Hope Theo Speirings is having a little pause for thought about his strategy of following China’s great sucking engine to bulk and lower-end value products as our national basis for pastoral wealth.
It’s not very often I’d link to a Daily Mail article, but these pics of Gaza tell a story that show this devastation by the Israelis will echo for years in the Middle East – even if Israeli does meet its objective of clearing Gaza.
Thank you miravox. Those pictures illustrate what daily life must be like for Palestinians during this genocide.
The scale of horror and the depth of grief is hard enough for the world to comprehend and digest let alone imagine being Palestinian.
Everyone has probably seen this as it’s been floating around the net for days but I’ve only just heard this letter being read out on the 9am radio news in place of the usual news. The description of the treatment of Palestinians, adults and children by the settlers was particularly sobering:
The psychology of such a position must surely be studied and debated by those working in the field.
Psychology has it’s origins in some very talented Jewish people, the pioneers of the study of the mind in the late 19th century. Alfred Adler in particular stood out and took the concepts of Freud, refined them and whose theories contributed toward the evolution of psychotherapy.
The Adlerian approach looks at the individual in a holistic sense and considers social equality as a factor in their well being. I have been wondering lately what students and practitioners of the Adlerian movement (and other humanistic branches of psychology) would make of a culture giving life to their ancestral and collective rage, grief and oppression and turning an another culture, as undeserving of such cruelty as they were in the first place.
“I just cannot reconcile the psychology of a “race” who suffered from genocide permitting themselves the position of genocidal maniacs”
Need to separate-out (1) European Holocaust victims and (2) Zionists in Palestine. Their identity and interests are too often conflated.
I think the first thing to understand is that the Zionism on which Israel was established emerged from precisely the same deeply reactionary, anti-Enlightenment ideological mix (German/East European Romantic Nationalism and Imperialism) that so greatly inspired and animated the Nazis. ‘Blut und Bone’. Violent Ethnic-cleansing has always been implicit in that sort of extreme ethno-nationalist ideology where the emphasis is on membership of the prescribed ‘Race’ / ‘Blood’ / ‘Culture’ over universalist ideas of Equality and Citizenship. The aim was always to militarily carve-out an ethnically-pure (or failing that, overwhelmingly Jewish) ‘Greater Israel’ on Palestinian land (before Zionist colonisation got fully underway in the early 20C, Palestinian Arabs had comprised well over 90% of the population for more than 1300 years, with the tiny, indigenous Jewish community making up less than 5%. What’s more, that small indigenous Jewish community was overwhelmingly anti-Zionist and most of their descendants remain so. Important, I think, to remember that whenever you hear the line that this is some sort of ancient Arab-Jewish conflict that has gone on in Palestine for centuries. The kind of tosh that regularly emanates from the “pro”-Israel lobby).
It was, of course, a reaction to (at times, pretty vicious) anti-Semitism in Europe, the Baltic States and Russia, but the thing is Zionists completely accepted and internalised the deeply conservative ethno-nationalism underpinning that anti-Semitism, taking it as a prescription for a future Zionist state. If you look at early Zionist views of the Jewish community in Europe you’ll find they were remarkably similar to the vicious racial stereotypes of the more extreme 19C anti-semites (which were, of course, later adopted by the Nazis). The middle-class German Jews at the heart of the early Zionist movement entirely accepted all of those anti-Jewish stereotypes and argued that the way to change these alleged traits was to do for the Jews what the anti-Semitic ultra-conservative German Nationalists wanted to do for Germany – create an ethnically-homogenous homeland where they could create their conception of a new, self-respecting Jewish-Settler, plough in one hand, gun in the other, using force to carve-out this new ethnically-pure Eretz Israel.
On top of that, it pays to remember that the Israeli Right were openly fascist during the first half of the 20C. Jabotinsky’s Revisionist movement (from which Sharon and Netanyahu’s Likud Party emerged) greatly admired Mussolini and their Irgun and Stern gang terrorist groups of course included two future Israeli PMs. In the end, though, as far as attitudes to the colonisation of Palestine are concerned, they were little different in their ethos to Ben-Gurion’s Israeli Labour Party (and its precursors) and the mainstream Haganah (forebear of the IDF).
Second thing is: the Yishuv (pre-Israeli State Zionist community in Palestine) and its leaders like Ben-Gurion had a very dodgy relationship with the Holocaust. A good deal of collaboration took place with both the Nazis and other anti-Semitic leaders and groups in Europe / the Baltic nations in order to encourage Jewish emigration to Palestine (including an ultimately successful Zionist campaign to end an American Jewish-organised economic boycott of Nazi Germany). Strenuous efforts to prevent European Jews escaping Germany/Mainland Europe to Britain and the US (for the Yishuv leaders it had to be Palestine or nothing). The bullying of Holocaust survivors in immediate post-war Displaced Persons Camps (the US allowed Zionist groups from Palestine to take over many of these camps, and Holocaust survivors – the vast majority of whom wanted to go to the US – were largely forced through coercion (including outright violence) to emigrate to Palestine instead).
And when Holocaust survivors arrived in Israel, they were treated abominably by a sizeable portion of Israeli society, particularly by State officials (albeit with honourable exceptions). All of which is best encapsulated by the derisive Yishuv slang name for Holocaust survivors “soap” (based on the now-discredited idea that Holocaust victims’ bodies had been turned into soap by the Nazis). The survivors were deemed shameful by Zionists because they and the 6 Million victims were considered to have gone like lambs to the slaughter – whereas Zionism was all about celebrating the self-respecting, gun-toting, take-no-prisoners Zionist Jew. Many survivors were forced – again against their will – to fight in the 1948 War. Many, having survived the Holocaust against all the odds (and still greatly traumatised) went on to die in that War for an Israeli nation that largely despised them.
The Holocaust, of course, only became important to Israel after its leaders decided it could be of political use to close down criticism of Israeli policies (largely after Adolf Eichmann’s trial in 1962). It’s been said that to this day a disproportionate number of Holocaust survivors and their descendants live below the poverty line in Israel (some 50,000 by one recent estimate). Meanwhile, Israeli banks continue to refuse to return money to the families of Holocaust victims who had deposited significant sums in Zionist banks in pre-Israel Palestine. It’s an on-going scandal. So much for Israel’s solemn Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Thank you Swordfish. That’s a very helpful historical background and goes quite some way to providing an explanation for current behaviours. It’s also an education. (for myself at least)
Thanks so much for that swordship. Hugely helpful to my understanding of the reality of Israel and Palestine.
I was (note WAS) one of those who for years fell for the Israeli Government line that they were the oppressed ones. Indeed I even considered the Palestinians to be mad and dangerous. I hang my head in shame. My own experiences in England 40 odd years ago (I lived for a couple of years with Jewish people married to relatives of mine) suggest there were many good Jewish people of English origin who were equally taken in.
Israel will get its come-uppance one day. It may happen in a different way to Natzi Germany but the world is finally waking up to them. I no longer turn a hair when we are confronted on the Telly with the death of Israeli soldiers etc. Good riddance!
“I just cannot reconcile the psychology of a “race” who suffered from genocide permitting themselves the position of genocidal maniacs”
Richard Dawkins also has an answer…patriarchal monotheism…otherwise known as Religious Fundamentalism. In 2006 Richard Dawkins wrote in ‘The God Delusion’:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant
character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust,
unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a
misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal,
pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent
bully.”
I hadn’t seen Brian Eno’s letter before, so thanks for posting Rosie. Agree with Ennui about incomprehension of people who suffered the Holocaust causing wiping out Gaza. Beyond the psychological context – maybe this para from Eno explains some of social/cultural context (which also ties in with swordfish’s explanation).
By the way, most of them are not ethnic Israelis – they’re ‘right of return’ Jews from Russia and Ukraine and Moravia and South Africa and Brooklyn who came to Israel recently with the notion that they had an inviolable (God-given!) right to the land, and that ‘Arab’ equates with ‘vermin’ – straightforward old-school racism delivered with the same arrogant, shameless swagger that the good ole boys of Louisiana used to affect. That is the culture our taxes are defending. It’s like sending money to the Klan.
As for the apologists for the Israeli action in Gaza – if they don’t have an empathetic bone in their body after seeing images of total destruction of people and place, maybe this paragraph will resonate with their desire to prevent the ‘islamification of the west’, if nothing else. I can only hope they then think again about the strategy of Israel and enabling western governments.
But beyond this, what really troubles me is the bigger picture. Like it or not, in the eyes of most of the world, America represents ‘The West’. So it is The West that is seen as supporting this war, despite all our high-handed talk about morality and democracy. I fear that all the civilisational achievements of The Enlightenment and Western Culture are being discredited – to the great glee of the mad Mullahs – by this flagrant hypocrisy. The war has no moral justification that I can see – but it doesn’t even have any pragmatic value either. It doesn’t make Kissingerian ‘Realpolitik’ sense; it just makes us look bad.
The paragraph about the “right of return” Jews made me recall the South African Jewish family I worked for, for many years.
Their fairness as an employer and their hospitality towards guests (including us as employee’s) always seemed in complete contrast to the way they switched to an arrogant assumption in regard their “rights” in their “homeland”, meaning Israel, not S.A, when any tentative conversation came up about Israel and Palestine. There was a bloody mindedness present during these brief discussions that was at odds with how they presented themselves otherwise. Something kind of primal surfaced and no amount of everyday respectability could hide it.
This sense of superiority led one of the family members to go to Israel to train in the army, and to be ready for “when the time came”. I think about her and wonder whether she has gone as a reservist. I’m hoping that motherhood settled this bloodlust and made her consider the lives of children of other mothers.
There are people in the West taking a moral stand on this genocide and ‘Crime Against Humanity’…and they give us hope. One such person is a British women politician who has resigned over Prime Minister Camerons’ inaction. It is people like this politician taking a moral stand who will force change..because they expose the immorality of other politicians and newspaper editors taking no stand, or seeking to suppress the truth.
‘Baroness Warsi resigns over Gaza conflict saying she ‘can no longer support Government policy’
“I can no longer support Government policy on Gaza,” she wrote.
“In her letter to Mr Cameron, Lady Warsi said that the Government’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been “morally indefensible” and not “in Britain’s national interest”.
Another taking a stand is the Australian journalist Mike Carlton, long time journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald
You must have a bit of weed in your eyes, that’s not the interview I just watched.
He said KD had been told to respect the campaign message of vote positive up north, he said mana won’t be in his government but can support it but it’s their decision, got a good hit on kimmy by saying said kdc donated to act not labour.
I don’t have anything against IMP or their policies but imo because Kim & Hone are so despised by most voters; then this is a good political move by Labour.
Yes, very smart electioneering. Well done team red.
“because Kim & Hone are so despised by most voters”
Nailed it, but expect backlash. There’s a minor party infestation on the standard most days, yet although they’re very vocal and quite feral, they’re marginalised and fringe dwelling pussies (as in puddy cats) in reality.
God forbid marginalised people being part of the democratic process. Better to throw us under the bus. Not officially Labour policy yet though, The Alien. But yeah, we can read the writing on the wall.
Pity we aren’t mainstream People Who Matter, like your good self.
Put it in the politically charged context of “expect backlash. There’s a minor party infestation on the standard most days, yet although they’re very vocal and quite feral, they’re marginalised and fringe dwelling pussies”
“Pity we aren’t mainstream People Who Matter, like your good self”
That you have an inferiority complex isn’t my fault.
For the record, I love everyone and value them all equally as human beings without exception.
I don’t feel inferior. I’m sure you are clever enough to recognise sarcasm
But I do think the belief that being marginalised = not or less worth paying attention to is incompatible with any kind of progressive or left-wing belief system.
Hi Alien. I’m a two ticks Labour kinda girl this election and a supporter of IMP. I was hoping to see a strong and healthy Labour/Greens/IMP coalition after 20th September. By being a supporter of IMP I don’t consider myself a marginalised fringe dwelling pussy.
I’m disappointed by this announcement. If a coalition can be formed with NZ First and The Greens, instead, it will still be celebrated. The corrupt Key regime being brought to an end is reason for celebration alone (my god there will be tears of happiness!) but it’s not the coalition of choice for this voter.
For fucks sake, Phil Goff was contemplating joining ACT not so long ago, and seemed to have decided against it for reasons related to his own career. Labour’s stated policies are closer to ACT’s than Mana’s are. FFS the Labour party gave birth to the ACT – party they are freaking whanau.
This is SO hyocritical
@Just saying,
You idiot! If I had the power, I would have banned you from this site for spouting such unfair defaming crap against Mr Phil Goff and the Labour party. By all means, criticise Labour, but don’t spout untrue, unjust, utter crap.
Act also ‘revealed that it had held talks with Labour’s Phil Goff about his joining Act’ (Scott, 16 March 1996: pp.16-17).
To put it into context, this from Goff’s wikipedia page:
In the 1990 elections, Labour was defeated, and Goff lost his own parliamentary seat to Gilbert Myles. While many commentators blamed Douglas’s controversial reforms for Labour’s loss, Goff said that the main problem had been in communication, not policy
As someone on the inside in those days just saying: I can inform you ACT had talks with many politicians and former politicians from both Labour and National in the hope of attracting them to join the ACT Party. All of the approaches came from the ACT Party, and I know of at least one well known former Labour politician who was so incensed by their persistence he and his wife threatened to take action against them if they didn’t leave them alone.
In other words, Phil Goff was one of many and he turned them down flat. Not interested!
Hi Anne,
If he turned them down flat, as so many did, it would be a non-issue. He was in talks with ACT about taking over as leader. He decided against it. As it turns out it was a good choice from a career point of view.
Even considering joining an extreme right-wing party is extremely damning.
Sadly, I think if he had been talking with the Alliance or The Greens in the 90s he would have been out the door. Which is also damning. but for the party.
He had a shocker to be fair, first calling for Kelvin to be sacked then being turned around to changing it to ‘let’s forget it’.
Wilson put it that KD sort of had a right to campaign for more funding, being faced by a $3m kitty, hone whinged he had less money in past elections and that right wing bloggers had donated to it, though didn’t say if the donations were named, which of course blunts the attack.
When asked to respond to the position held by many many people that the mip is just a vehicle for kdc to avoid extradition, all he did was list the roadshow venues.
Limited appeal to limited intellect voters.
Still vote Labour and Green to change the government without relying on extremists and opportunists.
I’ve known for a while it’s not just me.
I’m sure many feel the same but don’t want to post for fear of having to deal with the vocal minority extremist clique.
Lucky I have a bit of free time at the moment and skin thicker than the average mip voter.
I’m proudly red and green and won’t easily be shouted down.
Do you think that some who didnt know whether to vote KD or HW might look at KD taking donations from right wingers as a push toward electorate vote Hone?
I don’t honestly know what to make of it all but KD is putting me more and more in mind of another fellow from up North who was kind-of labour.
Like I wrote Tracey, I’ve not seen it reported that the donations were specifically sought from the right wingers, which would be bad, or if they were anonymous donations through the website, which KD would have no knowledge of.
In my mind, KD shouldn’t have done the site as it’s a bit loose and off party line, but he’s quite correct to slam hone for his backing and backer and push the cause of the people in his electorate over hh self interest and kdc’s agenda.
I don’t believe he’s SJ mk2 like some commentators would have you believe, after all, it’s their ‘job’ to demonise him.
I generally quite like The Al1en’s contributions to ts, but the anti-KDC/Mana thing strikes me as being ott and coming from an extreme place in itself. It’s kind of funny in a way. I’m a GP voter and I remember when exactly this kind of shit was aimed at the GP and their supporters. Kia kaha Mana and the IP, keep up the good works.
Thanks, but it’s a push back reaction rather than a form of out and out aggressive extremism on my part.
To be quite honest, I’ve had enough of the negativity from mip voters here, and probably won’t bother much after today.
Loonies taking over the asylum springs to mind as far as political and policy debate is concerned and woe betide any who disagree or push saner Green/Labour points.
Kim’s got dosh, maybe he could fund his own version of the standard.
No violins mate, just a statement of fact, maybe only as I see it, but I doubt it.
Let’s face it pu, aside from your obvious anti green/labour agenda, you’re only here ’cause you’ve got nowhere else to go or no-one will have you – That and for pushing your unintelligible uninformed opinion blog.
Quantity you clearly have, quality, not so much. Not to get too personal about it, being on a politics site and all, but in economic terms, you’re a deficit to the bottom line, and who needs that? Not me.
Best you and your mip buddies carry on circle jerking your way through September, stifling debate as you go, and when you don’t get cabinet seats and control of anything post election, you can start all over again about how bad DC, MT and RN are and how bad these neo libs (or what ever the slogan of the day you pick up on is) are wrecking the country ad nauseum/infinitum.
Funniest thing, you know it’ll happen. 😉
@Al1en, agree totally with your sentiments about MIP, Hone and KDC … I liked Mana policies (pre-KDC) but their personnel are simply unelectable outside of Te Tai Tokerau.
that would be the middle NZ that’s been sitting by letting the poverty gap become a chasm, letting our rivers fill up with cow shit and letting our assets be sold off overseas? (just to mention a few of the obvious ones).
Limited intellect voters. Now that’s a sure way to win over the undecided. Just as arrogant as the arseholes we are trying to get rid of. If your an example of what an “intelligent” Labour person looks like, thanks but no thanks.
“Don’t tell me what to do fuckwit – stick to your dirty little campaign”
I’ll take the secret right wing mission bit as just a bs defam, divert put down then. I’m not surprised, given your form.
It’s hardly right wing to seek votes for a green/red ticket, but then I forget, you like your left a bit more ‘radical’. Mega lulz.
“oh and don’t forget the little violin when you go for your sympathy post.”
No tears this side of no regrets – Try again… Or don’t, whatever suits.
If Banks can get Charter schools with 1 MP miserable prick in his case
a party with more MPs can get more
the Maori Party got Whanau Ora and Prison reform and a nice BMW for its leader.
Now just explain to me again how Labour, the Greens, and IMP are going to work together sucessfully after the election – and thats before Winston puts his hand up for foreign affairs again……..
I am starting to like quite a few of Labours policies (hey they make sense) but Im not too sure about the bedfellows/bedshelias with whom they will be co-habitating.
I can understand Labour atacking the Greens and the IMP, as they need to be the biggest “Left” brand in parliament for the sake of their own brand which is being eroded by the Greens to quite a large extent. And you cant reward your own foot soldiers, when you have to accommodate your “partners”
Labour’s brand isn’t being eroded by the GP. Their constiuency is. The GP have better left wing policies and that’s why more people are voting for them.
