the first indigenous Māori iwi (tribe) to sign a resolution calling for a “ceasefire in Palestine”, reports Te Ao Māori News. Reporter Te Aniwaniwa Paterson talked to Te Otāne Huata, who has been organising peace rallies ...
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By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Former opposition leader Matthew Wale has been announced as the second prime ministerial candidate ahead of the election in Solomon Islands tomorrow. He will face off against former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele, who was announced by the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation ...
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A Koi Tū discussion paper released today proposes sweeping changes to New Zealand’s media industry. The principal’s key author, Gavin Ellis, explains how journalists have a key role to play in making others value their role in society. This is an abridged version of a piece first published on knightlyviews.com ...
The Government’s spending cuts are again targeting support for Māori with proposed reform of the agency charged with advising on Māori wellbeing and development. ...
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Not good enough the ‘incentives’ to work, high inflation and no net tax cuts have had a predictable outcome, it seems.
Personally I think it should be a scandal that someone in paid work should still have to go to WINZ for anything.
This article highlights the real costs that a crippling New Zealanders — rent and power bills. No point in having GST off fruit and veges or price controlled milks if you cannot afford the power to cook them with.
The sell down of our power companies, plus the changes to state housing, will only make things worse.
I wept when I read this. No surprise that we should come to this after 42years of neo liberal ideology (counting the years I spent under Thatcher when it was simply known as Thatcherism.) It was evil and cruel then, and changed a hard -fought -for better nation for the worse, and it is still doing its evil work in New Zealand in 2011.
Unfortunately it is aided in these times by John Key giving greed and avarice an acceptable ‘smiley’ face and a ‘positive’ spin.
How his followers love him as he spins his lies making it hunky dory and ‘respectable’ to be as selfish, thoughtless,ruthless and greedy as him. He makes them as fit for hell as himself and his party. Good job Key doesn’t believe in an afterlife , or maybe it isn’t, he might behave better towards his country and fellow citizen if he believed something nasty awaited him for his (and nacts) appalling actions and deceptions.
Apologies for the apparent emotion, but this story was too much, and I know there are hundreds more out there. Oh dear.
NO apology needed. I felt exactly the same when I read this. It was made worse by the reporter’s sly suggestion that some of the blame for this should have been placed on this poor woman “they began using tealight candles despite knowing it was dangerous”. In situations such as this sometimes risks have to be taken – through no fault of their own. No wonder many people just give up – worn out and beaten down by circumstance and callousness.
I wonder how many people know that WINZ have to see you for a food grant on the day you turn up. Sure, you might have to wait a bit, but they can’t send you away with an appointment time (though they will try to).
So, best to pay a portion of the necessary bill and apply for a food grant instead.
Meanwhile. I’m guessing she wouldn’t have had house and content insurance. And it won’t be the first time a landlord has ‘whacked’ a tennant for the replacement value of a house following a fire.
I didn’t know that! It’s useful information.. Meanwhile, that poor woman! How terrible for her… 🙁
“No wonder many people just give up – worn out and beaten down by circumstance and callousness.”
Exactly Rosy. I so admire this woman that she is still trying, but I can only imagine her exhaustion. How dare others on this planet ignore such suffering, including the thoughtless reporter and the insensitive and ghoulish WINZ.
Reading the article it sounds as if her last month’s power bill was $730 and the current one was $900. That is such a hefty sum to find.
Waikato can be cold and damp but perhaps there needs to be workshops for beneficiaries about using power affordably. It is so easy to turn on the heater, have long hot showers, but those two things mount up to a huge bill if not controlled. I wonder if they have a heat pump. Those things should have a meter box in them so they either stop or you turn down the thermostat to avoid being billed for unnecessary heating if they are going all the time.
How can she do all these things and remain sane? She should be able to draw a benefit for her maternal and family care while she studies for her qualifications.
Having a power bill that high is usually down to having a faulty hot water cylinder.
“perhaps there needs to be workshops for beneficiaries”
Except that she works two jobs and is in training, as well as caring for family. Where would she find the time? Perhaps her children should attend?
I agree with Millsy – this is a scandal. People shouldn’t have to make such choices in a rich country – and NZ is a rich country. Added to that she is in group that will be damned by others whatever she does (take your pick – Maori, solo mother, or the area she lives). I can’t imagine how hard it is for her to keep going.
