Sadly this is the way it will remain. Still…tax deductable (Wellington Rape Crisis is a registered charity and they run a tight ship so books in order). Vote with your wallet, I say! Do you prefer a faceless government servant deciding which organisations get funding …… OR….. do you prefer to allocate funds yourself? Easy choice for me đ
I prefer that the government provides these essential services rather than relying on the good will of the rich which always results in there not being enough of the essential services.
Since around 2000, from being in opposition to being in government, the members of the current administration have gone up and down the country and chanted, from every which and where, the same meme, “Cut red tape this, cut red tape that! OSH this, OSH that. They are preventing progress! Let’s remove the obstacles to progress …! Get government out of the way! Reduce costs here, reduce costs there! The market must be given a chance to self regulate!”
Sadly, it would appear, it has needed a tragedy to stop Key and his cohorts in their tracks… and now they appear to be ducking for cover. Shame on them.
+1.
Slagging OSH went hand-in-hand with slagging Labour for being PC. Â Saying the term OSH in a sneering manner was a call-sign for tories. Â Â Many radio jocks and many business leaders contributed to a toxic attitude towards doing tasks/projects in a careful and considered way.Â
+1 yes well said Logi97 & KhandallaMan,
They frame their approach so that people are fooled into going along with them, “Oh that sounds good” and the purposes of any “red tape” go by the way-side. Good to make the connection. We can add “streamlining” to the list of words they use for that purpose too.
It would be nice to see some commentators reclaim the argument about the necessity and prudence of having ‘red tape’ for the benefit, protection and security of life and limb. This now is the time to start voicing this.
It would be just as good to see some commentators front-foot and strongly dismiss and damn accusations that ‘red tape’ is about being PC, nanny state, bureaucratic, costly, bad for business, bla bla bla neobla-ism.
It would be even better to see legally, morally and socially responsible business people and corporations – on the same side with workers, looking out for the interests of workers – speak out in defence of, and argue for, the need to have ‘red tape’.
The best standards and practices for workers are also best for employers, markets and businesses.
“It would be just as good to see some commentators front-foot and strongly dismiss and damn accusations that âred tapeâ is about being PC, nanny state, bureaucratic, costly, bad for business, bla bla bla neobla-ism.”
Â
Yes, that is a role for Labour. Â Unfortunately Labour abdicated that responsibility when the inner few decided that we should appeal to the light blues. Â When Phil Goff (ably advised by Shearer’s current advisors) apologied for Labour being perceived as “politically correct”‘Â Â he ceded the high ground to those who knocked OSH. Â
Labour has to get back to sticking it’s neck above the parapet on issues that effect workers, women, children, minorities and the defenceless. Â When it resorts to mimicking the themes of the powerful and the yob-mob it has lost its way. That happened when Labour apologised at the confence in Rotorua in Sept ’09.Â
 http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2859508/Phil-Goff-apologises-for-Labours-mistakes
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But right wing political parties rarely (actually, never) take responsibility for their own actions.
It is fairly clear to everyone by now that the de-regulation of the mines inspectorates in the early â90s was a grave mistake. 29 graves, to be precise.
So for Heather Roy to try to shift the blame onto OSH, when legislative âreformsâ specifically stated that mines safety had devolved to individual companies, and was no longer the âprescriptiveâ responsibility of the State is more than a little disingenous â itâs downright dishonest and insulting to all New Zealanders.
Dunnokeyo reckons the word gay means weird. Leaving aside for a moment how insulting that definition is, lets look at the other definition he used to defend his homophobic outburst; the Oxford dictionary. Obviously Key never actually looked it up, because there’s no way he would agree with the example they give for the word’s use!
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4 informal, often offensive foolish, stupid, or unimpressive: he thinks the obsession with celebrity is totally gay
I think you’ll find what he’s doing there is lying, TRP.
Rhino pointed out this other lie last night too: Asked at his post-Cabinet press conference whether he was homophobic, Mr Key said: âNo, Iâm voting for gay marriage, Iâm hardly homophobic â I led the charge on it.â
It seems Key wants to take credit for having “led the charge on” marriage equality, in spite of the whole country knowing that he’s not Louisa Wall.
Not only does this blatant lie come hot on the heels of lying about which way he voted on the liquor purchase age, it’s also a disgraceful attempt at the traditional bigot’s fallback “but some of my best friends are (x)” defense.
Hopefully ‘traditional bigots’ will decide they don’t want to vote for the man who ‘led the charge’ on ‘weird’ marriage. Good news for the Conservative Party?
Batshit Key, the media whore and shameless, lying self-publicist, squeeked out about gay marriage, wanting to quickly gatecrash into the halo effect generated by Obama’s socially enlightened prior announcement.
Louisa Wall did the correct thing with the opportunity of a private member’s bill to follow through on the socially just thing to do.
Batshit Key now needs to be held account for what he said.
And as leader of a party of many Nasties, this is an opportunity for him to demonstrate true leadership by persuading each one of his party MPs* to exercise their individual conscience votes with their conscience for discriminated individuals.
*MPs – whether they are gay, stray or sway (or whether they are out or not)
Dunnokeyo denial plan (translated into coherent English):
I don’t think anything was said;
Something might have been said but I wasn’t responsible for it;
You can’t prove I said it;
I didn’t use those exact words;
Somebody overheard/secretly recorded the private conversation I had with 300 attendees over a PA system;
I was using the words according to the hitherto unknown definition I just made up now;
It was Opposite Day when I said that.Â
Okay I’m a groupie. GT on ‘Bat Bean Beam’ draws the connection between tools for managing blogs, news groups, and other social media, and drone warfare.