“Now just explain to me again how Labour, the Greens, and IMP are going to work together sucessfully after the election”
Pretty simple. Labour and the GP form a coaltion that includes them both in cabinet. The IMP supports on C and S and possibly negotiates some specific policy deals. None of that is unusual.
Or are you suggesting that Labour is incapable of working in coalition with other left wing parties?
“Or are you suggesting that Labour is incapable of working in coalition with other left wing parties?”
I do wonder whether some politicians put their party ahead of the common cause (ousting the incumbents).
The Nats have taken the other approach and hoovered up the voters from their allied parties – clearly displaying that putting their party first is more important than having allied parties with similar philosophies, but different policies. I guess that way they can reward there only loyal footsoldiers better – if they win.
My recall of history is that no one group has the mortgage on good ideas and that hanging out only with people who always agree with you brings stale thinking. Think USSR, North Korea etc.
Sorry, that’s a bit obscure in terms of answering my question, and seems a bit contradictory. You seem to be suggesting that Labour should be the biggest party, can’t work well with others, but that hanging out with themselves brings stale thinking.
ACT lost votes because they were shown to be the hard right neoliberals that they are, and most conservative voters don’t want that. Plus ACT had a series of leaders that were unappealing.
The MP lost votes because they betrayed their core constituents, I doubt those voters have gone to National.
I think you will be surprised how fewer people in reality vote for National than it appears. It looks good for them via the media, but when you break down the actual numbers, it looks like the right are still in FPP thinking and don’t really get MMP. I would guess that is the real reason for National’s relatively high vote compared to Labour. But compare National to the leftwing L/GP bloc and they’re not doing all that well.
Party ahead of the common cause:
I perceive that Labour is doing this to maximise their numbers for any post election negotiations. They may end up being the biggest party in the opposition tho.
Stale one party thinking:
I was really thinking of National here and think that Labours policies are looking pretty good (high praise from a right wing type like me)
As for ACT losing votes, back in their early days they has a great weekly newsletter written by Prebble, which outlined their thinking very well. At the time, they wanted the cross benches so they could “keep the Nats honest”. But they sold out for the ministerial Limos and the perks – even Rodney fell for it – and really by then ACT was toast.
I liked what ACT was – a party that thought differently and had different solutions to the problems we faced. Sadly, they moved on from that and effectively stand for nothing anymore.
“… the mip is just a vehicle for kdc to avoid extradition …”
How would that work?
Do you think the IMP might threaten to withdraw confidence and supply support if the extradition isn’t quashed? (Notice that that eventuality is not eliminated by Labour’s/Cunliffe’s position on Mana.)
If so, perhaps Harawira and Harre (and KDC) should be asked that question directly – now.
Also, perhaps Cunliffe should be asked whether he would agree to quash the extradition in the event that such support were threatened to be withdrawn.
Asking that question of them all should clarify the extent to which KDC can use IMP as “a vehicle … to avoid extradition“.
Or perhaps they have already been asked that question?
“two of the donations were from whaleoil and farrar..”
Though it doesn’t say he solicited them from the bloggers directly, or KD knew who was donating. Obviously they outed themselves, but that proves no culpability on KD’s part.
Hence
“though didn’t say if the donations were named, which of course blunts the attack”
If the bloggers said, hi I’m a right wing blogger, accept this money, I’m sure it would have been rejected.
If it came through the website anonymously, you have no case.
Do you know how those donations came into play? Does hh? He should, because he said it unequivocally, and unless proved, shows a lack of judgement and professionalism on par with KD.
So do you know the facts about the donations from the right wing bloggers or not?
If you do, post them up, otherwise it’s totally misleading and disingenuous, like usual.
They HAVE to if they get seats because their stated aim is to get rid of the Key Government. In that sense it is a clever call by Cunliffe. IF IMP dont support on that basis, Labour might not govern and Key gets the treasury benches.
The Nats would be ruthless in the campaign painting Labour as partners to IMP. By ruling this out Labour has parked this issue and is able to concentrate on talking policy.
Cunliffe was good on tv3 this morning talking policy and refusing to let the interviewer make it all about Kelvin Davis and KDC.
Exactly – it’s a long game we’re playing and that takes time and during that time skills will be learned and lessons undertook and when the time is there IMP will assume the reins naturally and with gratitude from the other entities including the people.
Hey Phillip I agree with you that Hone did an excellent interview.
To call Cunliffe’s interview a “train wreck” is manifestly unfair-see Clem’s posting below for instance. He simply refused to further debate the IMP/Davis situation having clearly stated his position, and instead said he would talk about policy. The Davis affair needed to be shut down which is what he did.
Remember: I would prefer IMP to be in the coalition/I am a Green voter/My prediction for the election is L31+G11+I7=49=Cunliffe with NZF not in the mix. I would be delighted with this outcome and I’m sure you would too.
There was a brief news article about the National government gifting conservation land, including part of the Rakaia river bed, to the purchasers of 85% of Synlait – do we know anything more?
Allowing sales that have little or no benefit to New Zealand is one thing, but the ‘return on capital’ from gifting must be very low! Were there other benefits obtained from this ‘gift’ by parties other than government?
There was a piece about it on 3 news on Sunday night and a bit of follow up conversation on Open Mike that evening.
BLiP found info on the linz site about forest up for grabs and posted it. It was shocking. Also on the linz site was info about approval for a $55+ mil buy up of land around Huapai. The buyer was a Chinese development group on behalf of the Chinese Government. Their interests were stated as “toll roads”…………intriguing and disturbing.
It seems that conservation land that was gifted in Canterbury is just the tip of the ice berg in the great sell off of NZ.
Yes, Rosie. The tip of this iceberg makes my blood run chill … how poor will be shown to be in every single democratic measure when the usury of this Key govt is finally exposed for all its treasonous ugliness ? Brrrrrrr.
Tiger Mountains’ CAFCA link below is alarming reading.
Little America or Little China or both? Either way we have sold out, our land, our water, our right to privacy and edging towards our own two feet to stand on.
OH! FFS! Well, I wonder if Ruth Richardson and Amy Adams had a few cosy chats about the set up of the Central Plains Water scheme that Amy Adams and presumably Synlait have benefited from………..
Gold has been suggested elsewhere regarding the riverbed. And you know what else ? Not only does Oravida have swamp kauri stocked up, they also have Oravida Gold and acres of leases awarded to them by Simon Bridges.
CORRUPT, TREASONOUS, AVARICIOUS, and dangerous to our democracy. I think even we will be badly shocked when athe sum of what has been sold/given away emerges in to daylight.
Won’t let me edit, but here are some facts re Oravida Gold. And interesting to note Judith Collins husband owned the mining permits from 2011 before the land was bought by Oravida in 2013 !! Must have learned double-dipping from the dipton dancer!
ORAVIDA COMPANY SET TO MINE ON COAST
A subsidiary of Chinese milk company Oravida has reportedly been drilling land it owns at
Ross in preparation for a move into gold mining. Last year Oravida Property bought 100
ha between Donaghues and the Mikonui River from Ross farmer and former regional
councillor, Bryan Chinn. Combined with the purchase of land north of Auckland, it spent
$3.2 million. It wants to create its own milk supply chain, which dates back to interest in
the Chafer farms in 2009. The company also has a permit to mine 369 ha of land in the
Mikonui River area, granted by the Ministry of Economic Development unit 2026. That
company is owned by Deyi Shi. Mr Wong-Tung, who holds the minerals permit, told the
Hokitika Guardian last year the company would mine the land before breaking into the
Westland dairy market. “The specific intention of purchasing the land is for mining it, but
also developing it after so we can turn it into good dairying land, as well as to make that
little bit of land productive”. He said the company had a lot of red tape to sort through
before being allowed to go ahead with its mining plans.
(Greymouth Star – 20 March 2014)
I am thinking we need a million dollar fund to support Graeme McCready with all the work needing to be done ! Gold leases to a Minister’s husband ? Really, Mr Bridges ?
So what’s the collective view on the Wanaka-to-Arrowtown QEII covenant? Minister Smith has generated a massive new regional park on Great Barrier Island, and now gets to announce effectively a private national park as big as Aspiring National Park. He also lets remember killed two massive roading projects in the South Island over the last year. Is it time to give Nick Smith some credit?
Ad-its good news but important to note that QEII covenants do not allow public access.
My understanding that some limited public tracks have been granted by Mutt as part of the process to date. Effectively he has largely set up a National Park for his own use.
A better idea, which could still happen, would be that a right to roam be given to the public for the areas QEII covenanted, or at least some of them.
I notice this on the access issue from the ODT today:
“Soho Properties and the trust were working with the New Zealand Walking Access Commission, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, the Queenstown Trails Trust and local walking and mountain biking groups to further improve public access.”
The owner of Soho and Motutapu Stations is at least partially resident in NZ and has been for a few years, so its bloody disingenuous to use his covenant as an example of good foreign ownership. He’s also a keen conservationist, unlike raping and pillaging dairy farm consortiums. On the issue of Nick ‘the prick’ Smith, I think he is a genuine blue-green to an extent and probably the least offensive of all Nat ministers. He’s certainly more intelligent, informed and blue-green than Amy fricking Adams.
It is definitely a good thing. We recently passed through the south island high country and got to some remote places. The land is pretty wrecked when you get up close and look – all for a few sheep. It hasn’t made sense to lay waste to tens of thousands of hectares to only support a couple of families on a station – it is a pathetic return.
So this QEII covenant is a very good thing. But Nick Smith deserves no credit for it. It aint nowt to do with him. But he does deserve credit for canning the loony monorail and the nutty tunnel – he just has one more to go and that is the most outrageous and brainless of the lot, the Haast-Hollyford Highway. But that is being attempted by a bunch of relics from colonial NZ who have somehow survived through to the 21st century. They don’t have a chance.
But Nick Smith deserves an absolute pasting for his abuse of power in threatening Fish & Game with obliteration unless they support the National Party’s farmers polluting activities.
Word out in the conservation sector is that it is a very good thing and an incredible gesture from the ex-Shania guy; MPs from both National and Labour were at the event yesterday.
Was featured on Campbell Live last night … nothing to do with Nick Smith who couldn’t even pronounce the donor’s name correctly. Kudos chops to Mutt Lange for his generosity .. the land is now safe and protected and re-planted and loved with 12,000 plants every single month and glorious … worth a look …
agreed he has done some good things…and deserves some credit ….but eternal vigilance…lets hope the proposed Haast-Hollyford Highway is also killed…New Zealand needs its wilderness areas!
Kennedy Graham is the Green candidate for Helensville. I’d expect him to be there, too.
The NZ Herald says it’s a meeting for both Helensville and Te Tai Tokerau candidates.
And what’s to stop the Helensville candidates (without Key) having further debates in Helensville? They include high profile candidates of Harre and Graham.
I note both Laila and Hone are not doing Invercargill to be at the event
“Mr Key will be at the Kumeu Baptist Church meeting for Helensville and Te Tai Tokerau candidates on Monday night, pitting him against Internet Party leader Laila Harre and Mana leader Hone Harawira.”
“‘There is to be no debate at all. Candidates have been warned they will be thrown out if they mention other candidates or attack any other parties, or anything else like that, at all,” Ryan said.
Silence would be demanded from everyone but the speaker, with one warning before those disrupting the meeting would be removed.
”It’s on that basis that the prime minister agreed to be there.”
A spokeswoman for Key said he would take part in only one multi-candidate event in his electorate, which was ”the same as the last election campaign”.
His office had played no role in the shaping of the rules for the event, she said.”
Yes I noticed that. I think Key’s constant contradictions and linguistic meaninglessness have become so normalised that no-one even checks anymore.
Also, this story gives a more strategic view of the Nats’ apparently deliberate and recently adopted yelling-over-the-top-of-the-opponent tactic. I wondered what they were up to, it seems it’s just a background for Key to look good in front of.
I guess it doesn’t matter if every Nat looks an oaf if you’re only really asking people to vote for the PM anyway.
When I read something like this it’s not like I’m ‘checking’ – it just jumps out like a great big flashing sign spelling ‘Contradiction’ while generating a foghorn-like noise.
Why couldn’t the journalist just ‘see it’ in that way? Isn’t it one of their skills?
The dots were so close together in the story but they weren’t explicitly joined. Leaving it to the reader? Why? It could have even been the focus of the story – I thought journalists were keen on spotting that sort of contradiction in the utterances of politicos.
Reminds me of Muldoon’s campaign opening at Wiri Woolstore, oh, so many years ago. There were so many police and police cameramen, it was 100% intimidating and frightening, to the extent the half-dozen over-ripe duck eggs we wicked feminist three smuggled in, through the police door searches, by necessity went unused … we would have been beaten black and blue in that atmosphere and possibly seriously injured.
Yes, Muldoon had the police doing door searches at his campaign opening.
Alas, who could have known they were perhaps the halcyon days after all ??
Why is there any reason to say
“One of these versions of events must be wrong”?
All it is really saying is that “We plan to hold an all- candidate meeting”. “The rules we propose are”. “Will you attend?”
Key then said he would attend such meeting. There is no reason to say that he set up the rules being proposed and nothing to say that the statements must conflict.
Yes alwyn I suppose it is possible that someone other than John Key came up with the rule that no-one is allowed to mention John Key, but it doesn’t seem very bloody likely.
That’s an interesting way to resolve the apparent difference in the accounts. To be honest I didn’t give that possibility much consideration. Here’s why.
First was the context in which the two statements were reported. This is the ‘lead in’ to the first statement:
”There is to be no debate at all. Candidates have been warned they will be thrown out if they mention other candidates or attack any other parties, or anything else like that, at all,” Ryan said.
Silence would be demanded from everyone but the speaker, with one warning before those disrupting the meeting would be removed.
”It’s on that basis that the prime minister agreed to be there.”
Interestingly, Ryan says the “candidates have been warned” yet, in reference to John Key, there’s less a sense of a ‘warning’ than a process of agreement: “it’s on that basis that the prime minister agreed to be there.“.
Perhaps it was poor reporting but it didn’t sound like Key had been ‘warned’ by Holly Ryan while, obviously, other candidates had been.
I really don’t see how it’s possible to read those paragraphs and think that Ryan was simply referring to Key’s acquiescence to such strict rules (as if he had much preferred an old-fashioned, wide-ranging head to head with the other candidates but had had to ‘agree’ to be reigned in).
Second, it seems unusual that after talking about ‘the candidates’ Holly Ryan only refers to the Prime Minister in relation to the basis upon which participation was agreed.
That is, she didn’t say “We can’t possibly change the rules now because it’s on that basis that (all) the candidates agreed to be there.” Instead – inexplicably – she only referred to the agreement of the Prime Minister. Why just him if these were general rules?
Now, perhaps Holly Ryan only mentioned the Prime Minister in that comment because she saw him as the big ‘drawcard’ (as the sitting MP and, of course, the Prime Minister) and wanted to be sure to get his agreement to attend.
But that then raises the question as to why she thought those particular rules of engagement would entice John Key to attend – itself not flattering to the Prime Minister’s supposed reputation to ‘debate – and beat – all comers’ (as some here have repeatedly contended is his strength).
Or perhaps these rules were ‘anticipatory’ of gaining Key’s involvement because those were the only kinds of meetings Key had previously turned up to?
Such deference to the Prime Minister – and harsh ‘warnings’ to other candidates – also seems out of place for someone organising such an all-candidates event.
Third, possibly in naivety, I had just assumed that anyone motivated enough to host a ‘meet the candidates’ meeting during an election campaign would wish to have at least some challenge and counter-challenge of candidates’ policies – either candidate to candidate or citizen to candidate (well managed, of course).
I had thought that the only way that a ‘meet the candidates’ event would become so apparently anodyne in structure – and therefore likely to be so unrevealing of the soundness of policy positions, etc. – would be if politicians had done their best to make it so.
For me, democracy goes with debate, discussion and engagement like horses go with carriages.
But perhaps your resolution of the two versions of the event is correct. Perhaps in the more right wing suburbs and areas of New Zealand, democracy and politics are genuinely believed to be best carried out along the lines of consumer choice.
Just as products are lined up along the shelves and the individual consumer, in undisturbed silence, reads the labels and ‘experiences’ the claims and aesthetics of the packaging to determine their individual preference perhaps it’s believed that choosing between political candidates should occur under the same conditions.
Each political consumer, that is, is best left in splendid isolation with each ‘product’. In this way they can come to their own judgment without the interference of debate and interaction; without the benefit of the knowledge and candidate skills and values that might be revealed by robust discussion, argument and counter-argument.
Perhaps in such places in New Zealand some people really do think that the ‘competition of ideas’ involves no direct contest between those ideas but just a parade in front of the individual political consumer who then makes their ‘choice’ (on a very impoverished basis).
In many ways I’d much rather believe that the ‘meet the candidates’ event has been politically manipulated.
Key’s image must be preserved at all costs, that’s why he refuses to be interviewed on Radio NZ or by any serious journo.. only facing John Campbell and the GCSB committee when things were spiralling out of control. He’s happy to be feted by sports shows and non political events though.
It seems to me that Key just issues statements and is not being questioned or interviewed. The only time that he responds is when on safe ground. Now being unable or unwilling to front during an election campaign is mind boggling. And on the ground he is surrounded by minders so that he does not have to meet any New Zealanders.
Surely this displays at once arrogance and a serious Key weakness?
The joke going around is that when Key feels like he wants to get out of looking bad or is being shown up for his pants catching fire, he will signal for the fire alarm to be set off to break up the gathering.
Politicians who want to share the stage with John Key at his only multi-candidate electorate event have been warned they shouldn’t even mention his name.
The “Unidentified guest” strikes again. On the other hand, given that Key seems to be unable to answer a question in the House without throwing in some misrepresentation of some other party’s policies or reference to previous governments, might he be the first cast out?
and the news about the $55 million land sale in Huapai to Chinese buyers cannot be unknown to him … he has reason to be chicken. Finally the teflon is failing.
I just heard Murray McCully on the radio being interviewed by Suzy Ferguson on morning report. Can a member of the media please ask this question? Is the delay in the return of the Malaysian diplomat because they are having to use the Malaysian extradition process?
Suzi Ferguson also used John Key to dis the Greens policy …before Russel Norman had even opened his mouth!
(policy of a Green card enabling poor university students and other tertiary students and apprentices to access public transport for free especially in off peak times)
Russel Norman handled himself very well however and called her out …saying she had opened his interview with an “assault”…. by John Key!