Unfortunately Their reception at WINZ is the usual now a days, their staff have been gutted to bugger all they are over worked, underpaid, stressed to the max, and then they have US the beneficiary already stressed out due to circumstances beyond our control and this is the out come, or as I saw one day in a winz office a particularly rude and unhelpful staff member was ‘punched out’ . And I noticed here in Levin that one or two of the more ‘unhelpful’ staff members has disappeared and upon querying as to whether or not he’s been given the boot found out that he has been sent to CHCH. Now if all winz offices have done the same and sent the ‘worst’ of their staff to sort out CHCH I really do pity them. Puddin Bennett and co have got a lot to answer for.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10742995
Such an effective article against fracking, I had to check I really was reading the Herald.
Interesting that she challenges the astroturfers, and asks that commenters front-up with their real identities.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10743290
AN interesting timeline between request from Cameron Slater and the SIS meeting with Goff. The day after the supposed meeting with Goff and Slater is requesting the exact documents.
Suspicions of a setup anyone?
No set-up just a huge goof by Mr Goff.
An excellent article in todays Herald .Well worth reading. Sorry, don’t know how to direct link.
It shouldn’t be just the rich getting rich getting richer
By Brian Gaynor
5:30 AM Saturday Aug 6, 2011
He summarises with
‘A large number of government policies, including capital gains taxes, death duties, income tax, superannuation policies and government income transfers, play big roles as far as wealth and income inequality are concerned.’
If the National Business Review’s Rich List figures are accurate then there has been a dramatic concentration of wealth at the top end since the 1980s.
The increase in income inequality has been checked in recent years only through the introduction of Working for Families and lower investment returns for the wealthy.
There seem to be inconsistencies regarding the latter point as the National Business Review reports that its Rich List group is doing very well, yet the ministry argues that income inequality is contracting because the wealthy are experiencing low investment returns.
The most appropriate way to solve the wealth and income inequality problem is to find ways to raise the wealth and income of all New Zealanders.
This should be one of the main issues for debate in the upcoming general election campaign’.
Actually this is it
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10743233
I’ve learnt something new!
“The increase in income inequality has been checked in recent years only through the introduction of Working for Families and lower investment returns for the wealthy.” And now the screams of the ‘wealthy’ saying that WFF should be stopped. And all regulation to them getting richer, should be removed. And if this bunch of thieves get back into power just watch them do just what the rich want.
How about that capitalism eh! Is it working for you?
Reading Armstrong in granny you’d think the sky had fallen simply because labour was doing it’s job opposing rabid roy’s bill…….blatant one eyed reporting. This guys meant to be an experienced political reporter, what a fn joke.
I think Armstrong makes fair comments that are fairly plain outside devout the Labour circle. Labour have blocked all private members bills this year, that’s a terrible way to abuse democracy, in this case the only (outside) chance non government MPs have of getting anything through parliament.
And not only Labour.
Selfish, desperate and petty party politics shits on our democracy.
Reading Armstrong’s column one would wonder if he has ever seen Parliament before, let alone being one of the Herald’s senior political journalists who has made a career out of watching it.
It is a petty, stupid farce on the best of days. And that applies to all parties, usually excepting the Greens and the Maori Party.
John does a nice line in outraged on this one, getting his knickers in a real knot over something that is no more and no less abuse of Parliament than National’s overuse of urgency or Gerry Brownlee’s flat refusal to even stand up and answer a question during Question Time.
Perhaps John just found himself with nothing to write about this week, given that Audrey Young was writing the piece about Goff and the SIS.
oh Pete SS George, you really do try and spin. But what about the bloody NACTS abusing the parliamentary process through the use of urgency, to ram their bullshit policies through without debate??? Oh or is that ok?
When John Armstrong starts describing Labour’s antics as pitiful, pathetic, embarrassing and disgraceful, deemeaning itself and the institution of parliament, you know the sky really is falling.
What a sea-change for a once respectable political party!
No mention of the NACTs constant abuse of process and urgency to stuff NZ as far as possible, in case they lose the election and cannot get their, so called, mandate for burglery.
Seem to remember Nat’s fillibusters on occasions.
If Labour are doing their job they should not allow any more NACT policy to get through until after the election.
Mind you, if politicians were really representing us, they would be legislating for democracy.
The problem that Armstrong misses is that this is a private member’s bill in name only. It is in fact a government bill. They have just allowed a minor partner to run it so that they won’t lose any popularity of it. If it was a private members bill it would be a conscience vote and not a whipped vote.
Armstrong’s reporting is the disgrace here.
@KJT,
you avoid the whole thrust of Armstrong’s article – it’s not about the filibustering process. It’s about the shameful behaviour of Labour’s MPs after they got caught out.
Eric Roy’s authority as the Chairman of the Committee of the House was constantly being questioned and challenged.
Labour made repeated demands that Speaker Lockwood Smith be recalled to the chamber to rule on decisions made by Roy.