…The CIA will never run out of high-level targets. The internet will never run out of trolls. This is simply because should either of those categories be emptied, the database would fill them again with the people previously defined as mid-level targets, or a nuisance. The danger of terrorism or insurgency will never disappear in the same way that online social interactions will never become perfectly smooth. This is why the kill list and the kill file are not to be understood as temporary solutions but rather as permanent features, a way not just of dealing with concrete problems but of imagining and seeing the world…
I am really glad that The Standard makes minimal use of banning and the other more insidious silencing technologies such as like-dislike scales. I find it worrying that more and more in these kinds of these media, it is possible to almost never hear alternative views. Even whole subjects can disappear entirely, fresh perspectives, any uncomfortable voices, memories or thoughts, all are smoothed away before they can even impinge on anyone’s consciousness.
This at the same time as whanau and social groups are increasingly batoning down the hatchets against out-group members, and our communities are slipping into survival mode.
And note how even National had to institute a bunch of “red tape” in order to help secure the finance company sector and protect investors after SCF, Hanover, etc.
Yep, methinks the right wing religion of smaller regulation, freer markets, more private enterprise involvement etc etc has without doubt passed its time now.
The tide is now no longer drifting at the pleasant sandy high tide beach, it is now well on the way out exposing the mud flats and the detritus that had previously been covered by the tide.
What’s that saying about geting exposed by an outgoing tide? Well, that entire political philosophy is lying stinked up on the mud flats with no togs. Think Brownlee Key and English. End.
Whatâs that saying about geting exposed by an outgoing tide? Well, that entire political philosophy is lying stinked up on the mud flats with no togs. Think Brownlee Key and English. End.
What it shows is that the people who are actually directing NZs “sovereign parliament”, have managed, over decades to completely corrupt the systems that are needed for societies, and communities to function well.
What we are currently seeing is the latest outputs of that corruption!
Does the elderly lady have any connection to the successive governments she voted in during her life that created an environment that allowed her to fill her house full of things transported by trucks and feed herself with food transported by trucks? Did she vote for people who destroyed the railways, with the smugness of an armchair ideologue? Did the woman, at some point in her life, know she ran the risk or did it come as a complete surprise when she bought a retirement home on a busy highway route?
Are the public responsible for the actions of the masters they vote for and the ideas they arrange their lives around, or can they cast off their actions entirely onto any number of random ministers?
You raise a good point of debate – in that voters need to be engaged in what they are really voting for however your point omits the role of trust and the role of someone in government, with which that trust is reasonably based on also the role of “authority” and how people relate to that, in fact the very role of government in the first place.
A political party proposes a way forward, people trust that the consequences of such have been soundly thought out. If everyone has to double guess and think deeply on each proposal, then half the point of having representatives has been lost. i.e. not everyone wants to be thinking about these things in depth; that is why we elect people to do that for us.
Sadly, the time for relying on these people to be taking their role conscientiously is over and we can no longer afford to have such beliefs. This is the message that needs to get out to the general public, once more people start pressuring government to take their role seriously again, they might start doing their jobs properly and then perhaps we can start to trust them again.
blue leopard
I don’t notice much attempt at political discussion by others. There are some comments that come from deeply held prejudices and all events that are received and remembered in their minds are then shaped to fit those prejudices and reinforce them. I don’t think most people engage in the democratic process of critical thinking about means and ends which is our responsibility if we want to live in a democracy. I was just the same when I was younger, there was no role model of active thinker on politics in my life to follow. I think its the same for most. What to do about this?
I was just the same when I was younger, there was no role model of active thinker on politics in my life to follow. I think its the same for most. What to do about this?
The aim would be to engage just 100K new people to Left Wing politics. Aged 16 and up.
In such a scenario the Right would almost never win again (oohhh McFlock!).
lol
  Â
The old “if more people supported us, we’d be more popular” tautology.
   Â
The number of meetings I’ve been in where plans have been hatched to “engage with [segment or donor XXX]” is large. The number of successful socialist revolutions in NZ in that time period: 0.00000
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The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And remember that only one dude could walk on water (ninja lore notwithstanding).Â
The number of meetings Iâve been in where plans have been hatched to âengage with [segment or donor XXX]â is large. The number of successful socialist revolutions in NZ in that time period: 0.00000
In that case perhaps the common factor for failure is you McFlock. With your outlook it’s not a surprise.
You’re mad McFlock. Why would you consider voting for the Alliance for instance if not to help them build a 100,000 strong voting base???
By the way, I said nothing about a “youth” organisation. Better keep your imagination in check mate. It seems you are reading a lot into what I write which is not there.
Leafletting lol your strategies really would be a failure.
Youâre mad McFlock. Why would you consider voting for the Alliance for instance if not to help them build a 100,000 strong voting base???
Because I agree with their policies. Which is an entirely separate issue to how successful they are, or I think they’ll be. Maybe if the Alliance get 1% lab/greens would recognise the demand and take a step to the left. Who knows?
    Â
Hey, I’d love it if the Alliance had a half-million strong voting base. But anyone can say “we will engage x-hundred thousand people”. Actually getting more than thirty is the challenge, and only comes from hard work: entertaining and persuasive speakers on the hustings, doorknocking, social media, and indeed walking around in the rain delivering thousand of leaflets. And no, social media does not remove that work.