… Russel Norman also coolly countered Key’s arguments that it was too expensive to spend on students by pointing out the overseas debt that John Key has accrued for New Zealand ..and the wasted money on motorways
Espiner followed up the attack on Green policy by inviting a business sector interviewee on an unrelated matter to comment on Green policy…of course it was in the negative.
Morning Report should be overhauled after the Election..it is biased and a mouthpiece of John Key!
However it does show how sensitive John Key is to the Greens and the issue of university students and affordable education….so if the Left concentrates on this it will be a WINNER !
( Nactional has neglected young New Zealanders shamelessly…In Holland , Germany, France, Scandinavia and many other countries tertiary education is relatively FREE, if not completely …In New Zealand many very bright students are deciding that they and their families can not afford it…which leaves New Zealand university education for the children of the wealthy…whose parents can afford it! eg Bill English and John Key)
…Under Nactional there is a shocking waste of young New Zealanders talent !!!!..It is going to create a class system in New Zealand….where only the children of the wealthy can afford a tertiary education… “the chosen”. This betrays the egalitarian ideals and education system of our New Zealand ancestors both Pakeha and Maori
As Kim Dotcom has shown anything can happen with an extradition hearing. Although I am sure the Malaysian Diplomat does not have the same sort of resources that Dotcom has.
Have you noticed how averse the Government has been to use the “E” word (Extradition)? They keep saying it is a legal process and it is all up to the lawyers but they don’t want the two events to be linked.
Looks like it is still above the lows of ~May 2012 pricing – just. It looks like pricing has dropped an overall 45% in 18 months. Which is basically a disaster to anyone who has geared their farm up for the higher price structure. Also, this greatly increases the likelihood of a severe recession by Q1 2015: austerity time.
10% of dairy farmers hold 50% of the estimated 40 billion dollars of bank debt said to be the loading for that industry,
The banks are talking an overall ‘loss’ for the economy of 4 billion dollars and that would have to in the next 18 months translate into a 1.3 billion dollar hole in the Governments books,
Rock Bottom economy here we come, analysts in the industry are saying that the reluctance of buyers at the recent auctions is because they ‘stockpiled’ milk solids/powders in previous years but i pick that as wishful thinking and the dairy boom is going bust befor our eyes as the point of over-supply internationally has probably been reached,
The only saving grace for the Government will be IF the figures produced by Labour in 2010/2011 which showed a large demographic of the dairy farmers were paying less tax than an average pensioner are correct which would quixotically mean that the recent downgrade of the dairy prices at auction will produce less red ink in the Government’s books…
We need to put a stop to this by making sure company directors are held personally liable. Edit: And make that law retrospective as a special treat for rogue employers who know right now they can get away with it.
Only so much that politics and law can do in the face of, “I gave him my loyalty because he was a fellow [insert favourite religion here]…”. That’s the free will of the individual and quite rightly the law should stay out of that kind of thing; least of all, if it didn’t, it’d make all of us moronic because we’d never learn anything about life or ourselves. To quote the cynical, but too often true, words of William S Burroughs, “Never trust a religious SOB. God has told him how to rip you off.” Luckily we have literature to pick up where politics shouldn’t go.
There is of course a disclaimer for that quote – don’t need to start any unearned religious hate speech malarkey here. The problem currently is the disturbing trend of religious organisations to confuse the will of their God with the popular culture of the free market. God is of course still God, somewhere out there, but religious types have deviated so grossly they end up worshipping a shadow, an evil twin if you like. Isn’t so much God told him how to rip you off, but that the person mistook God for the sentiment of individualist/commercial slogans that almost exactly match those found in the bible (when taken literally and out of context) and didn’t think twice. And then the guy might have taken advantage on purpose. Anyone can say they’re following this or that religion, and still be a malicious ass.
After someone wins a court case the person responsible shouldn’t get off paying their dues by winding up the company. Got nothing to do with religion – except possibly your own apparent Randian ideology.
Winding up a company is an old tried and tested way of getting out of financial obligations. The company transfers its assets to a new company which has no legal obligation to honour the debt. How do you think so many developers get rich and so many small building companies go to the wall? (I speak from personal experience here)
That would defeat the purposes of “limited liability” companies.
There are sufficient checks and balances within company law, many of which do allow liquidators to pursue directors personally for a bunch of indescretions, and legislation which allows criminal convictions for fraud and the like.
What we do need is for the Companies Office to be resourced in order to do the policing of “Phoenix” companies that pop up, run by family and/or friends of errant directors who may have been disqualified from acting as directors.
Just employing the former director in a “new (phoenix)” company, especially when trading from the same location, should set off massive warning lights, and the Companies Office should be resourced to take the necessary action.
That would defeat the purposes of “limited liability” companies.
Yes. Once I realised, many years ago, that people were using limited liability so as to bypass any risk while exclaiming about all the risk that they took I became fully of the opinion that limited liability needed to be shut down as well.
There are sufficient checks and balances within company law,
No there isn’t else the person in the article would be getting their awarded $83k.
What we do need is for the Companies Office to be resourced in order to do the policing of “Phoenix” companies that pop up, run by family and/or friends of errant directors who may have been disqualified from acting as directors.
Wouldn’t need such complexity if we held people responsible in the first place.
Dairy prices hit 17-month low, amid China concerns
‘….Indeed, the fresh decline tallied with a caution from Rabobank last week that producers may have to wait until 2015 for a revival in prices, with milk output much improved in major exporting nations, but Chinese buyers have stepped back, after early-year stockpiling.
“China bought more than we anticipated in the first five months of the year. It now appears they also bought far more than they needed,” the bank said.’
‘Another day, another massive overseas land sale of dubious benefit to New Zealand. Meanwhile, we’ve also learned that “our” government has been giving away parts of the conservation estate to foreigners:
3 News has discovered that Shanghai Pengxin, the controversial Chinese buyer of the massive Lochinver Station, was recently given conservation land by the Government, including parts of the Rakaia riverbed.
Join the dots.
We are becoming tenants in our own land.
Wealthy Americans, British, Chinese and other foreign corporates are buying our land from under our feet.
Just wondering: what are the current commentaries or predictions (if any) regarding a potential crisis coming up for the well-known months (Sep/Oct) of market catastrophes particularly for this year?
Any links to selected readings would be appreciated. (I known I can google but I would like to access what others here have read and screened through.)
“One look at this graph makes it obvious that we’re in totally uncharted waters: the debt to GDP ratio has never been as high as it is now. If the debt ratio has any economic significance at all, then we have to take it seriously today.”
[Graph: Debt to GDP (Australia)]
“The only historical precedents for today are the two obvious peaks in the data, in the 1890s and 1930s. The latter alone implies bad news: the 1930s were the decade of the Great Depression, which was easily the greatest economic crisis that market economies have ever experienced.”
“It is less well-known that the 1890s were also a decade of Depression for Australia, and Fisher & Kent argued in Two Depressions that the 1890s experience was more severe for Australia than the Great Depression.”
wasnt it Mr Key who first warned us about becoming tenants in our own land?
“”If we ended up in a situation where New Zealanders were tenants in their own country, I can’t see how that would be in New Zealand’s best interests,” 2010
The problem is how many tenants of foreign ownership do there have to be before Mr Key thinks the threshold has been reached?
I don’t know if those dots join but China does what it does without a thought to our sensibilities, dontchathink?
Join the dots.
We are becoming tenants in our own land.
Wealthy Americans, British, Chinese and other foreign corporates are buying our land from under our feet.
And that is why we need to ban foreign ownership of anything and everything in NZ. A total ban because there is never a time when foreign ownership is good for a country.
Rarotonga has it right .. land is for lease only, and on a fixed term .. I think it’s 30 years, but have to check.
Hard to stop the sales while folk such as Judith Collins, Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley all have China money-in-the-bank pass cards and are senior advisers … they have sold us out 100%. Treasonous and vile.
Possibly. The latest poll overnight suggests the undecided are firming up and supporting the Yes campaign. However, the No vote remains steady at 50% plus. Six weeks to go!
Thanks for the update on the upcoming Scottish referendum. I had this in mind to look into.
I see that the 25 – 34 age group are more likely to vote yes (56%) Let’s hope they turn out in their droves to vote!
I heard Alex Salmond say during the coverage of the Commonwealth games that if they gained independence they might consider NZer’s with family links, (including grandparents) to Scotland being a group that can gain citizenship if one was to move over there.
My Nana was from Forfar (and further back the other side are from Inverness and Beauly) so if it goes belly up after 20th September and Scotland gets her independence I might take them up them up on it!
One of the reasons I’m interested in the referendum is because my kids have a strong Scottish heritage on their mother’s side. Mind you, their grandmother roundly abused Alex Salmond when he visited her wee town a few weeks ago. She’s so firmly opposed to independence she’s going to move to England if the Yes vote gets up!
Ah, that strong determined Scots mind. Bless her 🙂
From the figures you provided, it was the older generation who seem most opposed. Let’s hope the determination of the young un’s matches that of their elders on voting day.
I know theres going to be a massive double celebration in our house if the Scots get their independence and if we win the election. The votes are only a couple of days apart. It’ll be a big weekend!
Reckon the local ACTivists are going to go all quiet about Big Brain’s not at all racist speech pretty quick. They’ll be too busy attacking their former board member and candidate for Dunners North.
Jamie Whyte is quoted in the ODT as telling the Dunedin North candidate that the party needed a “stunt” to help in the polls. Not long after comes the race speech. If true I can’t see how he survives.
10:35 Book review: When the Farm Gates Opened
When the Farm Gates Opened: The Impact of Rogernomics on rural New Zealand by Neal Wallace. Reviewed by Harry Broad, published by Otago University Press, $RRP30.00
11:20 Tax evasion and welfare fraud in the justice system
Legal commentator Lisa Marriott discusses financial crime.
I wish someone would address the lack of personal liability for property developers. With the boom in consents driven by CHCHCH rebuild and this govt forcing land open in Auckland, you just know there will be problems in the years ahead BUT Developers can open a company, buy land, develop land, contract designers and builders, sell property, take property, close company and start a new project. NO liability in the future unless they went on site during construction (which they assiduously avoid).
I agree but why limit it to just a few groups of people in business?
Lets make
Theo Spiering (Fonterra head) personally responsible for spilt milk.
John Key personally responsible for government (ha ha yeah I know)
All shareholders in power companies personally responsible for power outages
All shareholders in the Warehouse personally responsible for jandals and plastic buckets that break
…
completely remove the limited liability company and make all owners, employees and bosses personally responsible for their works
This avoidance should be shouted by Opposition parties wide and long. Key is a coward in refusing to mix it with the people in a democratic country during a democratic election.
Makes Internet Mana look good with the series (i.e. not just one) of Roadshow events they are running, where people (aka walking talking members of the public) get to ask live unvetted questions of the IMP leaders and candidates.
Kim Jong Key–does he really expect to get away with this one?
As I have suggested and am sounding out the call again:
NZ voters,
do your civic duty,
when you are out and about (bookshop, The Warehouse or public library),
grab a copy or two,
and discretely re-shelve them in the appropriate sections, eg
– Fiction
– Fantasy
– Crime.
lol. but couldn’t make out the small text on the “Top 5” sticker
“Top 5 ways to fix a wonky table leg?’
“Top 5 in David Farrar, Mathew Hooten and Hoskos audio book list?”
“Top 5 unwanted gifts?”
Lets start with the big fella, and He is, looking round the packed events center and DotCom can look down at most in the 4–500 strong crowd,
Not that He does, there is no obeisance here, no kowtowing to money, none given and i would suggest none asked for, the speech from the stage low key,(excuse the fruedian but who would suggest Slippery isn’t),
What is remarkable is His description of how the whole mad roller coaster began, Mega, really an absolute piece of socialism its genesis in a German Government grant given to DotCom after the judge had given Him a steer in that direction when as a kid one of His ‘hacking’ escapades showed He had expertise beyond His education in the field,
Annette Sykes, on the stage, fired up said of the meeting at Rotorua where the alliance between Internet and Mana was struck, DotCom didn’t just get to walk in and buy the place with His coin, She personally gave Him the third degree, it wasn’t pretty, not even anywhere near nice,
He came through some hard hours of at times open hostility on the Marae, earned the tick of approval in doing so from Annette, He has respect, such respect not given lightly,
What of Him tho, this DotCom, what i was seeking, from among the shadows, was a personal sense of the man, while i fully understand that deep down there must be ‘rage’, having been deeply involved with the whole police/justice circus over many years of an absolutely misspent youth that makes the supposed ‘crimes’ of DotCom pale into insignificance i know exactly how He feels,
Other than His size, the sheer bulk provides a certain presence, it wasn’t until the final minutes at the venue that i got a real sense of DotCom, talking with Ariana,(more on Her later), one of the local candidates, i didn’t even notice as DotCom slipped past us,
Hailed as He entered the lift with good wishes it struck me then that despite all the supposed mountains of coin, the toys, the Mansion, the publicity, DotCom the bloke is at heart Shy,
There was no grandiose departure, no entourage of the powerful, just DotCom quietly slipping into the lift responding with a smile and a wave as He is wished well for the future,
This of course, has been a message from that future, InternetMana, be there…
Cheer Pasupial, enjoy, its quite catching that flyer, on the second and third reads, it will be the center of discussion later in the week as i ‘see’ it as the basis of the candidate flyers for the local electorates here in Wellington,
Noted yesterday, Big Ups to InternetMana for the Wellington billboards, great positioning, good succinct message able to be taken in as i drive by,
And,
The color scheme is the bomb, there’s a whole nest of them where i saw this particular billboard and the ‘metallic’ color of the InternetMana one definitely drags attention straight at it…
Yep she was as weak as a double lemonade on the DHB negotiations team leader yesterday too, who claimed not to know whether he or other execs received pay increases in excess of the 0.7% offered to health care workers. She could have pressed him as it was a highly relevant point but meekly moved on.
National MP Tim Macindoe, along with radio station Free FM have been referred by the Electoral Commission to the Police over an alleged breach of the electoral act by both of them,
No never, i cannot believe that National Party MP’s would ever not adhere to the law, sarc/…
In our party’s constitution Labour’s first core principle is “All political authority comes from the people by democratic means including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot.”
We won’t be doing pre-election deals. It’s up to New Zealanders to decide who they send to Parliament.
After the election I’ll talk with anyone committed to changing the Government. It’s fair to say that won’t include National, Act or Colin Craig’s group.
That was in response to this question from Pasupial:
Would you be willing to accept Internet/ MANA Party MPs as part of a Labour-led government if that gave you the numbers to form a progressive coalition post-election (and a mutually satisfactory relationship could be negotiated)?
How about; a United Future & Maori Party MP(s), if they have votes to offer and were willing to negotiate support (I’m assuming a yes for both; Green Party and NZF, a no for; National, ACT & CP, please correct if I’m mistaken)?
I don’t have a problem with Labour deciding that they won’t have Mana/IP/IMP in cabinet or as Ministers. But I am disappointed to see Cunliffe going back on what he has said above. He also said something recently about it being extremely unlikely that Mana would get Ministerial positions, but that they might be part of a C and S agreement. What was wrong with continuing that line?
It’s a really bad look for Cunliffe to continually cave-in to whatever the latest middle-class focus group feels uneasy about. It just looks weak. I realise he needs to show some degree of political pragmatism, but this tried-and-failed approach is just craven.
All in Christchurch though. Shame this Government relies on that tragedy, and the excruciatingly slow rebuild to spin its growth and employment numbers.
The labour force participation rate decreased 0.3 percentage points, to 68.9 per cent.
You don’t know what that means do you?
I’ll put it simply for you – it means that 0.3% of the working age population stopped looking for work and not because they got a job but because they were sick (probably quite literally in many cases) of looking for work and not finding any. It contradicts everything else you posted except the fall in employment rate.
Listening to radionz news – three in a row, 77 year old man’s murder, body found on St Helier’s beach, another murder.
I think there should be an on-line murders and accidental deaths site where one could find out all the latest tragedies, and publish the victim statements. It is so sad to hear the repetitive nature of the grief being repeated once again, and apparently never with the effect of improving the conditions that led to the death.
It’s depressing that there isn’t reporting about dealing with ongoing problems and future ones – just a ghoulish interest in reports and stats on death and how we hurt each other.
focusing on a tragic/violent incident lets the news off the hook from reporting anything substantial about broader systemic problems. (Same as what Hone clumsily referred to when he was asked about the Malaysian diplomat assault)
An Israeli blogger citing an embedded reporter may have jiggered IDF assertions that strikes on UN buildings housing Palestinian civilian refugees were accidental.
but if it comes to that event, the first time it is published first-hand evidence that approval from headquarters and deadly accurate shooting at a school that was known that it houses hundreds of refugees – and not stray artillery fire as the IDF claims. well if anti-tank missiles were fired from the area of the school, how can you claim that the IDF fired a missile capable of an accuracy of centimeters (“able to slip through precisely buildings windows “) into the populous school is considered” collateral damage avoidance protected population “required by the laws of war and morality?
IDF official response following an investigation published Sunday, July 27th, the day after the release of Zeno’s testimony, was “anti-tank missiles were fired from the area to the troops, who responded with mortar fire.” The testimony of the reporter who was present and stated that they were not mortars but guided precision missile, contradicts the army’s response to the other contradictions and integrates the research, alternatively determined that “there was no harm to civilians in the UNRWA school … there was an empty courtyard” at the same time “in any case, the death of civilians killed by the IDF in this case is a sad result of the election of Hamas in the civilian as a human shield.”
UNRWA spokesman confirmed on several occasions that the IDF moved the location of all the schools and refugee camps, to prevent exactly this kind of killing. Zeno’s testimony, even if inadvertently given, confirming the fact that the IDF knew – and chose to ignore, not at the level of the surface may not have been updated, but the highest command level.
If you want to know why John Key will have another three years in government then just look at what Statistics NZ published today. We are on the right track.
Unemployed of 137,000 is 17,000 fewer than a year ago
Unemployment rate of 5.6% compared to 6.4% a year ago
Employed of 2,328,000 – 82,000 more than a year ago
FT employed up 71,000 and PT employed up 13,000
65,000 more in labour force than a year ago
Labour force participation rate is 68.9% compared to 68.1% a year ago
Maori unemployment rate is 11.0%, down from 12.8% a year ago
Pasifika unemployment rate is 11.4% down from 16.3% a year ago
Under 20 unemployment rate is 20.4%, down from 24.1% a year ago
Manufacturing jobs are 246,500 – up from 242,600 a year ago (recall the crisis!)