For the best part of an hour, Labour MPs raised timewasting points of order and forced a series of pointless votes to try to stop debate.
Trevor Mallard was ordered to leave the chamber but did not…
As Armstrong said: A clear line can be drawn between trying to delay a measure’s progress through Parliament by filibuster and trying to find and exploit gaps, loopholes and apparent anomalies in Parliament’s rules to subvert the will of the majority. Labour crossed that line.
Labour is, finally, doing their job. Trying to stop a bill that overrides the democratic decision of the students involved. People Labour represent.
National is not doing their job, which is to work in the best interests of the people they represent.
All, the nit picking and crap ignores the real story.
We are being betrayed by NACT. Who are heading us in the same direction as the USA.
John Roughan in Herald
Would Key Expose Israeli spies?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10743239
Worth a read.
Last Para
I’d like to visit Arab countries one day. I’d like to trust this Government to protect the integrity of my passport. But I don’t.
Yes, a thoughtful and worthy analysis of the situation.
On the open mike post of the 3th of August I started a thread about the new video of the Architects and Engineers for 911 truth.
Two questions were posted and I promised to respond so here it is:
If they wanted to attack Iraq then why didn’t they do so instead of planning this highly risky (in case of being found out) attack?
The issue of course is much more complex then that. First of all they did not want to attack just Iraq but to have an enemy they could call upon whenever the reached the next stage of gaining dominance in another one of the most oil rich areas on the planet the Caspian basin and the south Mediterranean countries. One book that is very enlightening is the “Grand Chess board” written by Zbignew Brezinski and I greatly advise those of you interested and inclined to read rather than watch to go out get the book and read it.
For those of you who like to watch videos here is the link to a presentation of Michael Ruppert.
Michael Ruppert is an ex Los Angeles cop who broke the CIA drug dealing scandal and who presents the case for 911 and what motivated the perpetrators to plan and execute 911. THis presentation is a couple of years old and at the time Michael still adhered to the LIHOP (Let it happen on purpose) scenario but he has since deserted that for the MIHOP (Make it happen on purpose) scenario.
The presentation is a whopping 2.5 hours but he is a very entertaining intelligent raconteur and the connections he makes with the finance world, their drug dealing and robber baron empire building methods are very well supported with evidence and very compelling as presents the evidence as he would do to a prosecutor to make his case in a crime.
It pays to remember that John Key at the years leading up to 911 was at the peak of his game and that Merrill Lynch was too. They were involved in most of the financial scandals he mentions in the years leading up to 911 and while that does not mean that John Key was necessarily involved in these scandals he did earn his name of the “Smiling Assassin” when he fired many of his colleagues in the aftermath of the collapse of one of the biggest hedge funds LTCM in which Merrill Lynch lost billions of dollars. So to think that John Key was an innocent dolphin swimming with sharks is naive to say the least.
The other issue was the free fall speed of WTC 7 and I found two videos back of two scientists David Chandler and prof. Jones who confronted NIST in the peer to peer review stage of the WTC 7 investigation which took 7 years to complete and they forced NIST to admit that during 2.5 sec (or thereabouts) the building did indeed come down in freefall speed which begs the question. How did the material of at least 8 floors disappear into nothing to allow for the building to come down in freefall speed.
There is only one answer to that question. Explosives were used to bring it down!!
Do you really think the US government and intelligence services have the competence and ability to organise such a complex conspiracy. And keep it secret.
The engineering behind what happened and how the twin towers collapsed is easily understood.
It was due to a plane hitting them.
We were talking about WTC 7, the third building that collapsed on that day but for your information steel framed buildings do not collapse due to a carbon fire. Not even with planes hitting them.
Conspiracy theorists like to say “no other steel framed building has ever fallen down from a fire, some of which have raged for much longer than the twin towers did”.
How many other steel framed buildings, of that height, have had two planes flown into them deliberately?
Rare earth man,
Only two but the third building is what we are talking about. And about the theorist part: Buildings do not collapse breaking all three laws of motion. Impossible. So what we want is a new investigation. Has nothing to do with theory.
Engineers cannot be 100% certain exactly what was going on inside the building at the time.
To more easily express it in terms of alternate universes, maybe there was only a 1 in 1,000,000 combination of factors that lead to the building collapsing in the way it did. We happen to be in that universe. In all of the other universes where it didn’t collapse, or collapsed in a different fashion, there is no conspiracy theory. But we happen to live in this one.
Just because something is very very unlikely to happen, when it does happen that doesn’t mean there must have been some other factor that caused it.