   Â
Which takes us back to plaintive cries in meetings of a dozen folk, the mournful refrain “why don’t people vote for / support us?”Â
  Â
As for reading a lot into what you write, the problem is that in order to turn what you write into a coherent and realistic plan, lots and lots of holes need to be filled in.Â
I don’t think most people think, full stop. There is likely to be heard from many “When’s the next footy match”. In other words, so very much discussion centres upon trivia rather than upon the huge issues going on all around us.
@Prism,
Yes, I agree with your comments, and I have in the past got rather annoyed about people not engaging with politics (!), yet I realise this is unfair, and I have to remind myself that not everyone has the same interests, most are very busy and people do things in a variety of ways to help improve “the way things are”.
As to what to do about this. “ummm” is the first thing that comes to mind!
Then the standard criticism that arises of our media; information sources.
It is my experience (and from what I’ve read too) that when one meets up with a person with a real interest in political issues and critical thinking, this what sparks interest in another. This can be a real life person, and it can also be an article in a paper, or books and now, on the internet too. The issue being, the more people read banal propaganda, the more they switch off. This was my experience, a thought that politics was simply mediocre and compromised. Then coming across books that relayed intelligently presented “connected” arguments which made me realise that there really was a purpose behind all the banality that is presented to us.
I guess the best thing that any one person can do is share a passion for critical thinking when one has the opportunity to (sometimes this involves speaking out when there is pressure to remain silent) and I think that an optimism that things can change positively when there are enough people involved is also a very important thing to impart to people. All of this requires going against some of our cultural attitudes, which I believe are pretty anti politics, keep your head down, don’t complain…etc.
I really do think that there needs to be an information source in print or on TV that imparts information on this level and I am unclear as to why this hasn’t occurred yet. Perhaps a bit to do with what Nicky Hagar’s Bruce Jesson Speech touched on, left-wing people have been disempowered?
Think a lot of things would improve if we simply removed all protections from “legal persons” aka corporations and give them protections on a case by case basis depending upon how much of a public service they were providing, this would effectively remind people of the reasons the protections were devised for corporations in the first place.
Time to institute charges of corporate manslaughter and corporate grevious bodily harm which can be laid against directors and executive management.
And shareholders too.
If you want to make money off other peoples labour you should at least make sure everything possible is done to ensure their safety.
Shareholders should know how slack the governance and management of the companies they invest in is but deliberately decide to ignore it unless the dividends fall.
It would be amazing how corporate behaviour would change if people through the whole ownership/governance/management chain were held accountable for their actions.
Because people with more cash than they need would only give it to enterprises where their liability was limited to the amount of cash they put in.
Limited liability companies distance the owners from the consequences of their actions.
If you could end up supporting the family of a man killed by poor safety measures in a mine you partly owned you would think very hard before investing and you would insist on good safety.
Can’t comment on the specifics of blame you’d like to attribute, but bear in mind that Unions were designed to be transitional devices, not static everlasting organisations. If Unions in NZ crossed the line that they were theoretically designed to cross, we’d have our long awaited revolution. The reality is that they presently contribute to keeping our population well fed and protected, but to do that they need to be collaborating with the thing they supposedly must overthrow. National or Labour, more or less regulation? Deaths, or a series of occasional serious injury? Work, or poverty and revolution? Which is better and what is the question we’re all avoiding?
“I read some where that the Miners union knew the mine wasnât safe.”
Yes, I heard of someone who chose not to work in that mine because of this knowledge
“How come they didnât kick up more of a stink, isnât that their job?”
This is the hidden “cost” of low employment, poor working conditions and low pay as well as a basic trust in employer’s concern over the welfare of their staff.
Although people “knew” the mine was unsafe, or suspected as much, there would be a basic “trust” that it “would be alright”, a person might consider that they were being paranoid and that their boss ultimately wouldn’t risk their workers lives.
This line of reasoning would be all the more likely when there are few jobs around and many poorly paid ones. i.e. the other option is to what? not work and not be able to keep your family in good health? Knowing the unemployment benefit is a trap, a person who quit their job wouldn’t be entitled to an unemployment benefit anyway and such an option isn’t even considered an option for a lot of people, due to both/either their value system &/or the fact that they have a family to support and welfare isn’t sufficient for that.
Isn’t that the advantage about Unions, strength in numbers, nobody would have to quit.
Everyone downs tools for a week unless the safety concerns get sorted.
Many of the workers were contractors who the Commission said did not have the required training to carry out the tasks management gave them. Contractors are not usually associated with Unions, so it’s doubtful any strike would have been effective. The Union workers would have simply been replaced by contractors, with much applause from Brownlee and Wilkinson.
It’s good that you’re advocating for more Union powers to ensure workplace safety BM… Perhaps Slater, Farrar and the rest of the Union bashing sycophants might like to hear about your ideas?
Blind Monetarist some miners just up and left but in New Zealand the right wing have hobbled unions one of the first pieces of legislation by your shonkey led govt was to stop unions free access to the work place 2008 followed by Kate wilkinsons shelving of the recommendations of the labour parties report on mining safety 2009 preceded by Mad max bradfords sacking of mine inspectors 1998 preceeded by bill birchs gutting of mine safety rules 1992 that had been built up over the previous century.
Not trying to shift the blame their Bob.
The Labour party was born on the coast out of concern for mine safety and workers rights!
BM, the report I read was that miners, not the unions so much, new that it was unsafe. Kudos to ABC Aussie for comprehensive public service broadcasting coverage:
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The interesting thing we learnt during the Royal Commission was that miners were in fact complicit in this [ignoring methane level reports], in a certain way, because there were reports that they were putting plastic bags over the methane sensors.
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Now, it was given in evidence to the commission that this was because they felt under pressure, that management was wanting them to meet production targets.