Number of hours worked is up 4.8% from a year ago (highest growth for many years)
The proportion of under 2os not in employment, study or training has fallen from 8.0% a year ago to 7.4% today
Salary and wage rates up 1.7% from a year ago
Manufacturing pay rates up 1.9% from a year ago (recall the crisis!)
Total weekly gross earnings up 6.3% from a year ago
Female average earnings as % of male up from 86.7% to 87.1% over a year
[lprent: Link to the source when you want to quote. It also means that others can start checking and discussing your sources. Don’t link, and I will start deleting the quotes. ]
Perhaps you should compare over 5 years? And even over the last year I notice that you missed out inflation rates, changes in the CPI, interest rates, and the estimates of the under-employed – ie the ever increasing numbers of involuntary part time and casual workers. What this government doesn’t appear to be able to affect is the number of people in full-time employment.
Basically this is the government trying to take credit for the world coming out of a recession/depression.
Any chance you could outline National’s policies to tackle systemic poverty in New Zealand?
Your leader doesn’t seem to want to discuss policy, so wondered if you could help out.
Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept.
Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.
The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama Administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system. Since taking office, Obama has boosted the number of people on the no fly list more than ten-fold, to an all-time high of 47,000—surpassing the number of people barred from flying under George W. Bush.
“If everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent. The watchlisting system, he adds, is “revving out of control.”
Don’t be mean Phil. Kathryn Ryan is fair and balanced in any which way you want to swing:
economically – her broad spectrum ‘portfolio’; her work/life balance; her list of ‘go-to’s’ and rent-a-quoters’; her propensity between enilsting comment based on nepotism and ‘new blood’; her being down with the folks and being in with the in-crowd; her expertise on anything and everything from parenthood to music……She be the queen (oops Queen)
She’s God’s gift to mankind, and she’s got a raft of facebook-type friends to prove it. Some of them even pop up on MSM to prove it… from Burma Road socialists to Boombers with guilt. She’s the Queen.
Don’t be cruel. Your just jealous. She’s what RNZ is to PSB as Juan Williams is to NPR.
Why Kathryn even subscribes to The Arts Channel (now Skoi Arts)
Pass the Chardonnay will you darling – this discussion is becoming oh so very boring because Kathryn is an institution that’s become so in touch with both the people, and the movers and shakers. I fuckin adore her!
Not wanting to start a flame war but if Hammas stopped using children as human shields, stopped storing weapons in UN buildings and stopped firing rockets at Israel then there’d be no need for an Iron dome
Just saying that if Hammas stopped attacking Israel would stop attacking Hammas and if Hammas stopped hiding around civilian populations then there’d be less civilians killed but then Hammas wouldn’t be able to show the worlds media dead children…
Population
– 2014 estimate 1,816,379
– Density 5046/km2
13,069.1/sq mi
Click into the image.
Hamas are of course the governing body in the Gaza strip. They really don’t have areas that aren’t filled with civilians.
By way of comparision, the size and population density of Auckland city..
Area
• Total 637 km2 (246 sq mi)
Population (30 June 2010)[1]
• Total 450,300
• Density 710/km2 (1,800/sq mi)
Basically you appear to be fuckwit groin clutcher who is too stupid to do some pretty basic research and mostly noticeable for being a lazy parrot for the Israeli PR spinners…
Well done LP. I’ve always wanted to compare Gaza population density with an Israel apologist’s home town population density when they start to froth at the mouth about Hamas supposedly using human shields to hide munitions.
Guerilla warfare is by definition part time, and bound (by necessity) within the civilian population.
Ahhh, yeah, Lynn, but let’s not be too ambitious for Pucks, he needs to learn to walk before he can run. Frankly, I’ll be over the moon if he just manages to spell “Hamas” correctly !, given that he’s devoted so much space to dribbling meaningless inanities about the movement.
Certainly, though, it’s been interesting over recent weeks to witness our very own Tory Tr*lls mindlessly regurgitating official Israeli spin, clearly without possessing even the faintest idea….seems to be a default-position for them. Very telling.
In terms of the almost 2 Million Palestinians crammed into the Gaza Strip (most of them refugees or their descendants), your Gaza/Auckland comparison can be extended…….
Gaza’s territory in NZ terms
(1) Auckland
Gaza (north to south) is about three-quarters the (north – south) length of Auckland – essentially Papakura to Browns Bay. But Gaza’s width is only a quarter of its length – slightly wider than the North Shore (roughly Takapuna to Hobsonville).
(2) Coromandel
Gaza’s about half the length of the Coromandel peninsula and considerably less than half the width.
(3) Central NI
Gaza = same length as Lake Taupo but not much more than a third of the width.
(4) Wellington
Gaza length = Island Bay to Pukerua Bay. Gaza width = same as Wellington Harbour at its widest point
(5) Christchurch
Same length as Banks Peninsula (if measuring Peninsula east to west), but only half the width
(6) Dunedin
Gaza length = Waitati in north to a point a little south of Brighton in the south
Gaza width = Ocean Grove to Half-way Bush
“The most recent cease-fire was established after Israel’s October 2012 assault. Though Israel maintained its devastating siege, Hamas observed the cease-fire, as Israeli officials concede. Matters changed in June, when Fatah and Hamas forged a unity agreement, which established a new government of technocrats that had no Hamas participation and accepted all of the demands of the Quartet. Israel was naturally furious, even more so when even the US joined in signaling approval. The unity agreement not only undercuts Israel’s claim that it cannot negotiate with a divided Palestine, but also threatens the long term goal of dividing Gaza from the West Bank and pursuing its destructive policies in both of the regions.
Something had to be done, and an occasion arose shortly after, when the three Israeli boys were murdered in the West Bank. The Netanyahu government knew at once that they were dead, but pretended otherwise, which provided the opportunity to launch a rampage in the West Bank, targeting Hamas. Netanhayu claimed to have certain knowledge that Hamas was responsible. That too was a lie, as recognized early on. There has been no pretense of presenting evidence. One of Israel’s leading authorities on Hamas, Shlomi Eldar, reported almost at once that the killers very likely came from a dissident clan in Hebron that has long been a thorn in the side of Hamas. Eldar added that “I’m sure they didn’t get any green light from the leadership of Hamas, they just thought it was the right time to act.” The Israeli police have since been searching for two members of the clan, still claiming, without evidence, that they are “Hamas terrorists.”
The 18-day rampage however did succeed in undermining the feared unity government, and sharply increasing Israeli repression. According to Israeli military sources, Israeli soldiers arrested 419 Palestinians, including 335 affiliated with Hamas, and killed six Palestinians, also searching thousands of locations and confiscating $350,000. Israel also conducted dozens of attacks in Gaza, killing 5 Hamas members on July 7.
Hamas finally reacted with its first rockets in 19 months, Israeli officials reported, providing Israel with the pretext for Operation Protective Edge on July 8.“
Nope. If Israel stopped building settlements on top of PA land there’d be no need for an Iron Dome. If Israel stopped inviting every Jewish person on the planet to fill those settlements there’d be no need for an Iron Dome.
If those two things happened there’d be no need for the kind of destruction we’ve seen over the last two weeks.
Any chance you could outline National’s policies to tackle systemic poverty in New Zealand?
Your leader doesn’t seem to want to discuss policy, so wondered if you could help out.
What a disgraceful statement.
By the way, can you outline National’s policies to reverse our declining environment in New Zealand?
Your leader doesn’t seem to want to discuss policy, so wondered if you could help out.
If the IDF propaganda about accidental strikes on UN facilities is collapsing so when the UN facilities are used as arsenals narrative falls over will you admit your gullibility?.
Sure, unemployment down especially in Canterbury.
But 40% fall in dairy price in 6 months.
Dollar falls nearly 2 cents in 2 days: global market analysts clear that NZs dairying vulnerability far more important than employment.
The Associate Transport Minister has announced a time limit for Learners licenses. This is because a huge number of people refuse to go to the next stage.
I am one. I have been car licensed for four decades but also drive a scooter on a learners. The reason for this is the cost. Its a $500 rort. Then theres the time restrictions. …all in the name of safety. What a load of revenue raising bollocks.
Personally, I think a drivers licence should get you driving any non-commercial vehicle up to about 2 tonne. From there you’d need specialist licences to drive heavy trucks, trailers, forklifts and diggers.
Oh, and I’ve never been enthusiastic about leaner’s licences. Much better idea to require that people have the required training to get the licence in the first place.
By now, you’ve heard of the crater on the Yamal Peninsula. It’s the one that suddenly appeared, yawning nearly 200 feet in diameter, and made several rounds in the global viral media machine. The adjectives most often used to describe it: giant, mysterious, curious. Scientists were subsequently “baffled.” Locals were “mystified.” There were whispers that aliens were responsible. Nearby residents peddled theories of “bright flashes” and “celestial bodies.”
[…]
There’s now a substantiated theory about what created the crater. And the news isn’t so good.
It may be methane gas, released by the thawing of frozen ground. According to a recent Nature article, “air near the bottom of the crater contained unusually high concentrations of methane — up to 9.6% — in tests conducted at the site on 16 July, says Andrei Plekhanov, an archaeologist at the Scientific Centre of Arctic Studies in Salekhard, Russia. Plekhanov, who led an expedition to the crater, says that air normally contains just 0.000179% methane.”
The scientist said the methane release may be related to Yamal’s unusually hot summers in 2012 and 2013, which were warmer by an average of 5 degrees Celsius. “As temperatures rose, the researchers suggest, permafrost thawed and collapsed, releasing methane that had been trapped in the icy ground,” the report stated.
You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time but Key thinks he can fool all of the people all of the time.
This election is going to be a mill stone for the winner because of the TPPA and who ever has to take responsibility for selling our sovereignty will be damned as the leader ,which plays nicely for Key because it will probably swing a third term for him and if not will probably paint another PM as a liar and give them only a term which is all Key needs to complete his economic and political mission to squash any major left wing destruction of his last 2 terms ,a sacrifice, if needs be by Key to get done what he knows will happen to NZ and not be made directly responsible for it and if he gets his 3rd term he will be able to annihilate the left and any of the old NZ left values will be gone for good unless there is a real revolution brought about by the mass of losers that will be most of us
Clever Key you think ,just a scenario I dreamed up
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
The Department of Conservation is in greater need of a commissioner than Health NZ, a veteran scientist says The post The risks and rewards of remaking DoC appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Hope Theo Speirings is having a little pause for thought about his strategy of following China’s great sucking engine to bulk and lower-end value products as our national basis for pastoral wealth.
It’s not very often I’d link to a Daily Mail article, but these pics of Gaza tell a story that show this devastation by the Israelis will echo for years in the Middle East – even if Israeli does meet its objective of clearing Gaza.
Thank you miravox. Those pictures illustrate what daily life must be like for Palestinians during this genocide.
The scale of horror and the depth of grief is hard enough for the world to comprehend and digest let alone imagine being Palestinian.
Everyone has probably seen this as it’s been floating around the net for days but I’ve only just heard this letter being read out on the 9am radio news in place of the usual news. The description of the treatment of Palestinians, adults and children by the settlers was particularly sobering:
http://stopwar.org.uk/news/today-i-saw-a-weeping-palestinian-man-holding-a-plastic-bag-of-meat-it-was-his-son#.U-FHuuOSzeB
I just cannot reconcile the psychology of a “race” who suffered from genocide permitting themselves the position of genocidal maniacs.
It’s a puzzling phenomenon Ennui.
The psychology of such a position must surely be studied and debated by those working in the field.
Psychology has it’s origins in some very talented Jewish people, the pioneers of the study of the mind in the late 19th century. Alfred Adler in particular stood out and took the concepts of Freud, refined them and whose theories contributed toward the evolution of psychotherapy.
The Adlerian approach looks at the individual in a holistic sense and considers social equality as a factor in their well being. I have been wondering lately what students and practitioners of the Adlerian movement (and other humanistic branches of psychology) would make of a culture giving life to their ancestral and collective rage, grief and oppression and turning an another culture, as undeserving of such cruelty as they were in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Adler
“I just cannot reconcile the psychology of a “race” who suffered from genocide permitting themselves the position of genocidal maniacs”
Need to separate-out (1) European Holocaust victims and (2) Zionists in Palestine. Their identity and interests are too often conflated.
I think the first thing to understand is that the Zionism on which Israel was established emerged from precisely the same deeply reactionary, anti-Enlightenment ideological mix (German/East European Romantic Nationalism and Imperialism) that so greatly inspired and animated the Nazis. ‘Blut und Bone’. Violent Ethnic-cleansing has always been implicit in that sort of extreme ethno-nationalist ideology where the emphasis is on membership of the prescribed ‘Race’ / ‘Blood’ / ‘Culture’ over universalist ideas of Equality and Citizenship. The aim was always to militarily carve-out an ethnically-pure (or failing that, overwhelmingly Jewish) ‘Greater Israel’ on Palestinian land (before Zionist colonisation got fully underway in the early 20C, Palestinian Arabs had comprised well over 90% of the population for more than 1300 years, with the tiny, indigenous Jewish community making up less than 5%. What’s more, that small indigenous Jewish community was overwhelmingly anti-Zionist and most of their descendants remain so. Important, I think, to remember that whenever you hear the line that this is some sort of ancient Arab-Jewish conflict that has gone on in Palestine for centuries. The kind of tosh that regularly emanates from the “pro”-Israel lobby).
It was, of course, a reaction to (at times, pretty vicious) anti-Semitism in Europe, the Baltic States and Russia, but the thing is Zionists completely accepted and internalised the deeply conservative ethno-nationalism underpinning that anti-Semitism, taking it as a prescription for a future Zionist state. If you look at early Zionist views of the Jewish community in Europe you’ll find they were remarkably similar to the vicious racial stereotypes of the more extreme 19C anti-semites (which were, of course, later adopted by the Nazis). The middle-class German Jews at the heart of the early Zionist movement entirely accepted all of those anti-Jewish stereotypes and argued that the way to change these alleged traits was to do for the Jews what the anti-Semitic ultra-conservative German Nationalists wanted to do for Germany – create an ethnically-homogenous homeland where they could create their conception of a new, self-respecting Jewish-Settler, plough in one hand, gun in the other, using force to carve-out this new ethnically-pure Eretz Israel.
On top of that, it pays to remember that the Israeli Right were openly fascist during the first half of the 20C. Jabotinsky’s Revisionist movement (from which Sharon and Netanyahu’s Likud Party emerged) greatly admired Mussolini and their Irgun and Stern gang terrorist groups of course included two future Israeli PMs. In the end, though, as far as attitudes to the colonisation of Palestine are concerned, they were little different in their ethos to Ben-Gurion’s Israeli Labour Party (and its precursors) and the mainstream Haganah (forebear of the IDF).
Second thing is: the Yishuv (pre-Israeli State Zionist community in Palestine) and its leaders like Ben-Gurion had a very dodgy relationship with the Holocaust. A good deal of collaboration took place with both the Nazis and other anti-Semitic leaders and groups in Europe / the Baltic nations in order to encourage Jewish emigration to Palestine (including an ultimately successful Zionist campaign to end an American Jewish-organised economic boycott of Nazi Germany). Strenuous efforts to prevent European Jews escaping Germany/Mainland Europe to Britain and the US (for the Yishuv leaders it had to be Palestine or nothing). The bullying of Holocaust survivors in immediate post-war Displaced Persons Camps (the US allowed Zionist groups from Palestine to take over many of these camps, and Holocaust survivors – the vast majority of whom wanted to go to the US – were largely forced through coercion (including outright violence) to emigrate to Palestine instead).
And when Holocaust survivors arrived in Israel, they were treated abominably by a sizeable portion of Israeli society, particularly by State officials (albeit with honourable exceptions). All of which is best encapsulated by the derisive Yishuv slang name for Holocaust survivors “soap” (based on the now-discredited idea that Holocaust victims’ bodies had been turned into soap by the Nazis). The survivors were deemed shameful by Zionists because they and the 6 Million victims were considered to have gone like lambs to the slaughter – whereas Zionism was all about celebrating the self-respecting, gun-toting, take-no-prisoners Zionist Jew. Many survivors were forced – again against their will – to fight in the 1948 War. Many, having survived the Holocaust against all the odds (and still greatly traumatised) went on to die in that War for an Israeli nation that largely despised them.
The Holocaust, of course, only became important to Israel after its leaders decided it could be of political use to close down criticism of Israeli policies (largely after Adolf Eichmann’s trial in 1962). It’s been said that to this day a disproportionate number of Holocaust survivors and their descendants live below the poverty line in Israel (some 50,000 by one recent estimate). Meanwhile, Israeli banks continue to refuse to return money to the families of Holocaust victims who had deposited significant sums in Zionist banks in pre-Israel Palestine. It’s an on-going scandal. So much for Israel’s solemn Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Thank you Swordfish. That’s a very helpful historical background and goes quite some way to providing an explanation for current behaviours. It’s also an education. (for myself at least)
Thanks so much for that swordship. Hugely helpful to my understanding of the reality of Israel and Palestine.
I was (note WAS) one of those who for years fell for the Israeli Government line that they were the oppressed ones. Indeed I even considered the Palestinians to be mad and dangerous. I hang my head in shame. My own experiences in England 40 odd years ago (I lived for a couple of years with Jewish people married to relatives of mine) suggest there were many good Jewish people of English origin who were equally taken in.
Israel will get its come-uppance one day. It may happen in a different way to Natzi Germany but the world is finally waking up to them. I no longer turn a hair when we are confronted on the Telly with the death of Israeli soldiers etc. Good riddance!
“I just cannot reconcile the psychology of a “race” who suffered from genocide permitting themselves the position of genocidal maniacs”
Richard Dawkins also has an answer…patriarchal monotheism…otherwise known as Religious Fundamentalism. In 2006 Richard Dawkins wrote in ‘The God Delusion’:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant
character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust,
unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a
misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal,
pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent
bully.”
Love it. 😀
Sorry swordFISH. I called you swordship.
I hadn’t seen Brian Eno’s letter before, so thanks for posting Rosie. Agree with Ennui about incomprehension of people who suffered the Holocaust causing wiping out Gaza. Beyond the psychological context – maybe this para from Eno explains some of social/cultural context (which also ties in with swordfish’s explanation).
As for the apologists for the Israeli action in Gaza – if they don’t have an empathetic bone in their body after seeing images of total destruction of people and place, maybe this paragraph will resonate with their desire to prevent the ‘islamification of the west’, if nothing else. I can only hope they then think again about the strategy of Israel and enabling western governments.