LOL,
That is idiotic L. even by your standards. You are willing to accept a 1,000,000 factors just so long as they are different from the one obvious one: 19 Arabs had no access to WTC 7 and the only building to collapse in a controlled demolition fashion did so because a 1,000,000 factors other the OCT “conspired” to do so!!!
Here are 1500 Engineers and Architects who have an issue with that!
Oh, and by the way Fukushima is still killing and we are still importing foodstuffs from Japan!!! I hope like hell it isn’t beef.
Once again, you’re simply saying that the collapse of the building was so unlikely for the given reasons, that it must have been something else that caused it.
Unlikely things happen all the time, like people winning lotto (or no one winning lotto for 16 weeks in a row so the jackpot gets to 30m), or hurricanes being set on a bullseye path towards New Orleans.
About 1 guy winning 35 or more lotteries in one minute at the same time happened on that day. L, you fuckwit.
I’m going to have a Siesta so count me out for the rest of the afternoon. Jeez.
I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.
As I understand the NIST explanation the support for the building was compromised in the bottom half of the building. That is, there was no support holding the building up.
It is natural that it would free fall while there is nothing holding it up.
It falls in three phases. A slower initial phase as the support disappears, a free fall phase as that which is not supported falls, and a final slow phase as that which is falling starts to meet resistance from all the rubble.
On the motivations, you still haven’t adressed my point. If they were after a casus belli, then the AQ attacks provided it, and indeed, they went on to use the attacks in a clumsy fashion. Getting involved themselves in the way truthers allege would only add little at great risk.
The question is not ‘did neocons or whomever want an event that they could use to justify things they wanted to do’. The question is ‘why would they need to rig 3 buildings to blow up when AQ had already hijacked commercial airliners and flown them into buildings.’
As I said before, why launch the most risky and audacious false flag op in history, when a genuine flag is being waved in the form of the most audacious terror attack in history?
I’m not seeing what extra value was gained for the enormous risk to have been worth it. And I’m not seeing the ground work laid.
By that I mean that the propaganda efforts, both before and after the attack were clumsy. After the attack the propaganda worked long enough to get the job done, but if they were really in on it, it wouldn’t have been so clumsy. They would have already laid the groundwork so that people automatically thought ‘saddam’ when people heard ‘AQ’. As it turned out they had to go and try and create those links and work them into their previous narrative based on WMDs. They pulled it off, but it wasn’t as smooth as one would expect of people that had known what was going to happen.
PB,
I can see from the time it took you you basically responded based on your believes and you are entitled to them.
I just spend 2.5 hours watching the doco again and I suggest you do the same. Added to that I spend another hour watching both Chandler and Jones in their response to the NIST report and what they think about the “phase” hypothesis.
You on the other hand think that buildings of 47 floors collapsing into a pile of dust as the result of office fires within 5.7 seconds is reasonable which begs the question; do you still dare to go into steel framed high rises now that you know that simple office fires can bring them down into a pile of dust within 5.7 seconds?
So for now let’s agree to disagree and if and only if you are prepared like me to seriously study links I give you like I study yours I think I’m going to stop responding to you because it seems like a huge waste of time to me
It wasn’t a ‘simple office fire’. 25% of the structure over several floors had been scooped out by debris from WTC1. The fire burned, uncontrolled, for several hours.
As did the fire in this Madrid, Much hotter and much longer but no collapse of the steel frame. The WTC 7 walls did not even disappear and the damage to adjacent buildings was much more extensive but they did not collapse into a pile of dust in 5.7 seconds
Yes yes, Madrid is always dragged out.
What truthers don’t mention is that the Madrid building, or at least the section of it that didn’t collapse, was steel reinforced concrete. So not the same at all.
The top section, which didn’t have the concrete, did collapse.
plenty of related detail here:
http://www.debunking911.com/firsttime.htm
All three fucking buildings were twice reinforced with fucking steel. The twin towers both on the inside and the outside and WTC throughout the whole fucking building. You fuckwit.
Is fucking steel fucking concrete fucking fuckity fuckishy fuck fuck fuck?
You compare steel buildings to steel reinforced concrete buildings, and suggest they should act the same. Not my problem.
Please come up with any other instance of a steel framed building collapse due to fire.
We have been using steel framed buildings for more than half a century, and they have suffered many fires.
You should be able to point to some other building collapses due to fire, right?
travellerev is correct IMO. There is nothing to suggest that a steel framed building is more likely to collapse due to fire vs a building based on steel reinforced concrete. Or vice versa.
Its as irrelevant as saying that one had a sign hanging outside and the other didn’t, and that makes all the difference.
The McCormick Center in Chicago.