BM
You’re like those guys in the comedy routine acting out simple-minded types spotting cars on a motorway, ooh look there’s another one. You question, someone answers, and it just flows right past you without entering your brain, and you repeat the question later on with the same result. I think you are an example of the snowfall effect that I put forward in Open Mike I think on 6/11.
The poor old miners got caught in a moral hazard that existed for miners in Emile Zola’s time. They want to make a living, have housing, and every time they delay production for safety reasons they hurt the company, it’s profitability and their jobs. In Zola’s time their safety was their own responsibility and I understand they had to shore up the passages and support the ceiling themselves.
It seems strange to me vto, that the millions of dollars needed to fix leaky homes is not clearly sheeted home to the National deregulation in the 90s. You would think that along with Mining deregulation the people would be very angry. I am.
Prime Minister John Key says he is serious when he needs to be but has to joke around sometimes.
Is she part of the parliamentary gallery? Does she not regularly see how Key does his stand-up routine in order to deflect serious questions in Question Time? Why is she not reporting that, rather than just uncritically reporting what Key says?
What is the selection criteria is to be “any reporter or editor”, responsible for the media balackouts which exist, to provide the cover stories and misdirection, to blatant lies that are sold via the MSM.
When one starts to think about those who are “selected to report the news”, one can reasonably deduce that those people are as easily “swayed”, as those chosen to be the options NZ gets to vote for!
”I dare you to show me one example where I haven’t discharged my responsibility seriously, professionally and appropriately,” he told TV3’s Firstline. (Sorry,had to cut and paste) Guess who in DomPost?
Yesterday I noted a discussion of interest rate and currency swaps that I heard on Jim Mora on Radionz. I put live links in my comment. It was new stuff to me, the financial instruments or derivatives (D) market is not my everyday experience and I would say not to the ordinary citizen.
I just listened again and there are some points that we should know. First between them Auckland and Dunedin City Councils lost $200 million last year resulting from these Ds. Then we should know that the Ds are contingent liabilities which have floating rates and there is no knowing how the rates will change year to year. It may be $1 billion that they lose next year (and that is a debt on top of the principal still owing).
I don’t know if they are the same as hedge funds, but the point was made as with hedge funds, that the seller of the D has a conflict of interest as it wants to win and you to lose, (so it will want to tip the scales against you). One thinks of the Melbourne Cup – the TAB have better rules and standards. Apparently our chief national earners, Fonterra and farming interests, are involved in these derivatives and that gives a cold feeling down the spine.
There is something called a Dual currency interest rate swap. This involves two different currencies and when one is NZ, which is very volatile and may fall, then the repayments go up, a particularly risky tricky thing to be in.
In Europe there has been legal proceedings brought against mis-selling by banks of derivatives (mis-selling another neo-lib euphemism) and a Milan bank had returned millions of dollars, might have been $1 billion not sure.
It can be difficult to find what has been done with this public money because of the old excuse “It’s commercially sensitive”. We may think we have the right to know what our officials are doing in our name, but no, ‘It’s trust us we know more than you, and we know what we are doing”. That sounds dodgy, but how can we force the issue under the present regime??
First between them Auckland and Dunedin City Councils lost $200 million last year resulting from these Ds. Then we should know that the Ds are contingent liabilities
technical note – a contingent liability is a potential sum owing, the size and nature of which depends on some future event or measure.
With interest rate D’s, there is a vast amount of uncertainty and lack of control around what this might be, year to year. As prism notes, the investment banks on the other side of the trade often PROFIT when their clients LOSE.
It’s a level of risk which no public organisation should involve itself in unless it really knows how to use D’s as tools to reduce risk and uncertainty.
Many municipal authorities in the US have gone bankrupt due to these kinds of “investments”.
No probs mate, you were very close to getting it right. Your monthly power bill could be considered a contingent liability which depends on how much power you use – will your next invoice be $300 or will it be $600?
At least in that case you have significant influence over the end result. With an interest rate swap you are at the mercy of market fraud and banker fine print scams.
I was thinking of that general competence thing for councils. At one time they couldn’t get high-flown ideas of risk-taking in exotic financial transactions – they were too tightly controlled. It seems as a citizen who isn’t snuggling up for juicy tenders and projects to councils, that the general competence should be abandoned and a slightly more lenient than the previous control should be the new norm.
Also, one of the skills that a CEO is now being paid for is no doubt the ability to handle a large budget and be able to do this financial horse-trading. So if councils had less money, which they had to parcel out in a rational way, there would be less need to do their double book-keeping. The Jim Mora Radionz item I listened to said that the borrowings and interest rate swaps were not always shown in the appropriate part of the balance sheet and there wasn’t a signal of their likely cost long-term.
And I think that employing contractors is almost double-bookeeping. Government and businesses can fudge their expenditure on human resources. Contractors are paid out of one pot, and staff and wages out of another. Staff and wages will appear to be kept at a low rate yet the real need of the organisation is met by high-paid hourly contractors. A wasteful and often mendacious system.
This Local Bodies explanation piece on council general competence and processes is very straightforward and a good example of providing clear information. http://insider.thomsonreuters.co.nz/2012/03/local-government-law-nz/ 2. Financial management strategies
Commencing in 1996, with abolition of the former Local Authorities Loans Board, local authorities have had greater powers to undertake works and to fund the works through different fiscal policies and determinations. The ability of local authorities to borrow money, or to undertake rating, has been substantially liberalised. The introduction of differential rating, and annual charges, has been modernised, and the ability to impose targeted rates has been extended. Again, to provide direction and restraint, the law requires councils to develop strategies for funding and borrowing, and to provide for implementation through the long-term plan and annual plan, and to make an annual report. These obligations are subject to overview by the Auditor-General.