The paragraph about the “right of return” Jews made me recall the South African Jewish family I worked for, for many years.
Their fairness as an employer and their hospitality towards guests (including us as employee’s) always seemed in complete contrast to the way they switched to an arrogant assumption in regard their “rights” in their “homeland”, meaning Israel, not S.A, when any tentative conversation came up about Israel and Palestine. There was a bloody mindedness present during these brief discussions that was at odds with how they presented themselves otherwise. Something kind of primal surfaced and no amount of everyday respectability could hide it.
This sense of superiority led one of the family members to go to Israel to train in the army, and to be ready for “when the time came”. I think about her and wonder whether she has gone as a reservist. I’m hoping that motherhood settled this bloodlust and made her consider the lives of children of other mothers.
There are people in the West taking a moral stand on this genocide and ‘Crime Against Humanity’…and they give us hope. One such person is a British women politician who has resigned over Prime Minister Camerons’ inaction. It is people like this politician taking a moral stand who will force change..because they expose the immorality of other politicians and newspaper editors taking no stand, or seeking to suppress the truth.
‘Baroness Warsi resigns over Gaza conflict saying she ‘can no longer support Government policy’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/baroness-warsi-resigns-over-gaza-conflict-saying-she-can-no-longer-support-government-policy-9648529.html
“I can no longer support Government policy on Gaza,” she wrote.
“In her letter to Mr Cameron, Lady Warsi said that the Government’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been “morally indefensible” and not “in Britain’s national interest”.
Another taking a stand is the Australian journalist Mike Carlton, long time journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/06/sydney-morning-heralds-mike-carlton-resigns-over-gaza-column-reaction
cunnliffe just had a trainwreck interview on tv3..
..refusing to even talk about dotcom etc..(!)..
..he was playing some sorta ‘hard-man’-role..
..it was entirely unbelievable..
You must have a bit of weed in your eyes, that’s not the interview I just watched.
He said KD had been told to respect the campaign message of vote positive up north, he said mana won’t be in his government but can support it but it’s their decision, got a good hit on kimmy by saying said kdc donated to act not labour.
Will check your pro hone spin and bias in a bit.
The 6pm one news story:
The Internet Mana Party won’t be a part of any coalition with Labour.
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/dotcom-won-t-part-labour-coalition-6047467
I don’t have anything against IMP or their policies but imo because Kim & Hone are so despised by most voters; then this is a good political move by Labour.
“this is a good political move by Labour.”
Yes, very smart electioneering. Well done team red.
“because Kim & Hone are so despised by most voters”
Nailed it, but expect backlash. There’s a minor party infestation on the standard most days, yet although they’re very vocal and quite feral, they’re marginalised and fringe dwelling pussies (as in puddy cats) in reality.
..they’re marginalised and fringe dwelling…
God forbid marginalised people being part of the democratic process. Better to throw us under the bus. Not officially Labour policy yet though, The Alien. But yeah, we can read the writing on the wall.
Pity we aren’t mainstream People Who Matter, like your good self.
Put it in the politically charged context of “expect backlash. There’s a minor party infestation on the standard most days, yet although they’re very vocal and quite feral, they’re marginalised and fringe dwelling pussies”
“Pity we aren’t mainstream People Who Matter, like your good self”
That you have an inferiority complex isn’t my fault.
For the record, I love everyone and value them all equally as human beings without exception.
I don’t feel inferior. I’m sure you are clever enough to recognise sarcasm
But I do think the belief that being marginalised = not or less worth paying attention to is incompatible with any kind of progressive or left-wing belief system.
spot on js.
…”they’re very vocal and quite feral”….i am a feral Chooky
Hi Alien. I’m a two ticks Labour kinda girl this election and a supporter of IMP. I was hoping to see a strong and healthy Labour/Greens/IMP coalition after 20th September. By being a supporter of IMP I don’t consider myself a marginalised fringe dwelling pussy.
I’m disappointed by this announcement. If a coalition can be formed with NZ First and The Greens, instead, it will still be celebrated. The corrupt Key regime being brought to an end is reason for celebration alone (my god there will be tears of happiness!) but it’s not the coalition of choice for this voter.
No, you’re alright.
Lol, pleased to be reassured in regard to my potential fringe freak nature or limited voter intellect status……………….
I think we should have a big collective hug and get on with the job of ousting Key.
Like DC, I won’t hug kimmy.
Kimmy gives very good parties…Kimmy could help the Left win the Election
+100 Rosie
Most of all the feral comments I’ve seen are coming from you. That comment is a good example.
Look harder, maybe with the other eye open at the same time.
Yeah, you just proved my point.
“The Internet Mana Party won’t be a part of any coalition with Labour.”
The headline currently reads:
“Dotcom won’t be part of Labour coalition”
Stupidest headline of the election campaign? Thanks TVNZ.
Can people on ts please not buy into the bullshit that the IMP or even the IP = KDC?
KDC is not a candidate and will in no way be part of the next government.
+1
For fucks sake, Phil Goff was contemplating joining ACT not so long ago, and seemed to have decided against it for reasons related to his own career. Labour’s stated policies are closer to ACT’s than Mana’s are. FFS the Labour party gave birth to the ACT – party they are freaking whanau.
This is SO hyocritical
@Just saying,
You idiot! If I had the power, I would have banned you from this site for spouting such unfair defaming crap against Mr Phil Goff and the Labour party. By all means, criticise Labour, but don’t spout untrue, unjust, utter crap.
From Liberation:
http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2009/02/act-party-history-16-recruitment-of-party-hopping-mps.html
Act also ‘revealed that it had held talks with Labour’s Phil Goff about his joining Act’ (Scott, 16 March 1996: pp.16-17).
To put it into context, this from Goff’s wikipedia page:
In the 1990 elections, Labour was defeated, and Goff lost his own parliamentary seat to Gilbert Myles. While many commentators blamed Douglas’s controversial reforms for Labour’s loss, Goff said that the main problem had been in communication, not policy
As someone on the inside in those days just saying: I can inform you ACT had talks with many politicians and former politicians from both Labour and National in the hope of attracting them to join the ACT Party. All of the approaches came from the ACT Party, and I know of at least one well known former Labour politician who was so incensed by their persistence he and his wife threatened to take action against them if they didn’t leave them alone.
In other words, Phil Goff was one of many and he turned them down flat. Not interested!
Hi Anne,
If he turned them down flat, as so many did, it would be a non-issue. He was in talks with ACT about taking over as leader. He decided against it. As it turns out it was a good choice from a career point of view.
Even considering joining an extreme right-wing party is extremely damning.
Sadly, I think if he had been talking with the Alliance or The Greens in the 90s he would have been out the door. Which is also damning. but for the party.
followed by harawira who gave good-interview..
(both interviews will be on the tv3 website..)
He had a shocker to be fair, first calling for Kelvin to be sacked then being turned around to changing it to ‘let’s forget it’.
Wilson put it that KD sort of had a right to campaign for more funding, being faced by a $3m kitty, hone whinged he had less money in past elections and that right wing bloggers had donated to it, though didn’t say if the donations were named, which of course blunts the attack.
When asked to respond to the position held by many many people that the mip is just a vehicle for kdc to avoid extradition, all he did was list the roadshow venues.
Limited appeal to limited intellect voters.
Still vote Labour and Green to change the government without relying on extremists and opportunists.
Totally with you here Al1en
I’ve known for a while it’s not just me.
I’m sure many feel the same but don’t want to post for fear of having to deal with the vocal minority extremist clique.
Lucky I have a bit of free time at the moment and skin thicker than the average mip voter.
I’m proudly red and green and won’t easily be shouted down.
Do you think that some who didnt know whether to vote KD or HW might look at KD taking donations from right wingers as a push toward electorate vote Hone?
I don’t honestly know what to make of it all but KD is putting me more and more in mind of another fellow from up North who was kind-of labour.
Like I wrote Tracey, I’ve not seen it reported that the donations were specifically sought from the right wingers, which would be bad, or if they were anonymous donations through the website, which KD would have no knowledge of.
In my mind, KD shouldn’t have done the site as it’s a bit loose and off party line, but he’s quite correct to slam hone for his backing and backer and push the cause of the people in his electorate over hh self interest and kdc’s agenda.
I don’t believe he’s SJ mk2 like some commentators would have you believe, after all, it’s their ‘job’ to demonise him.
So, people who disagree with you are extremists?
Just if they’re riffraff 😀
I generally quite like The Al1en’s contributions to ts, but the anti-KDC/Mana thing strikes me as being ott and coming from an extreme place in itself. It’s kind of funny in a way. I’m a GP voter and I remember when exactly this kind of shit was aimed at the GP and their supporters. Kia kaha Mana and the IP, keep up the good works.
Thanks, but it’s a push back reaction rather than a form of out and out aggressive extremism on my part.
To be quite honest, I’ve had enough of the negativity from mip voters here, and probably won’t bother much after today.
Loonies taking over the asylum springs to mind as far as political and policy debate is concerned and woe betide any who disagree or push saner Green/Labour points.
Kim’s got dosh, maybe he could fund his own version of the standard.
cue violins…reach for tissues…
Cue fu*kwit, reach for a brick.
No violins mate, just a statement of fact, maybe only as I see it, but I doubt it.
Let’s face it pu, aside from your obvious anti green/labour agenda, you’re only here ’cause you’ve got nowhere else to go or no-one will have you – That and for pushing your unintelligible uninformed opinion blog.
Quantity you clearly have, quality, not so much. Not to get too personal about it, being on a politics site and all, but in economic terms, you’re a deficit to the bottom line, and who needs that? Not me.
Best you and your mip buddies carry on circle jerking your way through September, stifling debate as you go, and when you don’t get cabinet seats and control of anything post election, you can start all over again about how bad DC, MT and RN are and how bad these neo libs (or what ever the slogan of the day you pick up on is) are wrecking the country ad nauseum/infinitum.
Funniest thing, you know it’ll happen. 😉
recent example of my anti-green agenda..from open mike yesterday..
..on their green-card promise..
“..that is a clever policy from the greens..”
(cutting..!..eh..?..)
and is he promising to exit stage-right..?..plse say it is so..!..
..such a loose-unit..and such a whiner with it..
“such a loose-unit..and such a whiner with it.”
Ta ta nugget, enjoy your daisy chain circle jerk.
But funniest thing is, you know it’ll happen. 😉
“Watch the sky” she said.
…dont go The Allen…we need you
@Al1en, agree totally with your sentiments about MIP, Hone and KDC … I liked Mana policies (pre-KDC) but their personnel are simply unelectable outside of Te Tai Tokerau.
A toxic brand with zero appeal to middle NZ.
that would be the middle NZ that’s been sitting by letting the poverty gap become a chasm, letting our rivers fill up with cow shit and letting our assets be sold off overseas? (just to mention a few of the obvious ones).
stoopid left wing radical will never change anything
You really think that no changes happen from the edges? Methinks you haven’t been paying attention.
@ weka…i totally agree with you
Limited intellect voters. Now that’s a sure way to win over the undecided. Just as arrogant as the arseholes we are trying to get rid of. If your an example of what an “intelligent” Labour person looks like, thanks but no thanks.
“Now that’s a sure way to win over the undecided”
Perhaps only the smarter ones.
“If your an example”
You made my point for me. Thanks for playing.
I wouldn’t vote IMP, but you labelling others as thick is priceless.
I will vote IMP and I too find the labelling priceless from allen – he’s on a secret mission from the right so never mind.
Secret mission 😆
Yeah good point you stuffed that up too lol
Secret mission, from who? Name names or gtfo and stfu.
Having chips on both shoulders doesn’t necessarily make you balanced mars 😉 😆
Don’t tell me what to do fuckwit – stick to your dirty little campaign – oh and don’t forget the little violin when you go for your sympathy post.
“Don’t tell me what to do fuckwit – stick to your dirty little campaign”
I’ll take the secret right wing mission bit as just a bs defam, divert put down then. I’m not surprised, given your form.
It’s hardly right wing to seek votes for a green/red ticket, but then I forget, you like your left a bit more ‘radical’. Mega lulz.
“oh and don’t forget the little violin when you go for your sympathy post.”
No tears this side of no regrets – Try again… Or don’t, whatever suits.
grow up t 🙄
Yeah, you’re out of stones and all your glass house windows are gone.
Give up bro.
see, not so hard to be nice is it rather than your usual spit-style of posting – keep it up and your shit reputation may even improve 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
edit oh you changed your post back to the usual – oh dear, what a pity, never mind
plus ‘bro’ is just not your style tryhard lol
“see, not so hard to be nice is it rather than your usual spit-style of posting – keep it up and your shit reputation may even improve”
Spin spin sugar.
“edit oh you changed your post back to the usual – oh dear, what a pity, never mind
plus ‘bro’ is just not your style tryhard lol”
Like a record baby, right round, round round. 😆
Priceless is about right for me – hh, about three million.
how did the job interview go?
@ tom jackson..+1..
..there is that curious mix of arrogance and ignorance..
..and yep..!..as thick as a sack full of doorknobs..
If Banks can get Charter schools with 1 MP miserable prick in his case
a party with more MPs can get more
the Maori Party got Whanau Ora and Prison reform and a nice BMW for its leader.
”Limited intellect voters” nice from the resident elitist areshole,
Tell us all Alien, if these voters you ascribe ”limited intellect” to voted Green would you suddenly ascribe to them ”intelligence”…
A lot more than they originally had. Better late than never.
“elitist areshole,”
I’m not elitist.
Now just explain to me again how Labour, the Greens, and IMP are going to work together sucessfully after the election – and thats before Winston puts his hand up for foreign affairs again……..
I am starting to like quite a few of Labours policies (hey they make sense) but Im not too sure about the bedfellows/bedshelias with whom they will be co-habitating.
I can understand Labour atacking the Greens and the IMP, as they need to be the biggest “Left” brand in parliament for the sake of their own brand which is being eroded by the Greens to quite a large extent. And you cant reward your own foot soldiers, when you have to accommodate your “partners”
Labour’s brand isn’t being eroded by the GP. Their constiuency is. The GP have better left wing policies and that’s why more people are voting for them.
“Now just explain to me again how Labour, the Greens, and IMP are going to work together sucessfully after the election”
Pretty simple. Labour and the GP form a coaltion that includes them both in cabinet. The IMP supports on C and S and possibly negotiates some specific policy deals. None of that is unusual.
Or are you suggesting that Labour is incapable of working in coalition with other left wing parties?
“Or are you suggesting that Labour is incapable of working in coalition with other left wing parties?”
I do wonder whether some politicians put their party ahead of the common cause (ousting the incumbents).
The Nats have taken the other approach and hoovered up the voters from their allied parties – clearly displaying that putting their party first is more important than having allied parties with similar philosophies, but different policies. I guess that way they can reward there only loyal footsoldiers better – if they win.
My recall of history is that no one group has the mortgage on good ideas and that hanging out only with people who always agree with you brings stale thinking. Think USSR, North Korea etc.
Sorry, that’s a bit obscure in terms of answering my question, and seems a bit contradictory. You seem to be suggesting that Labour should be the biggest party, can’t work well with others, but that hanging out with themselves brings stale thinking.
ACT lost votes because they were shown to be the hard right neoliberals that they are, and most conservative voters don’t want that. Plus ACT had a series of leaders that were unappealing.
The MP lost votes because they betrayed their core constituents, I doubt those voters have gone to National.
I think you will be surprised how fewer people in reality vote for National than it appears. It looks good for them via the media, but when you break down the actual numbers, it looks like the right are still in FPP thinking and don’t really get MMP. I would guess that is the real reason for National’s relatively high vote compared to Labour. But compare National to the leftwing L/GP bloc and they’re not doing all that well.
Sorry, I didnt explain myself so well.
Party ahead of the common cause:
I perceive that Labour is doing this to maximise their numbers for any post election negotiations. They may end up being the biggest party in the opposition tho.
Stale one party thinking:
I was really thinking of National here and think that Labours policies are looking pretty good (high praise from a right wing type like me)
As for ACT losing votes, back in their early days they has a great weekly newsletter written by Prebble, which outlined their thinking very well. At the time, they wanted the cross benches so they could “keep the Nats honest”. But they sold out for the ministerial Limos and the perks – even Rodney fell for it – and really by then ACT was toast.
I liked what ACT was – a party that thought differently and had different solutions to the problems we faced. Sadly, they moved on from that and effectively stand for nothing anymore.
weka +100
T Allen
So you admit to being an arsehole?
Ba dum tish.
Hi A11en,
“… the mip is just a vehicle for kdc to avoid extradition …”
How would that work?
Do you think the IMP might threaten to withdraw confidence and supply support if the extradition isn’t quashed? (Notice that that eventuality is not eliminated by Labour’s/Cunliffe’s position on Mana.)
If so, perhaps Harawira and Harre (and KDC) should be asked that question directly – now.
Also, perhaps Cunliffe should be asked whether he would agree to quash the extradition in the event that such support were threatened to be withdrawn.
Asking that question of them all should clarify the extent to which KDC can use IMP as “a vehicle … to avoid extradition“.
Or perhaps they have already been asked that question?
factcheck:..
“..and that right wing bloggers had donated to it, though didn’t say if the donations were named, which of course blunts the attack..”
two of the donations were from whaleoil and farrar..
..and in the pitch for the site..a ‘plus’ was cited that ‘national party members wd contribute’..
..to this cause of taking out harawira..
factfu*k more like.
“two of the donations were from whaleoil and farrar..”
Though it doesn’t say he solicited them from the bloggers directly, or KD knew who was donating. Obviously they outed themselves, but that proves no culpability on KD’s part.
Hence
“though didn’t say if the donations were named, which of course blunts the attack”
If the bloggers said, hi I’m a right wing blogger, accept this money, I’m sure it would have been rejected.
If it came through the website anonymously, you have no case.
Do you know how those donations came into play? Does hh? He should, because he said it unequivocally, and unless proved, shows a lack of judgement and professionalism on par with KD.
the allen shd not mistake a factcheck of his bullshit..for an opening of dialogue..
…i wd rather bash my cock against a nail-studded stump…
So do you know the facts about the donations from the right wing bloggers or not?
If you do, post them up, otherwise it’s totally misleading and disingenuous, like usual.
Like said, factfu*k more like.
True Phil – classical dirty trick that has backfired – why did the gnatbloggers donate? Weakest link that’s why and Kelvin and the team know it.
It may just be that they did not give any $$ to the cause, because just saying they did can do as much harm as actually sending the money.