Sight and Sound Theater in Pennsylvania.
Steel framed buildings, caught fire, collapsed.
The Madrid building was steel framed. The bottom half was steel reinforced concrete. Top half collapsed, bottom half didn’t.
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/mccormick.html
Please be aware the McCormick building collapse was a roof collapse. You can also see in photos on the net that large parts of the roof structure framework collapsed but remained intact.
That is, the steel structures were not disintegrated by the fire
Re: the Madrid fire, I can see references to parts of the building having come down, but that most of the structure stayed upright (not just the bottom half) and had to be deliberately demolished at the cost of millions of euros.
But it remains, fires being hot enough to make the steel unable to bear the weight. That point is demonstrated.
Add to the fact that a skyscraper is one hell of a lot heavier than a roof…
Got seven in 10 seconds on Jstor..
Engineering. Steel framed buildings fire resistance.
Of course a reinforced concrete building is less likely to collapse due to fire than a steel frame. Concrete does not weaken in the same heat range and insulates the steel reinforcing from heat.
http://www.imoa.info/moly_uses/moly_grade_stainless_steels/architecture/fire_resistance.php
“Under continuous loading, carbon steel is usually limited to a maximum temperature of 700F (370C). (3, 4) By the time steel reaches 930F (500C), it has lost about 30% of its tensile strength. Unprotected weathering steel loses about half of its tensile strength above 1000F (539C)”.
Average temperature in a house fire, WITHOUT JET FUEL ACCELERANT, 593 C (1100 degrees F) for 27 minutes. (Victoria University Engineering Dept. Fire resistance studies).
Saying that planes could not have bought the world trade centre down is nonsense.
Engineers who studied the construction afterwards concluded that, even though a plane crashing into the building was one of the design criteria, the buildings, as built, would not have been able to withstand a crash at the actual speed and size that occurred.
Don’t let facts get in the way of a good story though.
I also read a thing from about 2004 or so, linked from here, I think it was a popular mechanics website.
The article said that in W7 there was a fuel pump leading to the basement high up into the upper stories and that this likely continued to pump fuel into the fire for 5-6 hours after the debris first struck it.
I have no idea if that’s the case or not, but if it is, then it really wasn’t a “simple office fire”.
NIST itself stated the fuel had no impact on the collapse and popular mechanics is the most shamed and debunked magazine for 911.
“popular mechanics is the most shamed and debunked magazine for 911.”
You mean the magazine that conspiracy theorists heap the most derision on.
That could be because it was Benjamin Chertoff nephew of the Chertoff of NSA and x-ray airport machine infamy wrote the bloody articles. And he wrote a bunch of unsupported crap easily debunked.
liquid fuels cannot burn hot enough in air to destroy steel structured frameworks.
Sure, a puddle of fuel in an open space may not get hot enough.
But in an enclosed space it’s possible the heat could have been amplified. Probably still not enough to melt steel, but I can imagine it could weaken it more than would be expected from flame in a pure pool.
I’m not claiming to be an expert or know more than the experts, but no one knows for 100% sure exactly what conditions inside the building were like during the whole drama.
Enclosed spaces have extraordinarily limited air supply – fires would have largely gone out. In the footage of the building you can see that the fires suffer from a lack of oxygen – they are not ‘bright’ or ‘raging’ or ‘inferno’-like. They are taking their sweet time, struggling along for air for a lot of it.
Blast furnaces are enclosed spaces that have air fed in at the bottom.
The heat in a blast furnace is much hotter than you can get from just a pile of burning material, and yet it still gets enough air to continue burning. In fact the act of combustion in a blast furnace helps to draw more air into the chamber.
yes, blast furnaces are often pressure fed with pure oxygen to smelt iron etc.
That does not happen in a skyscraper fire. Fire proof doors and walls prevent just that effect.
Try burning a newspaper inside a closed oven and see how well it goes.
Bringing up blast furnaces is simply to illustrate that the physical environment in which a fire is burning can greatly increase heat while not depriving it of oxygen.
Clearly an office building is not akin to a modern industrial blast furnace that uses pure oxygen force-fed into the fire. But the concept of a blast furnace has existed for several thousand years.
But Lanth, those kinds of environments typically have to be designed to feed oxygen to a fire.
Buildings are deliberately designed to do just the opposite: to impede feeding a fire.
If a physical structure resembling a blast furnace exists, it doesn’t matter whether it was deliberately constructed by a man, or created by pure random chance of structural debris falling down in the right configuration.
Note I’m not suggesting it was a blast furnace, I’m just giving you an example of a physical structure that results in hotter than normal temperatures while also not exhausting it’s oxygen supply.