Everyone saw this news, and polling on October 5 showed a sharp increase in the number of people who knew that unemployment was down. But here’s the interesting thing: among liberals and independents, the number getting the answer right stayed higher over the next several days. Apparently the news sunk in. But among conservatives, the number getting the answer right started to decline immediately. Within three days, as the chart below shows, they were answering the question exactly the same as they had before the unemployment report came out.
We see the same things here with the RWNJs continual re-writing of history when the facts conflict with what the RWNJs believe.
Yes how about calling it the snowfall effect? The brains of RWNJs get stirred up by new and unwelcome stats which register for a brief moment in time, but similar to the little globes with snow and bits of glitter in them which swirl around after a shaking, soon everything settles back to the same configuration as before.
Great imagery there Prism.
I expect there are more RWNJ who believe in a god and in a heaven as they are more likely to exist in faith rather than science or factual evidence. It is god’s will you know.
ianmac
Well when you’re on the top of the heap perhaps you feel closer to god. Then you could almost be convinced that he/she is on your side and it’s all the wonderful way that god willed it to be.
Each constituent lie is an instance pointing to a larger, elaborately constructed âtruth,â the one central to the right-wing appeal for generations: that liberalism is a species of madnessâan esoteric cult of out-of-touch, Europe-besotted ivory tower elitesâand conservatism is the creed of regular Americans and vouchsafes the eternal prosperity, security, and moral excellence of Godâs chosen nation, which was doing just fine before Bolsheviks started gumming up the works.
briefly listened to RNZ last night; an interveiw with a co-author of a recent popular publication on the findings of “political science” research into the benefits the introduction of democracy had provided to newly democratic nation states in our life-times. The interviewer was very dry and sceptical of the authors conclusions (very american) and the author just dribbled a whole lot of waffle imo.
It seemed, the advances in rule of law, social justice etc, in African countries for example, were comparitively short-lived.
Some one commented recently concerning the population attritions we are likely to see in Africa in the coming decades.
Oh I thought I’d just bat back the idea of ‘union corruption’ with the idea that yes, unions have to evolve and tighten up their organisations – at the same time as making them far stronger and more effective.
NZ’s systemic corruption is on levels which people can’t even begin to fathom, so they blow it off as “poor politics”, or right/left or other ideology!
Given that the perceptions of many of those organisations are significantly affected by the media (which “won” hands down), much lolz.
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I’m surprised the Australian police are only at 16%, given their record.Â
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It’s a survey of people’s perceptions not the reality. What a surpirse that a lot of people have a negative view of unions Wonder how they got thatidea?Â
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Yet the respondents views of individual politicians as not being corrupt, contradict the strong belief that poltiicians are corrupt. It’s all in the mind.
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And they’ve been doing those surveys for the last 30 years – roughly coincides with neoliberalism and the rise of tabloid and highly commercialised journalism. This does support research that indicates such journalism leads to cynicism about politics.
Having said that, Australian unions (and politicians very closely aligned to major unions) have had some serious shockers in the last couple of years. And the AWU scandal is crippling Gillard.
In the last week – has anyone been getting those server failure messages that were so common?
I haven’t had one since the start of last week after I’d fixed a number of things that were locking up the database and a separate set that were preventing the full use of cloudflare.
Cunliffe says it’s a dark day for hi-tech manufacturing – Fisher and Paykel sold, Rakon outsourcing jobs to Asia. And a Labour government would do more to keep such businesses and work in NZ, he says.
This is what you get when a relatively small number of shareholders and institutional investors, all of whom are already plenty wealthy, decide that maximising their return on capital is more important than anything else eg keeping jobs in NZ.
Well, capitalism hasn’t been around for 5000 years…guess it depends how you define it. I see it as taking hold after the time of Adam Smith and Ricardo.
Debt based money with a top down hierarchical structure which resulted in a few people owning nearly everything and the collapse of the economy was recorded in Sumer 5000 years ago. Which brings up that old saying: If it looks like a duck and quacks like duck, chances are, it’s a duck.
Can I make a suggestion for your summer reading list DTB, Karl Polanyi – The Great transformation. If your into your history and political economy its makes for a great read, should be around in ebook form on Gutenberg or something.
“Not until 1834 was a competitive labor market established in England; hence, industrial capitalism as a social system cannot be said to have existed before that date. Yet almost immediately the self-protection of society set in: factory laws and social legislation, and a political and industrial working class movement sprang into being. It was in this attempt to stave off the entirely new dangers of the market mechanism that protective action conflicted fatally with the self-regulation of the system. It is no exaggeration to say that the social history of the nineteenth century was determined by the logic of the market system proper after it was released by the Poor Law Reform Act of 1834.”
We are also considering an accelerated depreciation allowance to support investment in new technology.
State owned factories run by the workers as a cooperative with the production then done under contract/license. Run R&D through the universities to keep the factories up to date. Much better idea.
You can’t have the state owning the factories, the workers or their local communities have to own the factories. With state owned enterprises, the first thing a Tory Govt will do is sell the bloody things off. Need to observe and learn their patterns of behaviour.
âŚthe workers or their local communities have to own the factories.
And what else do you think the state is?
With state owned enterprises, the first thing a Tory Govt will do is sell the bloody things off.
So we change government rules so that they can’t. It’s part and parcel of making them accountable to the people of NZ in such a way so that they do what the people of NZ want them to do and not what their major backers want.