And its a bit cheaper too
no..davis has said he has the money from farrar/slater…
phillip-you are back in that negative phase again; attacking Cunliffe because he is not doing what you want him to do.
Cunliffe has to distance himself from Hone to win the election. Get used to it.
IMO Hone is wonderful. He gave an excellent interview on Morning Report this am and every time he is on I am sure IMP’s vote goes up.
IMP will back Labour on confidence and supply-that is certain. Cunliffe will probably make Laila and Hone chairpeople of some important committees.
They HAVE to if they get seats because their stated aim is to get rid of the Key Government. In that sense it is a clever call by Cunliffe. IF IMP dont support on that basis, Labour might not govern and Key gets the treasury benches.
Exactly Tracey.
The Nats would be ruthless in the campaign painting Labour as partners to IMP. By ruling this out Labour has parked this issue and is able to concentrate on talking policy.
Cunliffe was good on tv3 this morning talking policy and refusing to let the interviewer make it all about Kelvin Davis and KDC.
@ b.g..
..i am somewhat tiring of this bullshit…
..if cunnliffe gives a good interview..i will say he has done a good interview..
..if he sucks..i’ll also say that..
..this is what i do..i do political-commentary..
..and as for yr claim re cunnliffe ‘not doing what i want’..is why i criticise him when i feel it is due..
..i am actually fucken agnostic about int/mana joining labour in a formal coalition..
..(this is what i said is this forum..yesterday..on that topic..)
“..i have no problems with int/mana not being in cabinet/bound by cabinet muzzling-rules..
..for one thing..labour support a tpp..
..int/mana want to rip it up…
..and a weak/do nothing lab/nz first coalition..will just weaken labour further..
..and a potent int/mana on the cross-benches..free to argue etc..
..is fine with me..
..i wd just like there to be a lot of them..
..and then..in 2017…a lot more..”
..are you clear on that now..?
..these bullshit claims i have some ‘secret-agenda’..
..i don’t think i cd b more upfront about what my fucken ‘agenda’ is..
..eh..?
“..i wd just like there to be a lot of them..
..and then..in 2017…a lot more..””
Exactly – it’s a long game we’re playing and that takes time and during that time skills will be learned and lessons undertook and when the time is there IMP will assume the reins naturally and with gratitude from the other entities including the people.
Hey Phillip I agree with you that Hone did an excellent interview.
To call Cunliffe’s interview a “train wreck” is manifestly unfair-see Clem’s posting below for instance. He simply refused to further debate the IMP/Davis situation having clearly stated his position, and instead said he would talk about policy. The Davis affair needed to be shut down which is what he did.
Remember: I would prefer IMP to be in the coalition/I am a Green voter/My prediction for the election is L31+G11+I7=49=Cunliffe with NZF not in the mix. I would be delighted with this outcome and I’m sure you would too.
+100 Bearded Git @ 3.2.2
No, not at all. I found both the interviews of Cunliffe and Harawira were EXCELLENT.
And I agree with what both of them said. Very good points.
Here is the interview for those who missed it:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Harawira-calls-on-Davis-to-apologise-over-smear-website/tabid/370/articleID/355650/Default.aspx
+1 Clem. See my discussion with Phillip above.
There was a brief news article about the National government gifting conservation land, including part of the Rakaia river bed, to the purchasers of 85% of Synlait – do we know anything more?
Allowing sales that have little or no benefit to New Zealand is one thing, but the ‘return on capital’ from gifting must be very low! Were there other benefits obtained from this ‘gift’ by parties other than government?
There was a piece about it on 3 news on Sunday night and a bit of follow up conversation on Open Mike that evening.
BLiP found info on the linz site about forest up for grabs and posted it. It was shocking. Also on the linz site was info about approval for a $55+ mil buy up of land around Huapai. The buyer was a Chinese development group on behalf of the Chinese Government. Their interests were stated as “toll roads”…………intriguing and disturbing.
It seems that conservation land that was gifted in Canterbury is just the tip of the ice berg in the great sell off of NZ.
Yes, Rosie. The tip of this iceberg makes my blood run chill … how poor will be shown to be in every single democratic measure when the usury of this Key govt is finally exposed for all its treasonous ugliness ? Brrrrrrr.
Tiger Mountains’ CAFCA link below is alarming reading.
Little America or Little China or both? Either way we have sold out, our land, our water, our right to privacy and edging towards our own two feet to stand on.
Ruth Richardson is a director of Synlait. Go figure.
Govt gave Shanghai Pengxin conservation land – Story – Politics – 3 News
http://www.3news.co.nz/Govt-gave-Shanghai-Pengxin-conservation-land/tabid/1607/articleID/355268/Default.aspx
Board of Directors – Synlait
http://www.synlait.com/about/key-people/board-of-directors/
OH! FFS! Well, I wonder if Ruth Richardson and Amy Adams had a few cosy chats about the set up of the Central Plains Water scheme that Amy Adams and presumably Synlait have benefited from………..
http://rebuildingchristchurch.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/special-investigation-adams-family-values/
Probably not gifting that conservation land, more likely a lease.
Gold has been suggested elsewhere regarding the riverbed. And you know what else ? Not only does Oravida have swamp kauri stocked up, they also have Oravida Gold and acres of leases awarded to them by Simon Bridges.
CORRUPT, TREASONOUS, AVARICIOUS, and dangerous to our democracy. I think even we will be badly shocked when athe sum of what has been sold/given away emerges in to daylight.
Won’t let me edit, but here are some facts re Oravida Gold. And interesting to note Judith Collins husband owned the mining permits from 2011 before the land was bought by Oravida in 2013 !! Must have learned double-dipping from the dipton dancer!
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/news/nbbus/266137544-oravida-expanding-into-gold-mining-
and
ORAVIDA COMPANY SET TO MINE ON COAST
A subsidiary of Chinese milk company Oravida has reportedly been drilling land it owns at
Ross in preparation for a move into gold mining. Last year Oravida Property bought 100
ha between Donaghues and the Mikonui River from Ross farmer and former regional
councillor, Bryan Chinn. Combined with the purchase of land north of Auckland, it spent
$3.2 million. It wants to create its own milk supply chain, which dates back to interest in
the Chafer farms in 2009. The company also has a permit to mine 369 ha of land in the
Mikonui River area, granted by the Ministry of Economic Development unit 2026. That
company is owned by Deyi Shi. Mr Wong-Tung, who holds the minerals permit, told the
Hokitika Guardian last year the company would mine the land before breaking into the
Westland dairy market. “The specific intention of purchasing the land is for mining it, but
also developing it after so we can turn it into good dairying land, as well as to make that
little bit of land productive”. He said the company had a lot of red tape to sort through
before being allowed to go ahead with its mining plans.
(Greymouth Star – 20 March 2014)
Week-ending-28.03.14 – Coast Valuations
http://www.coastval.co.nz/dmsdocument/20
I am thinking we need a million dollar fund to support Graeme McCready with all the work needing to be done ! Gold leases to a Minister’s husband ? Really, Mr Bridges ?
So what’s the collective view on the Wanaka-to-Arrowtown QEII covenant? Minister Smith has generated a massive new regional park on Great Barrier Island, and now gets to announce effectively a private national park as big as Aspiring National Park. He also lets remember killed two massive roading projects in the South Island over the last year. Is it time to give Nick Smith some credit?
wtf is a”private national park” ?
Ad-its good news but important to note that QEII covenants do not allow public access.
My understanding that some limited public tracks have been granted by Mutt as part of the process to date. Effectively he has largely set up a National Park for his own use.
A better idea, which could still happen, would be that a right to roam be given to the public for the areas QEII covenanted, or at least some of them.
I notice this on the access issue from the ODT today:
“Soho Properties and the trust were working with the New Zealand Walking Access Commission, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, the Queenstown Trails Trust and local walking and mountain biking groups to further improve public access.”
Maybe reasonable access will eventuate after all.
The owner of Soho and Motutapu Stations is at least partially resident in NZ and has been for a few years, so its bloody disingenuous to use his covenant as an example of good foreign ownership. He’s also a keen conservationist, unlike raping and pillaging dairy farm consortiums. On the issue of Nick ‘the prick’ Smith, I think he is a genuine blue-green to an extent and probably the least offensive of all Nat ministers. He’s certainly more intelligent, informed and blue-green than Amy fricking Adams.
It is definitely a good thing. We recently passed through the south island high country and got to some remote places. The land is pretty wrecked when you get up close and look – all for a few sheep. It hasn’t made sense to lay waste to tens of thousands of hectares to only support a couple of families on a station – it is a pathetic return.
So this QEII covenant is a very good thing. But Nick Smith deserves no credit for it. It aint nowt to do with him. But he does deserve credit for canning the loony monorail and the nutty tunnel – he just has one more to go and that is the most outrageous and brainless of the lot, the Haast-Hollyford Highway. But that is being attempted by a bunch of relics from colonial NZ who have somehow survived through to the 21st century. They don’t have a chance.
But Nick Smith deserves an absolute pasting for his abuse of power in threatening Fish & Game with obliteration unless they support the National Party’s farmers polluting activities.
No vto, Smith doesn’t deserve credit for canning the tunnel and monorail-they were both no-brainers.
However, it may be true that he leaned on DOC to support (or at least not oppose) the monorail, in their submission for which he deserves opprobrium.
His true colours came out at the Fish and Game meeting.
Word out in the conservation sector is that it is a very good thing and an incredible gesture from the ex-Shania guy; MPs from both National and Labour were at the event yesterday.
Was featured on Campbell Live last night … nothing to do with Nick Smith who couldn’t even pronounce the donor’s name correctly. Kudos chops to Mutt Lange for his generosity .. the land is now safe and protected and re-planted and loved with 12,000 plants every single month and glorious … worth a look …
http://www.3news.co.nz/Should-foreigners-be-allowed-to-buy-New-Zealand-land/tabid/817/articleID/355583/Default.aspx
Yeah, bit of a PR gift for struggling Nick Smith
agreed he has done some good things…and deserves some credit ….but eternal vigilance…lets hope the proposed Haast-Hollyford Highway is also killed…New Zealand needs its wilderness areas!
it’s double diddums for control freak Key and his script writers;
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10352978/Strict-rules-for-Key-electorate-event
What a travesty of democracy.
How is this permissible?
Kennedy Graham is the Green candidate for Helensville. I’d expect him to be there, too.
The NZ Herald says it’s a meeting for both Helensville and Te Tai Tokerau candidates.
And what’s to stop the Helensville candidates (without Key) having further debates in Helensville? They include high profile candidates of Harre and Graham.
I note both Laila and Hone are not doing Invercargill to be at the event
“Mr Key will be at the Kumeu Baptist Church meeting for Helensville and Te Tai Tokerau candidates on Monday night, pitting him against Internet Party leader Laila Harre and Mana leader Hone Harawira.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11304498
From the link:
“‘There is to be no debate at all. Candidates have been warned they will be thrown out if they mention other candidates or attack any other parties, or anything else like that, at all,” Ryan said.
Silence would be demanded from everyone but the speaker, with one warning before those disrupting the meeting would be removed.
”It’s on that basis that the prime minister agreed to be there.”
A spokeswoman for Key said he would take part in only one multi-candidate event in his electorate, which was ”the same as the last election campaign”.
His office had played no role in the shaping of the rules for the event, she said.”
One of these versions of events must be wrong.
Yes I noticed that. I think Key’s constant contradictions and linguistic meaninglessness have become so normalised that no-one even checks anymore.
Also, this story gives a more strategic view of the Nats’ apparently deliberate and recently adopted yelling-over-the-top-of-the-opponent tactic. I wondered what they were up to, it seems it’s just a background for Key to look good in front of.
I guess it doesn’t matter if every Nat looks an oaf if you’re only really asking people to vote for the PM anyway.
“…no-one even checks anymore.”
When I read something like this it’s not like I’m ‘checking’ – it just jumps out like a great big flashing sign spelling ‘Contradiction’ while generating a foghorn-like noise.
Why couldn’t the journalist just ‘see it’ in that way? Isn’t it one of their skills?
The dots were so close together in the story but they weren’t explicitly joined. Leaving it to the reader? Why? It could have even been the focus of the story – I thought journalists were keen on spotting that sort of contradiction in the utterances of politicos.
Yes “checks” wasn’t really the right word, I mean I don’t think anyone is taking notice.
I think people are just printing whatever gibberish he says and they don’t even expect it to make sense.
So the Prime Minister will spend more of his time talking to Whaleoil than voters in his own electorate? Unbelievable?
Get the toilet window exit ready.
Reminds me of Muldoon’s campaign opening at Wiri Woolstore, oh, so many years ago. There were so many police and police cameramen, it was 100% intimidating and frightening, to the extent the half-dozen over-ripe duck eggs we wicked feminist three smuggled in, through the police door searches, by necessity went unused … we would have been beaten black and blue in that atmosphere and possibly seriously injured.
Yes, Muldoon had the police doing door searches at his campaign opening.
Alas, who could have known they were perhaps the halcyon days after all ??
Why is there any reason to say
“One of these versions of events must be wrong”?
All it is really saying is that “We plan to hold an all- candidate meeting”. “The rules we propose are”. “Will you attend?”
Key then said he would attend such meeting. There is no reason to say that he set up the rules being proposed and nothing to say that the statements must conflict.
“There is no reason to say that he set up the rules”
well – nothing but all the other times the nats have set things up to favour themselves and insulate key from having to actually think
You have some evidence for this claim I presume?
Or is it just a proposal from your fevered imagination.
Yes alwyn I suppose it is possible that someone other than John Key came up with the rule that no-one is allowed to mention John Key, but it doesn’t seem very bloody likely.
Hi alwyn,
That’s an interesting way to resolve the apparent difference in the accounts. To be honest I didn’t give that possibility much consideration. Here’s why.
First was the context in which the two statements were reported. This is the ‘lead in’ to the first statement:
”There is to be no debate at all. Candidates have been warned they will be thrown out if they mention other candidates or attack any other parties, or anything else like that, at all,” Ryan said.
Silence would be demanded from everyone but the speaker, with one warning before those disrupting the meeting would be removed.
”It’s on that basis that the prime minister agreed to be there.”
Interestingly, Ryan says the “candidates have been warned” yet, in reference to John Key, there’s less a sense of a ‘warning’ than a process of agreement: “it’s on that basis that the prime minister agreed to be there.“.
Perhaps it was poor reporting but it didn’t sound like Key had been ‘warned’ by Holly Ryan while, obviously, other candidates had been.
I really don’t see how it’s possible to read those paragraphs and think that Ryan was simply referring to Key’s acquiescence to such strict rules (as if he had much preferred an old-fashioned, wide-ranging head to head with the other candidates but had had to ‘agree’ to be reigned in).
Second, it seems unusual that after talking about ‘the candidates’ Holly Ryan only refers to the Prime Minister in relation to the basis upon which participation was agreed.
That is, she didn’t say “We can’t possibly change the rules now because it’s on that basis that (all) the candidates agreed to be there.” Instead – inexplicably – she only referred to the agreement of the Prime Minister. Why just him if these were general rules?
Now, perhaps Holly Ryan only mentioned the Prime Minister in that comment because she saw him as the big ‘drawcard’ (as the sitting MP and, of course, the Prime Minister) and wanted to be sure to get his agreement to attend.
But that then raises the question as to why she thought those particular rules of engagement would entice John Key to attend – itself not flattering to the Prime Minister’s supposed reputation to ‘debate – and beat – all comers’ (as some here have repeatedly contended is his strength).
Or perhaps these rules were ‘anticipatory’ of gaining Key’s involvement because those were the only kinds of meetings Key had previously turned up to?
Such deference to the Prime Minister – and harsh ‘warnings’ to other candidates – also seems out of place for someone organising such an all-candidates event.
Third, possibly in naivety, I had just assumed that anyone motivated enough to host a ‘meet the candidates’ meeting during an election campaign would wish to have at least some challenge and counter-challenge of candidates’ policies – either candidate to candidate or citizen to candidate (well managed, of course).
I had thought that the only way that a ‘meet the candidates’ event would become so apparently anodyne in structure – and therefore likely to be so unrevealing of the soundness of policy positions, etc. – would be if politicians had done their best to make it so.
For me, democracy goes with debate, discussion and engagement like horses go with carriages.
But perhaps your resolution of the two versions of the event is correct. Perhaps in the more right wing suburbs and areas of New Zealand, democracy and politics are genuinely believed to be best carried out along the lines of consumer choice.
Just as products are lined up along the shelves and the individual consumer, in undisturbed silence, reads the labels and ‘experiences’ the claims and aesthetics of the packaging to determine their individual preference perhaps it’s believed that choosing between political candidates should occur under the same conditions.
Each political consumer, that is, is best left in splendid isolation with each ‘product’. In this way they can come to their own judgment without the interference of debate and interaction; without the benefit of the knowledge and candidate skills and values that might be revealed by robust discussion, argument and counter-argument.
Perhaps in such places in New Zealand some people really do think that the ‘competition of ideas’ involves no direct contest between those ideas but just a parade in front of the individual political consumer who then makes their ‘choice’ (on a very impoverished basis).
In many ways I’d much rather believe that the ‘meet the candidates’ event has been politically manipulated.
That would be less disturbing.
Key’s image must be preserved at all costs, that’s why he refuses to be interviewed on Radio NZ or by any serious journo.. only facing John Campbell and the GCSB committee when things were spiralling out of control. He’s happy to be feted by sports shows and non political events though.
Clearly, Dear Leader is beyond question.
Unbelievable!
There’s going to be fireworks there – can’t see Penny Bright putting up with that.
a form of silent-protest cd be tape over the mouth..
..and this control-freak exercise has now become the story…
Agree phillip,
this ‘mufflefest’ would be a good focus for a Change the Government Rally of several hundred people on the night too.
The “freedom of speech as long as you don’t say too much” angle shows the fuss over tory fan presenter Hosko’s conflict of interest was not misguided.
It is about the Nats desire for complete control (apol to The Clash) as evidenced by Steven Joyces behaviour on the weekend.
it is amusing how over the past week or so..
..national have not put a foot right…
It seems to me that Key just issues statements and is not being questioned or interviewed. The only time that he responds is when on safe ground. Now being unable or unwilling to front during an election campaign is mind boggling. And on the ground he is surrounded by minders so that he does not have to meet any New Zealanders.
Surely this displays at once arrogance and a serious Key weakness?
The joke going around is that when Key feels like he wants to get out of looking bad or is being shown up for his pants catching fire, he will signal for the fire alarm to be set off to break up the gathering.
as he will be standing naked..