“Buildings are deliberately designed to do just the opposite: to impede feeding a fire.”
Buildings are also designed not to have huge chunks missing out of them due to planes crashing into them, too.
The Twin Towers were built and designed to withstand a direct hit from a Boeing 707.
(But not WTC 7 of course).
meh. When I think of a fire in a skyscraper, I can’t but notice liftshafts and emergency stairwells. Assuming all the doors are shut, cool, but if they were breached by debris or opened by people evacuating, there’s a pretty strong air feed.
Shoot – when I worked venue security and there were 2k people in an unventilated auditorium, we’d open the lower and upper level doors to cool the place down and the windspeed got very noticable.
Yes they can and have.
Deepwater horizon for one!
Steel loses stiffness at well below melting point anyway.
Which is why wooden framed buildings can often hold up longer in a fire, than a similar steel structure.
True 🙂
So where are the cases of steel framed skyscraper collapses? 😈
Don’t forget with Deepwater that you had the small effect of massive oceanic tidal forces pushing the thing over, along with several large explosions, explosives onsite, and not just a simple fire 🙂
KJT,
ROFL
In that case, large areas of the top half of the building should have stayed largely structurally intact in big recognisable ‘blocks’ and floors as we saw with the CTV building collapse.
It didn’t. The building was pulverised into fine dust and small debris. How did that happen to the top half of the building from a structural failure in the bottom half of the building?
Potential whys, off the top of my head in 20s: higher death toll, more psychological impact, deeper and longer lasting political reverberations, additional leverage with international allies, destruction of event evidence, destruction of other materials on sites, replacement insurance pay out,…
Looks like aklanders might have themselves a waterfront.
http://eyeonauckland.com/2011/08/karanga-plaza/
Looks nice.
Wow. Having grown up in Auckland I’m quite shocked to see something good happen there.
Iceland Revolution Project – Interview with Birgitta Jónsdóttir
I’ve decided that labour have been defeated using a rope a dope tactic,
The Govt have let them flail away fillibusting all year to prevent the vsm in the knowledge that that they could use procedure to allow the vsm to pass before the end of the cycle, (which is what we saw the other day)
All this has prevented more important and perhaps popular labour members bills from been drawn from the ballott which I suspect was the end game,
I’d have to say labour have been out manouvered on this one, or am I barking up the wrong tree?
It’s hard to know if National and Act deliberately played this out or eventually got fed up and decided to deal with it.
In any case it certainly looks like Labour out maneuvered themselves and also out maneuvered sensible democratic process.
iPredict can perhaps lend a little insight here.
When the contract for VSM passing before the election was first launched, it was up around 60%. It stayed around 40% for quite a long time, all while Labour was successfully filibustering it.
On Wednesday morning the stock spiked up from 20% to 40%, before eventually spiking around 95% prior to 2pm when parliament actually sat.
Clearly there was insider trading on this past Wednesday. Those same insiders may have been pumping the stock back as early as when it was first launched.
I guess the iPredict admin could probably investigate this – if the accounts involved in the recent insider trading were also the accounts that held up the price when the contract first announced, it would point towards this being the plan all along. Of course you can also just say that when they first bought up the stocks there were just hopeful of the outcome or expecting the filibuster to fail and didn’t specifically know that it would be broken in the way that it was.
iPredict is not a fair and transparent market. Sorta like the NYSE.
Isn’t it just amusing when the supposed party of free speech whines about someone exercising it?
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/head-student-body-urged-resign-after-abuse-4340774
He should’ve told him to “get raped”, they’re ok with that.
ACT, failing at classical liberalism since 1994.
“Whining” is also a part of free speech.
Being President of an association carries responsibilities. Acting (and posting) in a manner that reflects badly on the organisation can have consequences.
Except of course the little fact that ACT pretty much treated Alistair Thompson’s comments entirely differently, despite his position /smug
And you’ve entirely missed the point too, but that’s completely unsurprising given your extensive prior history of moronic posts.
Well, if you’re right, Pete, then there’ll be an election in a couple of months anyway.
w00t:
http://tvnz.co.nz/technology-news/nasa-finds-fresh-proof-water-mars-4340213
Not that I think such environments would be conducive to anything but extremophiles, on top of the little problem of “energy sources” required to keep cellular metabolism kicking over. This does however make terraforming possibly more viable 😛
The Solar Wind at Mars
To successfully terraform Mars you’d need to get a magnetosphere there and that’s looking problematical at best. My own guess is that you’d need to get Mars’ mass up to Earth standard or better.