Well, I’m all for democracy and having it so that it must go to referendum. If they try to get rid of the referendum, as the arseholes did with Auckland, then they are immediately in breach of the law and are automatically found as treasonous.
Put in the right laws, make sure everyone knows what those laws are and what they’re there to do and we can limit the government which is what we really need to do.
Does anyone recall the government saying that they were going to support KidsCan “feeding the lower decile” children?
Just as we thought would happen, they have managed to get Campbell Live off their backs
but can anyone report an improvement in the diets of the needy school children…? Nah, hasn’t happened, I bet. Or has it?
Words and images by Jacqui GibsonGone are Auckland Museum’s days of doing science using a museum-centric academic approach, after Māori land rights holders Ngāti Kuri gave the museum an ultimatum.Tom Trnski holding a fossilised whale tooth from the Far North.Aussie-born Head of Natural Sciences at Auckland Museum ...
MediaWorks announced in October 2019 that it intended to sell off its struggling television business and cancel or cut back on several popular local programmes, including New Zealand Today, Married at First SightNew Zealand and 7 Days. Its radio and outdoor advertising arms are currently performing well, but MediaWorks’ ...
Westminster voting intention:CON: 44% (+3)LAB: 28% (-1)LDEM: 14% (-1)BREX: 6% (-)via @OpiniumResearch, surveyed this weekChgs. w/ 08 Nov— Britain Elects (@britainelects) 16 November 2019 This, of course, doesn't look good. Labour have been chucking big, headline grabbing policies left, right and centre ... Well, maybe not right. Left, left ...
Some readers may remember that I mentioned last year that I was applying for NZ citizenship. I filled out the paperwork and had my original citizenship interview in February. Everything went well until they discovered that, because I had spent five months in the US in 2017, I had not ...
by Deirdre O’Neill It is becoming quite acceptable for certain sections of the left to declare that people like me – women who are ‘gender critical’ – should not be allowed in leftist or anarchist spaces. Leaving aside the arrogance and implicit authoritarianism of this claim, its lack of critical ...
There is an article in The Conversation, written by Jeremy P. Shapiro (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University), about what he sees as the psychologically-based underpinnings of three main matters that seem to vex people all around the planet. The article is titled “The Thinking ...
. . Blogger Martyn Bradbury has won his case against unreasonable search and surveillance against the NZ Police; and subsequent Police attempts to produce evidence in secrecy, in a closed Court. His case highlights a disturbing growing trend in Aotearoa New Zealand for State power to be used against ...
The Committee of Disobedient Women has intercepted an email from Dr Emma Eejut, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Massey University to the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Jan Thomas. Dear Jan, Thank you for your courageous move. I think 10 pages of blether** should tie any of the students game enough to try holding ...
That's the only response to the findings of the Ombudsman's investigation into LGOIMA practices at the Christchurch City Council:My investigation identified serious concerns about the Council’s leadership and culture, and its commitment to openness and transparency. In particular, Council staff raised concerns with me about various methods employed by some ...
NZ First seems to be nakedly trying to enrich itself from public office:A powerful New Zealand First figure helped establish a forestry company that then pushed for money from two key funding streams controlled by a New Zealand First Minister. An RNZ investigation has found Brian Henry, lawyer for Winston ...
Behrouz Boochani is an award winning author and journalist. He is also a refugee, who for the past six years has been detained in Australia's offshore gulag on Manus Island, and in Papua New Guinea. But last night, with the cooperation of the WORD Christchurch festival and Amnesty International, he ...
Different Strokes: If a multicultural immigration policy imposes no obligation on immigrant communities to acknowledge and ultimately embrace their host nation’s most cherished traditions and values, then how is that nation to prevent itself from being reduced to a collection of inward-looking and self-replicating ethnic and cultural enclaves?THE COALITION GOVERNMENT’S ...
Protective Zone: Reading the rules and guidelines released by Massey University, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that its governing body considers the whole concept of free speech a disruptive threat to the orderly imparting of orthodox academic knowledge.IN TRUE ORWELLIAN fashion, Massey University has announced its commitment to ...
Farmers held a hate-march on Parliament today, complete with MAGA hats, gun-nut signs, and gendered insults. While supposedly about a grab-bag of issues - including, weirdly, mental health - it was clear that the protest was about one thing, and one thing only: climate change. And specifically, forestry "destroying" rural ...
The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security released their annual report today, and I've been busy reading through it. In amongst the usual review of what they've been doing all year, there's a few interesting bits. For example, a discussion on "agency retention and disposal of information", which points out that ...
Recently more than 150 post-graduate students and young scientists presented an open letter to the Green Party via The Spinoff, encouraging them to reconsider their position on genetic modification. Their target is tackling climate change issues.[1] Can any party continue to be dismissive about genetic modification (GM) contributing to ...
by Deirdre O’Neill Under Thatcher and then Blair and continuing up until our contemporary moment, the working class has seen its culture slowly and progressively destroyed. The change from an industrial society to a service society produced a marked shift in focus from the working class as the backbone of ...
Since 2013, the Australian government has detained refugees without trial in Pacific gulags, where they are abused, tortured, and driven to suicide. The policy is not just an abuse of human rights and possible crime against humanity; it has also had a corrosive effect on the states Australia uses as ...
It seems fair to say that we currently live in a problematic political moment in world history. Democracies are in decline and dictatorships are on the rise. Primordial, sectarian and post-modern divisions have re-emerged, are on the rise or have been accentuated by political evolutions of the moment such as ...