..will we have to avert our eyes…?
and of course a potent counter to demands for ‘silence’..
..is group-hissing…
..hard to tell who is..and who isn’t…
😀 Phillip, nice one !
The “Unidentified guest” strikes again. On the other hand, given that Key seems to be unable to answer a question in the House without throwing in some misrepresentation of some other party’s policies or reference to previous governments, might he be the first cast out?
I read that this morning, and if true, wow. Just wow.
Key is chicken
Key is chicken
Key is chicken
bok bok
how pathetic for a grown man and prime minister. what a loser.
and the news about the $55 million land sale in Huapai to Chinese buyers cannot be unknown to him … he has reason to be chicken. Finally the teflon is failing.
I just heard Murray McCully on the radio being interviewed by Suzy Ferguson on morning report. Can a member of the media please ask this question? Is the delay in the return of the Malaysian diplomat because they are having to use the Malaysian extradition process?
Susie Ferguson failed to ask any challenging questions.
Suzi Ferguson also used John Key to dis the Greens policy …before Russel Norman had even opened his mouth!
(policy of a Green card enabling poor university students and other tertiary students and apprentices to access public transport for free especially in off peak times)
Russel Norman handled himself very well however and called her out …saying she had opened his interview with an “assault”…. by John Key!
… Russel Norman also coolly countered Key’s arguments that it was too expensive to spend on students by pointing out the overseas debt that John Key has accrued for New Zealand ..and the wasted money on motorways
Espiner followed up the attack on Green policy by inviting a business sector interviewee on an unrelated matter to comment on Green policy…of course it was in the negative.
Morning Report should be overhauled after the Election..it is biased and a mouthpiece of John Key!
However it does show how sensitive John Key is to the Greens and the issue of university students and affordable education….so if the Left concentrates on this it will be a WINNER !
( Nactional has neglected young New Zealanders shamelessly…In Holland , Germany, France, Scandinavia and many other countries tertiary education is relatively FREE, if not completely …In New Zealand many very bright students are deciding that they and their families can not afford it…which leaves New Zealand university education for the children of the wealthy…whose parents can afford it! eg Bill English and John Key)
…Under Nactional there is a shocking waste of young New Zealanders talent !!!!..It is going to create a class system in New Zealand….where only the children of the wealthy can afford a tertiary education… “the chosen”. This betrays the egalitarian ideals and education system of our New Zealand ancestors both Pakeha and Maori
When was the last time Key was actually interviewed as aggressively as say Norman or Cunliffe? Or even when was the last time Key was interviewed?
There was that Rugby magazine…
pretend play and camping it up in an All Black’s jersey?
That Hard Talk interview in the UK?
I think Kim Hill also asked him some tricky questions.
Otherwise, it’s just cosy chats with Rawden, Mike , Marcus and the rest of the ghastly corporate media.
He is coming back though, isn’t he? I thought I saw a headline about him returning in the paper this morning?
As Kim Dotcom has shown anything can happen with an extradition hearing. Although I am sure the Malaysian Diplomat does not have the same sort of resources that Dotcom has.
Have you noticed how averse the Government has been to use the “E” word (Extradition)? They keep saying it is a legal process and it is all up to the lawyers but they don’t want the two events to be linked.
This mornings GDT auction dropped another 8.4%. Our dairy industry has officially collapsed.
Looks like it is still above the lows of ~May 2012 pricing – just. It looks like pricing has dropped an overall 45% in 18 months. Which is basically a disaster to anyone who has geared their farm up for the higher price structure. Also, this greatly increases the likelihood of a severe recession by Q1 2015: austerity time.
is that drop not since february..?
10% of dairy farmers hold 50% of the estimated 40 billion dollars of bank debt said to be the loading for that industry,
The banks are talking an overall ‘loss’ for the economy of 4 billion dollars and that would have to in the next 18 months translate into a 1.3 billion dollar hole in the Governments books,
Rock Bottom economy here we come, analysts in the industry are saying that the reluctance of buyers at the recent auctions is because they ‘stockpiled’ milk solids/powders in previous years but i pick that as wishful thinking and the dairy boom is going bust befor our eyes as the point of over-supply internationally has probably been reached,
The only saving grace for the Government will be IF the figures produced by Labour in 2010/2011 which showed a large demographic of the dairy farmers were paying less tax than an average pensioner are correct which would quixotically mean that the recent downgrade of the dairy prices at auction will produce less red ink in the Government’s books…
We need to put a stop to this by making sure company directors are held personally liable. Edit: And make that law retrospective as a special treat for rogue employers who know right now they can get away with it.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/small-business/10351787/Slave-unlikely-to-get-paid
Only so much that politics and law can do in the face of, “I gave him my loyalty because he was a fellow [insert favourite religion here]…”. That’s the free will of the individual and quite rightly the law should stay out of that kind of thing; least of all, if it didn’t, it’d make all of us moronic because we’d never learn anything about life or ourselves. To quote the cynical, but too often true, words of William S Burroughs, “Never trust a religious SOB. God has told him how to rip you off.” Luckily we have literature to pick up where politics shouldn’t go.
There is of course a disclaimer for that quote – don’t need to start any unearned religious hate speech malarkey here. The problem currently is the disturbing trend of religious organisations to confuse the will of their God with the popular culture of the free market. God is of course still God, somewhere out there, but religious types have deviated so grossly they end up worshipping a shadow, an evil twin if you like. Isn’t so much God told him how to rip you off, but that the person mistook God for the sentiment of individualist/commercial slogans that almost exactly match those found in the bible (when taken literally and out of context) and didn’t think twice. And then the guy might have taken advantage on purpose. Anyone can say they’re following this or that religion, and still be a malicious ass.
After someone wins a court case the person responsible shouldn’t get off paying their dues by winding up the company. Got nothing to do with religion – except possibly your own apparent Randian ideology.
Winding up a company is an old tried and tested way of getting out of financial obligations. The company transfers its assets to a new company which has no legal obligation to honour the debt. How do you think so many developers get rich and so many small building companies go to the wall? (I speak from personal experience here)
Yep and we need to stop people from being able to do it. All liabilities of a company must accrue to the owners and directors.
That would defeat the purposes of “limited liability” companies.
There are sufficient checks and balances within company law, many of which do allow liquidators to pursue directors personally for a bunch of indescretions, and legislation which allows criminal convictions for fraud and the like.
What we do need is for the Companies Office to be resourced in order to do the policing of “Phoenix” companies that pop up, run by family and/or friends of errant directors who may have been disqualified from acting as directors.
Just employing the former director in a “new (phoenix)” company, especially when trading from the same location, should set off massive warning lights, and the Companies Office should be resourced to take the necessary action.
Yes. Once I realised, many years ago, that people were using limited liability so as to bypass any risk while exclaiming about all the risk that they took I became fully of the opinion that limited liability needed to be shut down as well.
No there isn’t else the person in the article would be getting their awarded $83k.
Wouldn’t need such complexity if we held people responsible in the first place.
Mainzeal and Jenny Shipley, for example.
Are these two news stories connected?
Dairy prices hit 17-month low, amid China concerns
‘….Indeed, the fresh decline tallied with a caution from Rabobank last week that producers may have to wait until 2015 for a revival in prices, with milk output much improved in major exporting nations, but Chinese buyers have stepped back, after early-year stockpiling.
“China bought more than we anticipated in the first five months of the year. It now appears they also bought far more than they needed,” the bank said.’
http://www.agrimoney.com/news/dairy-prices-hit-17-month-low-amid-china-concerns–7223.html
Giving away New Zealand
‘Another day, another massive overseas land sale of dubious benefit to New Zealand. Meanwhile, we’ve also learned that “our” government has been giving away parts of the conservation estate to foreigners:
3 News has discovered that Shanghai Pengxin, the controversial Chinese buyer of the massive Lochinver Station, was recently given conservation land by the Government, including parts of the Rakaia riverbed.
http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2014/08/giving-away-new-zealand.html
Join the dots.
We are becoming tenants in our own land.
Wealthy Americans, British, Chinese and other foreign corporates are buying our land from under our feet.
Join the dots.
I’m joing the dots with the call for an early election. NAct is hoping to have it over and done with before a perfect economic storm hits.
Just wondering: what are the current commentaries or predictions (if any) regarding a potential crisis coming up for the well-known months (Sep/Oct) of market catastrophes particularly for this year?
Any links to selected readings would be appreciated. (I known I can google but I would like to access what others here have read and screened through.)
All I know is that debt/gdp ratios worldwide are now at worse levels than before the 2008 GFC.
Your comment reminds me of this:
“One look at this graph makes it obvious that we’re in totally uncharted waters: the debt to GDP ratio has never been as high as it is now. If the debt ratio has any economic significance at all, then we have to take it seriously today.”
[Graph: Debt to GDP (Australia)]
“The only historical precedents for today are the two obvious peaks in the data, in the 1890s and 1930s. The latter alone implies bad news: the 1930s were the decade of the Great Depression, which was easily the greatest economic crisis that market economies have ever experienced.”
“It is less well-known that the 1890s were also a decade of Depression for Australia, and Fisher & Kent argued in Two Depressions that the 1890s experience was more severe for Australia than the Great Depression.”
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6528&page=1
That was from Steve Keen, 22 October 2007
dear CAFCA–Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa is still going many decades on and here are some useful facts they have put together w/sources included;
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1401/S00011/who-owns-nz-foreign-control-key-facts-updated.htm
+100…they do great work….have always admired Murray Horton ..he was a brilliant student from the working class
wasnt it Mr Key who first warned us about becoming tenants in our own land?
“”If we ended up in a situation where New Zealanders were tenants in their own country, I can’t see how that would be in New Zealand’s best interests,” 2010
The problem is how many tenants of foreign ownership do there have to be before Mr Key thinks the threshold has been reached?
I don’t know if those dots join but China does what it does without a thought to our sensibilities, dontchathink?
And that is why we need to ban foreign ownership of anything and everything in NZ. A total ban because there is never a time when foreign ownership is good for a country.
Rarotonga has it right .. land is for lease only, and on a fixed term .. I think it’s 30 years, but have to check.
Hard to stop the sales while folk such as Judith Collins, Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley all have China money-in-the-bank pass cards and are senior advisers … they have sold us out 100%. Treasonous and vile.
+100 DTB and yeshe
The Scottish referendum debate (Salmond/Darling) is streaming on http://player.stv.tv/live/. They’re halfway through, an hour to go.
I wonder if the nationalism stirred by the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow will have impacted people’s voting choices at all?
Possibly. The latest poll overnight suggests the undecided are firming up and supporting the Yes campaign. However, the No vote remains steady at 50% plus. Six weeks to go!
http://news.stv.tv/scotland-decides/news/285203-support-for-yes-rises-in-stv-poll-ahead-of-salmond-darling-debate/
Overview of polling here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014
Thanks for the update on the upcoming Scottish referendum. I had this in mind to look into.
I see that the 25 – 34 age group are more likely to vote yes (56%) Let’s hope they turn out in their droves to vote!
I heard Alex Salmond say during the coverage of the Commonwealth games that if they gained independence they might consider NZer’s with family links, (including grandparents) to Scotland being a group that can gain citizenship if one was to move over there.
My Nana was from Forfar (and further back the other side are from Inverness and Beauly) so if it goes belly up after 20th September and Scotland gets her independence I might take them up them up on it!
One of the reasons I’m interested in the referendum is because my kids have a strong Scottish heritage on their mother’s side. Mind you, their grandmother roundly abused Alex Salmond when he visited her wee town a few weeks ago. She’s so firmly opposed to independence she’s going to move to England if the Yes vote gets up!
Ah, that strong determined Scots mind. Bless her 🙂
From the figures you provided, it was the older generation who seem most opposed. Let’s hope the determination of the young un’s matches that of their elders on voting day.
I know theres going to be a massive double celebration in our house if the Scots get their independence and if we win the election. The votes are only a couple of days apart. It’ll be a big weekend!
http://www.critic.co.nz/news/article/4230/act-candidate-for-dunedin-north-resigns
Reckon the local ACTivists are going to go all quiet about Big Brain’s not at all racist speech pretty quick. They’ll be too busy attacking their former board member and candidate for Dunners North.
Well, the last guy got fewer votes than Pete George, so he’s probably not changing his chances of winning the seat.
Jamie Whyte is quoted in the ODT as telling the Dunedin North candidate that the party needed a “stunt” to help in the polls. Not long after comes the race speech. If true I can’t see how he survives.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11304781
the act candidate’s resignation and why …
shake shonkey !!!
Two interesting things this morning on Radionz.
10:35 Book review: When the Farm Gates Opened
When the Farm Gates Opened: The Impact of Rogernomics on rural New Zealand by Neal Wallace. Reviewed by Harry Broad, published by Otago University Press, $RRP30.00
11:20 Tax evasion and welfare fraud in the justice system
Legal commentator Lisa Marriott discusses financial crime.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon
I wish someone would address the lack of personal liability for property developers. With the boom in consents driven by CHCHCH rebuild and this govt forcing land open in Auckland, you just know there will be problems in the years ahead BUT Developers can open a company, buy land, develop land, contract designers and builders, sell property, take property, close company and start a new project. NO liability in the future unless they went on site during construction (which they assiduously avoid).
I agree but why limit it to just a few groups of people in business?
Lets make
Theo Spiering (Fonterra head) personally responsible for spilt milk.
John Key personally responsible for government (ha ha yeah I know)
All shareholders in power companies personally responsible for power outages
All shareholders in the Warehouse personally responsible for jandals and plastic buckets that break
…
completely remove the limited liability company and make all owners, employees and bosses personally responsible for their works
good luck on that one tracey
They often send their contract builders to the wall by not making the last progress payment or two as well
Good point
John Key refusing to allow debate at the only candidate meeting in his electorate – what is he afraid of.
This avoidance should be shouted by Opposition parties wide and long. Key is a coward in refusing to mix it with the people in a democratic country during a democratic election.
Makes Internet Mana look good with the series (i.e. not just one) of Roadshow events they are running, where people (aka walking talking members of the public) get to ask live unvetted questions of the IMP leaders and candidates.
Kim Jong Key–does he really expect to get away with this one?
Having to talk policy.
Pinched this from Sideswipe. Someone at the bookshop is being a bit mean but truthful to John Key’s book.
https://scontent-b-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/10509555_515240358607800_7531179960078002433_n.jpg
Hah!
As I have suggested and am sounding out the call again:
NZ voters,
do your civic duty,
when you are out and about (bookshop, The Warehouse or public library),
grab a copy or two,
and discretely re-shelve them in the appropriate sections, eg
– Fiction
– Fantasy
– Crime.
Good idea because causing more work for the people that work there is always a good use of your time
lol. but couldn’t make out the small text on the “Top 5” sticker
“Top 5 ways to fix a wonky table leg?’
“Top 5 in David Farrar, Mathew Hooten and Hoskos audio book list?”
“Top 5 unwanted gifts?”
“Top 5 lies told by John Key?”
Just put in my tip to the taxpayers union on this beauty.
ACC overcollecting levies to get the beloved ‘surplus’.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/election-2014/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503581&objectid=11304503
this is a rip-off of the biggest order.
Musings from the ‘roadshow’ #1, DotCom,
Lets start with the big fella, and He is, looking round the packed events center and DotCom can look down at most in the 4–500 strong crowd,
Not that He does, there is no obeisance here, no kowtowing to money, none given and i would suggest none asked for, the speech from the stage low key,(excuse the fruedian but who would suggest Slippery isn’t),
What is remarkable is His description of how the whole mad roller coaster began, Mega, really an absolute piece of socialism its genesis in a German Government grant given to DotCom after the judge had given Him a steer in that direction when as a kid one of His ‘hacking’ escapades showed He had expertise beyond His education in the field,
Annette Sykes, on the stage, fired up said of the meeting at Rotorua where the alliance between Internet and Mana was struck, DotCom didn’t just get to walk in and buy the place with His coin, She personally gave Him the third degree, it wasn’t pretty, not even anywhere near nice,
He came through some hard hours of at times open hostility on the Marae, earned the tick of approval in doing so from Annette, He has respect, such respect not given lightly,
What of Him tho, this DotCom, what i was seeking, from among the shadows, was a personal sense of the man, while i fully understand that deep down there must be ‘rage’, having been deeply involved with the whole police/justice circus over many years of an absolutely misspent youth that makes the supposed ‘crimes’ of DotCom pale into insignificance i know exactly how He feels,
Other than His size, the sheer bulk provides a certain presence, it wasn’t until the final minutes at the venue that i got a real sense of DotCom, talking with Ariana,(more on Her later), one of the local candidates, i didn’t even notice as DotCom slipped past us,
Hailed as He entered the lift with good wishes it struck me then that despite all the supposed mountains of coin, the toys, the Mansion, the publicity, DotCom the bloke is at heart Shy,
There was no grandiose departure, no entourage of the powerful, just DotCom quietly slipping into the lift responding with a smile and a wave as He is wished well for the future,
This of course, has been a message from that future, InternetMana, be there…
great stuff bad12
Thx Bad. Here be delicious dragons, bringing bright flames of change ! 🙂
Thanks for that Bad12. Just the inspiration I need before heading out this avo to deliver flyers for Tuesday’s Dunedin roadshow.
Cheer Pasupial, enjoy, its quite catching that flyer, on the second and third reads, it will be the center of discussion later in the week as i ‘see’ it as the basis of the candidate flyers for the local electorates here in Wellington,
Noted yesterday, Big Ups to InternetMana for the Wellington billboards, great positioning, good succinct message able to be taken in as i drive by,
And,
The color scheme is the bomb, there’s a whole nest of them where i saw this particular billboard and the ‘metallic’ color of the InternetMana one definitely drags attention straight at it…
Thanks bad – good writeup
kathryn ryan is such a rightwing-trout..
..a tax-expert has just made a considered-case on the gross inequalities shown to benefit fraudsters..and ‘white-collar’ tax-fraud..
..and ryan then just skives away from that..
..and starts banging on about welfare-fraud couples..
..as always..’it’s the poor wot’ gets the blame..’
Yep she was as weak as a double lemonade on the DHB negotiations team leader yesterday too, who claimed not to know whether he or other execs received pay increases in excess of the 0.7% offered to health care workers. She could have pressed him as it was a highly relevant point but meekly moved on.