Or you’d just keep replenishing the atmosphere with dirty snowballs as the rate of loss is so slow that it takes geological time frames to strip the atmosphere. Though the real problem is actually the lack of plate tectonics which in geological time frames stuffs up the carbon cycle slightly 😛
Along with genetically tweaking everything to put up with slightly higher background levels of radiation.
Of course the more current problems make it all a bit of a pipe dream at present…
I’m pretty sure this is what cell phones are for.
Dude, the wavelengths for cellphone radio only interact very, very, very weakly with biological tissue. The sort I’m taking about is standard cosmic background xray and gamma (and beta) radiation kicked out from the sun’s nuclear fusion processes + extrasolar sources that the earth’s magnetosphere shields us partly from. Combined with a nice thick atmosphere of course.
With a bit of tweaking to up-regulate DNA repair or splicing in relevant enzymes from radiation tolerant organisms, it would lead to plants (or rather algae) capable of surviving on Mars after initial terraforming steps, such as thickening the atmosphere.
There have been some really good doco’s on sky, one I watched was about storms on earth and other planets A force 5 huricane is just a gentle breeze on Jupiter where they have a storm thats been raging for hundreds of years. Or the nice Methane rain on a moon or two
Nats did not have a mandate to raise GST, or change kiwisaver, predicated on raising savings!
What! People with savings had value wiped out by GST rise and changes to kiwisaver make it less advantageous!
yet the mainstream media love lying to us, or letting National talking heads lie to our face.
Request Ignored by SIS
There’s been a lot written about the possibility that Israeli spies gained false New Zealand passports and whether Phil Goff was briefed on the situation by the head of the SIS, Warren Tucker…
There are only two dots to join here – the cetacean and Joky Hen.
According to TVNZ news Goff’s explanation appears to be correct.
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/sis-boss-admits-no-record-goff-receiving-spy-briefing-4340822
Of course, all the RWNJ’s who have opined on The Standard over the last couple of days have suddenly gone silent.
@jackal 2.25pm
I agree with everything in your link,”Request Ignored by SIS” including the word ‘besmirch’ which I was using earlier in relation to this unsavoury situation. ‘Besmirching Phil Goff’ is just what the Nats under john key are trying to do via that misguided being Cameron Slater.
They used this tactic to bring down Winston Peters in 2008 and through him tried to get to Helen Clark. john key was aided and abetted in this by rodney hide and the msm,not to mention simon power later.
I know this because I recorded every TV news report/interview/newspaper clipping/utterance/ etc. that I could for 18 months so that I had proof of the manipulation that I could see unfolding before me.(I knew nothing of Winston P. at the time just noticed Guyon Espiner and Barry Soper doing an untruthful hit job when Peters was speaking with John McCain and followed it from there.)
Here we go again , I thought, as I watched this SIS story unfold and then read Andrea Vance, subtly tilting the story towards besmirching Goff and whitewashing her beloved key on Stuff today
However I have to say that key has not got hide (the arch besmircher) with him this time so I think he has had to use slater which might not be so successful. (Act are really good at defaming others in order to get into power. In fact in order to get into power I think they will stop at very little- quite ruthless.No wonder the trickle down effect from such people creates such a horrible horrible world to live in.)
I really hope the truth comes out and that key,his party and all who sail in her are shown up for who and what they really are- selfish, manipulating, power hungry, robbers of reputation and integrity (having none themselves) and worthless robber barrenz (cretainly not a government of any merit) of New Zealand.
PS also agree with logie97-“there are only two dots to join here …..”
I completely agree with your summation there seeker. It’s exactly the same tactics, which must have a compliant media that does not dig any deeper than a scratch on the surface. I’m optomistic this time re Phil Goff that there’s a stronger alternative media presence, the public is becoming more aware of such propaganda and that the perpetrators have overreached themselves. It would be good to see some documentation re the Peter’s besmirch, there’s at least a documentary to be made there. The part Owen Glenn played needs special attention.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/siege-of-gaza-has-become-a-moral-blockade-of-israel-1.371516
“Imagine Living Without Any Protection”
Siege of Gaza has become a moral blockade of Israel
by YITZHAK LAOR Haaretz, July 5, 2011
Israel is indeed connected to the centers of power in the world. The predictions of a tsunami at present seem to be exaggerated, but nevertheless, before the victory ball, it is worth remembering – the Israeli occupation is the longest military occupation of modern times. The subjects of the occupation in its two forms – the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – live under a brutal regime that few other occupations allowed themselves, without any law – the blockade and the morbidity rate among children, the roadblocks and the arbitrariness of the soldiers, breaking in to people’s homes (imagine your children being awakened at night by the shouting of armed men, breaking down doors and blinding them with flashlights; imagine living without any protection ), the prolonged occupation, a disaster for us and for the Palestinians – because Israel enjoys the support of the West.