Last month, Greenpeace head Russel Norman surrendered his speaking slot at an EPA conference to student climate activist Sorcha Carr, who told the EPA exactly what she thought of them. It was a bold move, which confronted both regulators and polluters (or, as the EPA calls them, "stakeholders") with the ...
The core principle supposedly underlying New Zealand's electoral finance regime is transparency: parties can accept large donations from rich people wanting to buy policy, but only if they tell the public they've been bought. Most parties abide by this, so we know that TOP was wholly-owned by Gareth Morgan, and ...
Today is a Member's Day, probably the second-to-last one of the year, and its a big one, with the Third Reading of David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill. last Member's Day it was reported back from committee, after MPs voted narrowly to make it subject to a (rules TBA) ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThe growth of the human population over the last 70 ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...
by Don Franks In 1957, E M Forster wrote, of his greatest work: “The India described in ‘A Passage to India’ no longer exists either politically or socially. Change had begun even at the time the book was published ( 1924) and during the following quarter of a century it ...
The Referendums Framework Bill was due back from select committee today. But there's no report on it. Instead, the bill has been bounced back to the House under Standing order 29593) because the Committee didn't bother to produce one. They probably tried. But given the membership of the committee (which ...
Two years into New Zealand’s Labour-led government, the long-delayed Zero Carbon Bill became law on 7 November. Passed essentially unanimously, the lengthy public debates and political manoeuvring faded away until the final passage was even anticlimactic: Flipping through the @nzstuff@DomPost I was starting to wonder if I’d dreamt ...
Now the Zero Carbon Bill is law, what's next? Obviously, the ETS changes currently before select committee are going to be the next battleground. But we're also going to get a good idea of where we're going, and if the progress the Zero Carbon Act promises is good enough, during ...
Grant PearceThe effects of the current Australian bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland (and also again in California) are devastating and far-reaching. To date, the fires have resulted in several lives being lost and many homes and properties destroyed. Here in New Zealand, the impacts have been only ...
A passing comment in a post the other day about the labour force participation rates of older people prompted me to pull down the fuller data and see what we could see about various participation rates over the decades since the HLFS began in 1986. As it happens, the ...
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...
"I saw a newspaper picture,From the political campaignA woman was kissing a child,Who was obviously in pain.She spills with compassion,As that young child'sFace in her hands she gripsCan you imagine all that greed and avariceComing down on that child's lips?" ...
Dr Matt Boyd, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick WilsonThe Global Health Security Index which considers pandemic threats has just been published. Unfortunately, NZ scores approximately half marks (54/100), coming in 35th in the world rankings – far behind Australia. This poor result suggests that the NZ Government needs to ...
The Zero Carbon Act is inadequate, with a weak methane target designed to give farmers a free ride. But it turns out it could have been worse: Climate Change Minister James Shaw was so desperate to get National on board, he wanted to gut that target, and leave it in ...
The Herald reprints an Australian story on a couple of tragic deaths in Bali from drinking cocktails that had methanol in them. The story argues that methanol is likely the result of home distillation. But what the young tourists were experiencing was far from a hangover. They’d consumed a toxic cocktail ...
Last month, the police announced a trial of specialist roaming armed units, which would drive round (poor, brown) areas in armoured SUVs, armed to the teeth. When they announced the trial, they told us it was about having armed police "ready to attend major incidents at any time if needed". ...
Spain went to the polls today in the second elections this year, after the Socialists (who had come to power in a confidence vote, then gone to the polls in April) rejected the offer of a coalition with the left-wing PoDemos, and instead decided to gamble n a better outcome ...
A couple of days ago I attended (and spoke at) the University of Waikato’s “LearnFest” event. There were lots of talks and sessions on very diverse aspects of teaching, mostly at tertiary level. One was by Myra Williamson from Te Piringa Faculty of Law here at Waikato, on Contract Cheating ...
There will be a transit of Mercury – the planet Mercury will pass across the face of the Sun – taking place at sunrise in New Zealand on Tuesday, 12th November. It was by observing such an event 250 years ago that James Cook and his scientist colleagues were able ...
Since becoming the world’s first openly transexual mayor and member of parliament, Georgina Beyer has been recognised as a trailblazer for trans rights. Daphna Whitmore talks with her about where she sees the current trans movement We start out talking about legislation the government put on hold that would have ...
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ...
National Messiah? Chris Luxon identifies himself as an evangelical Christian. If he is genuine in this self-characterisation, then he will take every opportunity his public office provides to proselytise on behalf of his faith. He will also feel obliged to bear witness against beliefs and practices he believes to be ...
I'm going to make a Reckless Prediction™ that the Tories have 'topped out' in the 'poll of polls' / Britain Elects multipoll tracker at about 38%, and in the next week we will start to see Labour creep up on them.In fact, we might just be seeing the start of ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Lizzie Marvelly: “I may have missed this… has @afterellen gone all terf-y? Or am I reading something incorrectly? “ https://twitter.com/LizzieMarvelly/status/1191840059105742849 After Ellen is a lesbian website that is unashamedly pro-lesbian, as you’d expect. So why is Ms Marvelly so bothered about lesbians having their ...
Did you know there once was a time when it was illegal to be a gypsy (aka Romani) in Britain?That was between 1530, when the Egyptians Act was passed, and 1856, when it was repealed.Amongst other things, the act forbade the entry of 'Egyptians' into England, ordered those already there ...
Some days I sit and think, “what will I write…?” What do you say when you get to 1000 posts? Maybe you just start where you are, diverge to where this all began, then offer a collection of reader’s favourite posts, and a few of your own? (And throw in ...