From this mornings Granny, the online version,
National MP Tim Macindoe, along with radio station Free FM have been referred by the Electoral Commission to the Police over an alleged breach of the electoral act by both of them,
No never, i cannot believe that National Party MP’s would ever not adhere to the law, sarc/…
Well breaking the electorial act is normally the preserve of the left but if hes guilty he should be punished
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11304781
dunedin act candidate resigns because of whyte.
holy shit, someone in ACT with actual ethics and standards. Good for him.
Yeah, he’s a nice guy actually.
David Cunliffe on 29/6/14
In our party’s constitution Labour’s first core principle is “All political authority comes from the people by democratic means including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot.”
We won’t be doing pre-election deals. It’s up to New Zealanders to decide who they send to Parliament.
After the election I’ll talk with anyone committed to changing the Government. It’s fair to say that won’t include National, Act or Colin Craig’s group.
My emphasis.
http://thestandard.org.nz/david-cunliffe-qa/#comment-841121
That was in response to this question from Pasupial:
Would you be willing to accept Internet/ MANA Party MPs as part of a Labour-led government if that gave you the numbers to form a progressive coalition post-election (and a mutually satisfactory relationship could be negotiated)?
How about; a United Future & Maori Party MP(s), if they have votes to offer and were willing to negotiate support (I’m assuming a yes for both; Green Party and NZF, a no for; National, ACT & CP, please correct if I’m mistaken)?
I don’t have a problem with Labour deciding that they won’t have Mana/IP/IMP in cabinet or as Ministers. But I am disappointed to see Cunliffe going back on what he has said above. He also said something recently about it being extremely unlikely that Mana would get Ministerial positions, but that they might be part of a C and S agreement. What was wrong with continuing that line?
I think the davis dirty tricks forced his hand – at least he stuck by his candidate I suppose.
It’s a really bad look for Cunliffe to continually cave-in to whatever the latest middle-class focus group feels uneasy about. It just looks weak. I realise he needs to show some degree of political pragmatism, but this tried-and-failed approach is just craven.
“..It’s a really bad look for Cunliffe to continually cave-in to whatever the latest middle-class focus group feels uneasy about. It just looks weak…”
..+ 1..
@marty mars…what worries me about Davis is that he was endorsed by Shane Jones…and we all know whose friend he is
Just in case people missed it:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11304727
Key Points:
• The number of people employed increased by 10,000 people.
• The employment rate fell 0.1 percentage points, to 65.0 per cent.
• The number of people unemployed decreased by 9,000 people.
• The unemployment rate fell 0.3 percentage points to 5.6 per cent.
• The labour force participation rate decreased 0.3 percentage points, to 68.9 per cent.
Great news for NZ 🙂
All in Christchurch though. Shame this Government relies on that tragedy, and the excruciatingly slow rebuild to spin its growth and employment numbers.
You don’t know what that means do you?
I’ll put it simply for you – it means that 0.3% of the working age population stopped looking for work and not because they got a job but because they were sick (probably quite literally in many cases) of looking for work and not finding any. It contradicts everything else you posted except the fall in employment rate.
Listening to radionz news – three in a row, 77 year old man’s murder, body found on St Helier’s beach, another murder.
I think there should be an on-line murders and accidental deaths site where one could find out all the latest tragedies, and publish the victim statements. It is so sad to hear the repetitive nature of the grief being repeated once again, and apparently never with the effect of improving the conditions that led to the death.
It’s depressing that there isn’t reporting about dealing with ongoing problems and future ones – just a ghoulish interest in reports and stats on death and how we hurt each other.
focusing on a tragic/violent incident lets the news off the hook from reporting anything substantial about broader systemic problems. (Same as what Hone clumsily referred to when he was asked about the Malaysian diplomat assault)
An Israeli blogger citing an embedded reporter may have jiggered IDF assertions that strikes on UN buildings housing Palestinian civilian refugees were accidental.
but if it comes to that event, the first time it is published first-hand evidence that approval from headquarters and deadly accurate shooting at a school that was known that it houses hundreds of refugees – and not stray artillery fire as the IDF claims. well if anti-tank missiles were fired from the area of the school, how can you claim that the IDF fired a missile capable of an accuracy of centimeters (“able to slip through precisely buildings windows “) into the populous school is considered” collateral damage avoidance protected population “required by the laws of war and morality?
IDF official response following an investigation published Sunday, July 27th, the day after the release of Zeno’s testimony, was “anti-tank missiles were fired from the area to the troops, who responded with mortar fire.” The testimony of the reporter who was present and stated that they were not mortars but guided precision missile, contradicts the army’s response to the other contradictions and integrates the research, alternatively determined that “there was no harm to civilians in the UNRWA school … there was an empty courtyard” at the same time “in any case, the death of civilians killed by the IDF in this case is a sad result of the election of Hamas in the civilian as a human shield.”
UNRWA spokesman confirmed on several occasions that the IDF moved the location of all the schools and refugee camps, to prevent exactly this kind of killing. Zeno’s testimony, even if inadvertently given, confirming the fact that the IDF knew – and chose to ignore, not at the level of the surface may not have been updated, but the highest command level.
http://www.o139.org/2014/08/blog-post.html
The google translation.
If you want to know why John Key will have another three years in government then just look at what Statistics NZ published today. We are on the right track.
Unemployed of 137,000 is 17,000 fewer than a year ago
Unemployment rate of 5.6% compared to 6.4% a year ago
Employed of 2,328,000 – 82,000 more than a year ago
FT employed up 71,000 and PT employed up 13,000
65,000 more in labour force than a year ago
Labour force participation rate is 68.9% compared to 68.1% a year ago
Maori unemployment rate is 11.0%, down from 12.8% a year ago
Pasifika unemployment rate is 11.4% down from 16.3% a year ago
Under 20 unemployment rate is 20.4%, down from 24.1% a year ago
Manufacturing jobs are 246,500 – up from 242,600 a year ago (recall the crisis!)
Number of hours worked is up 4.8% from a year ago (highest growth for many years)
The proportion of under 2os not in employment, study or training has fallen from 8.0% a year ago to 7.4% today
Salary and wage rates up 1.7% from a year ago
Manufacturing pay rates up 1.9% from a year ago (recall the crisis!)
Total weekly gross earnings up 6.3% from a year ago
Female average earnings as % of male up from 86.7% to 87.1% over a year
[lprent: Link to the source when you want to quote. It also means that others can start checking and discussing your sources. Don’t link, and I will start deleting the quotes. ]
Perhaps you should compare over 5 years? And even over the last year I notice that you missed out inflation rates, changes in the CPI, interest rates, and the estimates of the under-employed – ie the ever increasing numbers of involuntary part time and casual workers. What this government doesn’t appear to be able to affect is the number of people in full-time employment.
Basically this is the government trying to take credit for the world coming out of a recession/depression.
If its from Stats NZ then its in here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11304727
About 75% of the rise is in full time workers.
The unemployment rate in NZ is below that of the USA, the UK, Australia and the EU
so those hard working public health workers can get more than 0.7% pay rise?
Any chance you could outline National’s policies to tackle systemic poverty in New Zealand?
Your leader doesn’t seem to want to discuss policy, so wondered if you could help out.
Check out the company the GOVT had contracted to help spy on us
of course it because of those naughty gangs isnt it ?
http://www.hackingteam.it/
we have 7 of their “Remote Control System” “legal” spyware tool servers operating in NZ currently..
What a bunch of bullshit. The NATs won’t even invest in and develop these evil capabilities in-country.
Leaking like a chilly bin house.
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/05/politics/u-s-new-leaker/index.html
Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept.
Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.
The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama Administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system. Since taking office, Obama has boosted the number of people on the no fly list more than ten-fold, to an all-time high of 47,000—surpassing the number of people barred from flying under George W. Bush.
“If everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent. The watchlisting system, he adds, is “revving out of control.”
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/08/05/watch-commander/
the increasing irrelevance of the US economy to the global economy.
http://www.gatesnotes.com/~/media/Images/Books/Making-the-Modern-World/making-the-modern-world-cement-A_800_v2.ashx
Don’t be mean Phil. Kathryn Ryan is fair and balanced in any which way you want to swing:
economically – her broad spectrum ‘portfolio’; her work/life balance; her list of ‘go-to’s’ and rent-a-quoters’; her propensity between enilsting comment based on nepotism and ‘new blood’; her being down with the folks and being in with the in-crowd; her expertise on anything and everything from parenthood to music……She be the queen (oops Queen)
She’s God’s gift to mankind, and she’s got a raft of facebook-type friends to prove it. Some of them even pop up on MSM to prove it… from Burma Road socialists to Boombers with guilt. She’s the Queen.
Don’t be cruel. Your just jealous. She’s what RNZ is to PSB as Juan Williams is to NPR.
Why Kathryn even subscribes to The Arts Channel (now Skoi Arts)
Pass the Chardonnay will you darling – this discussion is becoming oh so very boring because Kathryn is an institution that’s become so in touch with both the people, and the movers and shakers. I fuckin adore her!
+100 Tim…me too…Kathryn Ryan is great and she is balanced
um..!..chook..i think tim is taking the piss..eh..?
where does she find the time to watch the arts channel..?
..given she is such a fox news fan..
..(in case you were wondering…that’s where she gets most of the rightwing-talking-points she trots out…)
phillip..lol…loved your second statement at 3.2.1.5.1.1
Obama should be giving money for an Iron Dome over Gaza not Israel.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/08/04/374067/obama-approves-millions-more-for-israel/
Not wanting to start a flame war but if Hammas stopped using children as human shields, stopped storing weapons in UN buildings and stopped firing rockets at Israel then there’d be no need for an Iron dome
maybe you’ve cried ‘wolf!’ a bit too often..?
Just saying that if Hammas stopped attacking Israel would stop attacking Hammas and if Hammas stopped hiding around civilian populations then there’d be less civilians killed but then Hammas wouldn’t be able to show the worlds media dead children…
not biting..just observing/noting..
..it’d be like engaging with a climate-change/moon-landing denier..
..who can be bothered..?
(did you mention ‘dead children’..?..)
“..Brian Eno:..I Saw a Weeping Palestinian Man Holding A Plastic Bag of Meat: It Was His Son..
…I suddenly found myself thinking that it could have been one of my kids in that bag –
(cont..)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39339.htm
What a completely moranic statement. Are you really so completely ignorant that you don’t know anything about Gaza?
Tell me, have you ever looked at the geography of the Gaza strip… This link is pretty old but not about the land area
Wikipedia is a bit more up to date. This map gives a good idea of the urbanised area in Gaza.
Click into the image.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Gaza_closure_December_2012.jpg)
Hamas are of course the governing body in the Gaza strip. They really don’t have areas that aren’t filled with civilians.
By way of comparision, the size and population density of Auckland city..
Basically you appear to be fuckwit groin clutcher who is too stupid to do some pretty basic research and mostly noticeable for being a lazy parrot for the Israeli PR spinners…
Well done LP. I’ve always wanted to compare Gaza population density with an Israel apologist’s home town population density when they start to froth at the mouth about Hamas supposedly using human shields to hide munitions.
Guerilla warfare is by definition part time, and bound (by necessity) within the civilian population.
Ahhh, yeah, Lynn, but let’s not be too ambitious for Pucks, he needs to learn to walk before he can run. Frankly, I’ll be over the moon if he just manages to spell “Hamas” correctly !, given that he’s devoted so much space to dribbling meaningless inanities about the movement.
Certainly, though, it’s been interesting over recent weeks to witness our very own Tory Tr*lls mindlessly regurgitating official Israeli spin, clearly without possessing even the faintest idea….seems to be a default-position for them. Very telling.
In terms of the almost 2 Million Palestinians crammed into the Gaza Strip (most of them refugees or their descendants), your Gaza/Auckland comparison can be extended…….
Gaza’s territory in NZ terms
(1) Auckland
Gaza (north to south) is about three-quarters the (north – south) length of Auckland – essentially Papakura to Browns Bay. But Gaza’s width is only a quarter of its length – slightly wider than the North Shore (roughly Takapuna to Hobsonville).
(2) Coromandel
Gaza’s about half the length of the Coromandel peninsula and considerably less than half the width.
(3) Central NI
Gaza = same length as Lake Taupo but not much more than a third of the width.
(4) Wellington
Gaza length = Island Bay to Pukerua Bay. Gaza width = same as Wellington Harbour at its widest point
(5) Christchurch
Same length as Banks Peninsula (if measuring Peninsula east to west), but only half the width
(6) Dunedin
Gaza length = Waitati in north to a point a little south of Brighton in the south
Gaza width = Ocean Grove to Half-way Bush
Hi Puckish Rogue,
‘Quiet-for-quiet‘?
I don’t think that’s true.
“The most recent cease-fire was established after Israel’s October 2012 assault. Though Israel maintained its devastating siege, Hamas observed the cease-fire, as Israeli officials concede. Matters changed in June, when Fatah and Hamas forged a unity agreement, which established a new government of technocrats that had no Hamas participation and accepted all of the demands of the Quartet. Israel was naturally furious, even more so when even the US joined in signaling approval. The unity agreement not only undercuts Israel’s claim that it cannot negotiate with a divided Palestine, but also threatens the long term goal of dividing Gaza from the West Bank and pursuing its destructive policies in both of the regions.
Something had to be done, and an occasion arose shortly after, when the three Israeli boys were murdered in the West Bank. The Netanyahu government knew at once that they were dead, but pretended otherwise, which provided the opportunity to launch a rampage in the West Bank, targeting Hamas. Netanhayu claimed to have certain knowledge that Hamas was responsible. That too was a lie, as recognized early on. There has been no pretense of presenting evidence. One of Israel’s leading authorities on Hamas, Shlomi Eldar, reported almost at once that the killers very likely came from a dissident clan in Hebron that has long been a thorn in the side of Hamas. Eldar added that “I’m sure they didn’t get any green light from the leadership of Hamas, they just thought it was the right time to act.” The Israeli police have since been searching for two members of the clan, still claiming, without evidence, that they are “Hamas terrorists.”
The 18-day rampage however did succeed in undermining the feared unity government, and sharply increasing Israeli repression. According to Israeli military sources, Israeli soldiers arrested 419 Palestinians, including 335 affiliated with Hamas, and killed six Palestinians, also searching thousands of locations and confiscating $350,000. Israel also conducted dozens of attacks in Gaza, killing 5 Hamas members on July 7.
Hamas finally reacted with its first rockets in 19 months, Israeli officials reported, providing Israel with the pretext for Operation Protective Edge on July 8.“
Nope. If Israel stopped building settlements on top of PA land there’d be no need for an Iron Dome. If Israel stopped inviting every Jewish person on the planet to fill those settlements there’d be no need for an Iron Dome.
If those two things happened there’d be no need for the kind of destruction we’ve seen over the last two weeks.
Any chance you could outline National’s policies to tackle systemic poverty in New Zealand?
Your leader doesn’t seem to want to discuss policy, so wondered if you could help out.
What a disgraceful statement.
By the way, can you outline National’s policies to reverse our declining environment in New Zealand?
Your leader doesn’t seem to want to discuss policy, so wondered if you could help out.
If the IDF propaganda about accidental strikes on UN facilities is collapsing so when the UN facilities are used as arsenals narrative falls over will you admit your gullibility?.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11304914
Might I suggest T. Mallard for the role, he seems to know quite a bit about this sort of thing
http://www.stuff.co.nz/164612/Mallard-wrong-but-refuses-to-say-sorry
five years ago, that the best you can do?
John Keys really is just an old fashioned sexist pig of a man when it comes down to it.
Sugar daddy, John? Really, you’re going with that?
ffs.
Sure, unemployment down especially in Canterbury.
But 40% fall in dairy price in 6 months.
Dollar falls nearly 2 cents in 2 days: global market analysts clear that NZs dairying vulnerability far more important than employment.
Wake up National.
Anyone here connected to Sue Moroney’s campaign? Seen a few of her billboards around Hamilton, but yet to see a picture of David Cunliffe.
Listen carefully: You are working hard to get back into opposition but nothing more. You can not win the election by winning electorates. Capiche?
The Associate Transport Minister has announced a time limit for Learners licenses. This is because a huge number of people refuse to go to the next stage.
I am one. I have been car licensed for four decades but also drive a scooter on a learners. The reason for this is the cost. Its a $500 rort. Then theres the time restrictions. …all in the name of safety. What a load of revenue raising bollocks.
Personally, I think a drivers licence should get you driving any non-commercial vehicle up to about 2 tonne. From there you’d need specialist licences to drive heavy trucks, trailers, forklifts and diggers.
Oh, and I’ve never been enthusiastic about leaner’s licences. Much better idea to require that people have the required training to get the licence in the first place.
Not good.
.
By now, you’ve heard of the crater on the Yamal Peninsula. It’s the one that suddenly appeared, yawning nearly 200 feet in diameter, and made several rounds in the global viral media machine. The adjectives most often used to describe it: giant, mysterious, curious. Scientists were subsequently “baffled.” Locals were “mystified.” There were whispers that aliens were responsible. Nearby residents peddled theories of “bright flashes” and “celestial bodies.”
[…]
There’s now a substantiated theory about what created the crater. And the news isn’t so good.
It may be methane gas, released by the thawing of frozen ground. According to a recent Nature article, “air near the bottom of the crater contained unusually high concentrations of methane — up to 9.6% — in tests conducted at the site on 16 July, says Andrei Plekhanov, an archaeologist at the Scientific Centre of Arctic Studies in Salekhard, Russia. Plekhanov, who led an expedition to the crater, says that air normally contains just 0.000179% methane.”
The scientist said the methane release may be related to Yamal’s unusually hot summers in 2012 and 2013, which were warmer by an average of 5 degrees Celsius. “As temperatures rose, the researchers suggest, permafrost thawed and collapsed, releasing methane that had been trapped in the icy ground,” the report stated.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/05/scientists-may-have-cracked-the-giant-siberian-crater-mystery-and-the-news-isnt-good
You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time but Key thinks he can fool all of the people all of the time.
This election is going to be a mill stone for the winner because of the TPPA and who ever has to take responsibility for selling our sovereignty will be damned as the leader ,which plays nicely for Key because it will probably swing a third term for him and if not will probably paint another PM as a liar and give them only a term which is all Key needs to complete his economic and political mission to squash any major left wing destruction of his last 2 terms ,a sacrifice, if needs be by Key to get done what he knows will happen to NZ and not be made directly responsible for it and if he gets his 3rd term he will be able to annihilate the left and any of the old NZ left values will be gone for good unless there is a real revolution brought about by the mass of losers that will be most of us
Clever Key you think ,just a scenario I dreamed up