The settlements have turned the occupation into something insolvable, at least in the next few decades, so that the occupation will not merely raise another generation of Israeli troopers, egged on by the rabbis of the rabble, but also a third and fourth generation of Palestinians without another kind of life.
The fact that the Gaza Strip has become an international symbol of cruelty is yet further proof of the stupidity of our leaders. Operation Cast Lead and the blockade of Gaza – both of them with broad national consensus – have turned Gaza into a symbol that no longer needs coordination on the part of the Palestinians. Israeli democracy appears as it actually is: In the name of the majority (six million Jews ) it is permitted to do to the minority (five million, in Israel and the territories ) almost anything.
The national minority in Israel has the right to vote but it does not have television of its own ; it has health insurance but also heavy unemployment and infant mortality rates that are much higher than among the Jews (8.3 compared with 3.7 for every 1000 births ). Tel Aviv, which sells itself to the world as a liberal city, is the only metropolis in the West that does not have a Muslim population. Its “coolness” is racist – the 20 percent minority does not appear at all in the life of the city. And it is advisable for propagandists not to point to Jaffa as proof of diversity – Jaffa with its yuppie immigration is a perfect example of apartheid carried out by “secular” and “liberal” Tel Aviv.
Official propaganda, too, will not help. The more pressure Israel brings to bear on centers in the West – countries and media giants – the more the wave against it grows, because the hatred of the occupation and of Israeli racism springs from the knowledge that what Israel does is funded by the West, gets assistance from the West, and from connections with the focuses of power – as a living memorial to colonialism. There is nothing better than the way in which the Greeks thwarted the Gaza aid flotilla’s departure to reinforce this. It was not just Greece that thwarted it.
The coalitions that are being organized against Israel in the West include members of the left. There are also many others and not all of them are humanistic. They are not always Jew-lovers. These coalitions will continue to grow as long as the western political community presents itself as “helpless” in the face of Israeli obduracy. Of course it is not helpless, and when it has actual interests, it is capable of behaving in typically western barbaric fashion, as it is doing now in Libya and in Iraq.
The loathing of Israel fits in with the growing anti-establishment wrath, within the context of politics where there is no difference between the parties. The protests in Greece are an example of lack of faith of this kind, which does not spring from the Israeli occupation but from the powerlessness of the masses to influence what is taking place in their countries – economics and war.
Israel is merely one subject out of several that the political – or the apolitical – complaining is busy with. Very few people join flotillas, but many more participate in sending them and even more internalize their oppression. The complaining and mumbling is part of a burgeoning anti-establishment consensus. The record of what is always known as “the hypocritical politicians” has been joined by the hypocritical attitude toward Israeli cruelty.
It is not surprising therefore that the blockade of Gaza is getting tighter in the form of a moral blockade of Israel. Slowly but surely, in a world filled with injustice and war crimes and racism toward minorities and migrants, Israel has learned, during decades of stupidity, how to become the symbol of injustice and these crimes. We are no longer the embodiment of progress, as we were trumpeted as being for a long time, but the exact opposite. And this is truly just the beginning.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/siege-of-gaza-has-become-a-moral-blockade-of-israel-1.371516
How do they print this in Israel and get away with it???
How do they print this in Israel and get away with it???
The same way that diligent and honest reporters like Seymour Hersh survive in the United States, and the likes of Gordon Campbell and Jon Stephenson survive in New Zealand—because the government simply ignores them as far as possible. No need to worry about intelligent and informed critics when you have a guaranteed faithful government mouthpiece like the Jerusalem Post—or the New York Post or the New Zealand Herald to support you no matter what crimes you commit, or what stupid and offensive statements you make after a massacre in Norway.
By the way, Haaretz is where you can read many other great Israeli writers, such as Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.
I/S tweets:
The Trident programme was excluded from the UK defence review while conventional forces were reduced and public austerity measures were implemented. Priorities like this do my head in.
Hiroshima Day, an apt time to question Trident
I remembered Hiroshima Day yesterday, how many others did? (I know you did Rosy)…
It still matters!
Given that we are lumbered with the “dirge” that is now our national song, it is interesting that the two most important words in the first verse are “the” and “of”.
Have a listen next time and it won’t matter if it is a highly trained opera singer or a wailing two bit celebrity they will emphasise those two words. Seems we will have to get the Minister of Education to order that the song be taught correctly at primary school. It’s going to be a long process.
… at thy feet,
in THE bonds OF love we meet.
😀