Counter-Puncher: The “activists” and “radicals” (his own words) from the Indian community who took such strong exception to Shane Jones’ remarks about Immigration NZ’s treatment of arranged marriages, may end up bitterly regretting their intervention. Jones is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to his critics.SHANE ...
In the spirit of Remember, remember the fifth of November, let's keep this in mind FOREVER.
Oh dear. Extraordinary interview on PM with Andrew Bridgen and @EvanHD just now. Bridgen was defending Jacob Rees Mogg’s Grenfell comments. Evan asked him if JRM had meant to say he would have left ...
Collision Course? In conditions of ideological white-out, the international bankers’ “Woop-Woop! Pull Up!” warning may have come too late to save global capitalism.WHAT DOES IT MEAN when international bankers are more willing to embrace radical solutions than our politicians and their electors? At both the International Monetary Fund and the ...
Pertussis (whooping cough) is a conundrum. It is a disease that was described hundreds of years ago and the bacteria that causes it (Bordetella pertussis) isolated in 1906. We have had vaccines for about 80 years but this disease is defiant in the face of human immunity. I wanted to ...
The Zero Carbon Bill has just passed its third reading, uanimously. In the end, National supported it - but we all know they'll turn around and gut it the moment they regain power. Meanwhile, I guess ACT's David Seymour didn't even bother to show up. I am on record as ...
Dr Lindsay Robertson, Dr Jerram Bateman, Professor Janet HoekMembers of the public health community hold divergent views on how access to vaping products or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products should be arranged. Some believe ENDS should be as widely available as smoked tobacco and argue for liberal ...
When the Police were trying to cover up for the National Party over Dirty Politics, they went all-in with their abuses of power. They illegally search Nicky Hager's house, violating his journalistic privilege and invading his privacy. They unlawfully acquired Hager's bank records. They did the same to left-wing blogger ...
Last month, in response to a wave of protests by Extinction Rebellion, the British government purported to ban their protests from the whole of London. It was a significant interference with the freedoms of expression and assembly, and another sign of the country's decline into tyranny. But now, a court ...
Last year, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security reported on significant problems with the intelligence warrant system. While they were unwilling to declare any warrant "irregular" (meaning unlawful) due to the recent law change, they were also not willing to give the system a clean bill of health. Now, they've ...
The National Party has come out in support of encouraging greater vaccination uptake. But it sure isn’t the way I’d do it. National’s suggested docking the benefits of those on benefit whose kids aren’t keeping up with their vaccinations. Some in National have suggested extending that to payments under Working ...
Feeding The Flames: It is simply not enough to demand an end to “corruption”, or “inequality”, or the overbearing influence of the authorities in Beijing. These are just “lowest common denominator” demands: the sort of slogans that pull people onto the streets. They are not a plan.WHERE’S THE PLAN? Across ...
The labour market statistics have been released, and unemployment has risen to 4.2%. There are 115,000 unemployed - 11,000 fewer than when Labour took office. In that time the minimum wage has gone up by $2 an hour, which shows that the right's fears about increases causing unemployment are simply ...
The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has called for submissions on Andrew Little's tyrannicalTerrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill. Normally I encourage participation in the democratic process. I am not doing so in this case. Instead, I encourage all of you to boycott this submissions process, and to post ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzIf tiny concentrations of carbon dioxide can hold enough heat ...
Aviation is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and within it, one of the fastest sources is elite travel: billionaires flitting around the world in their private jets, spewing excessive pollution into the atmosphere just so they can avoid mixing with us dirty peasants. But in ...
That's what we face if we don't stop climate change, according to a warning from 11,000 scientists:The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists. “We declare clearly and unequivocally ...
by Phil Duncan Here’s just a few of the kind of threats issued day in and day out against gender-critical women – feminists, marxists, etc – overwhelmingly by MEN (albeit men identifying as women). “Kill all Terfs”. “Shoot a Terf today”. “All terfs deserve to be shot in the head”. ...
This is the third of the synopses of parts of the opening chapter of John Smith’s Imperialism in the 21st Century (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2016). The synopsis and commentary below is written by Phil Duncan. Unlike the humble cup of coffee and t-shirt that we looked at in ...
Tom MooreTraditionally a food source and cutting tool, freshwater mussels/kākahi are now widely valued as water filters that help clean our waterbodies and maintain ecosystem health throughout Aotearoa. The improvement they provide in water quality can make it easier for other animals to live in streams and rivers, as ...
And to think he gave all the potential goodwill away with that moronic, cult-like statement (repeated ad nauseam by many National hardliners) that Key is quite simply “the greatest PM we ever had”…Installation complete: this was nothing ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is back in the House today for its second reading. While this isn't the final stage, its still effectively D-Day for the bill. Because today, at around 5pm, is when we're going to find out if it has a majority, whether National will support it or ...
Winston Peters is in court today, suing a bunch of former Minister and civil servants over their pre-election leak of his superannuation repayment. He's characterised the leak as malicious, and said that it is repugnant that his information was passed on to Ministers to use for political advantage. And he's ...
Murray CoxDo I have to finish my favourite genome? That’s an often-asked question. Geneticists generally strive to produce high-quality genomes that sequence every last gene, making full use of the state-of-the-art technologies coming on stream. Sequencing DNA means determining the order of the four chemical building blocks – called ...
Transformative Politics: The idea is to turn each recipient into an unwitting accomplice in their own transformation. From interested observer to hyped-up activist, sharing our messages promiscuously with ‘friends’. You’ll be part of an ever-expanding circulatory system, Jennifer, for the ideas that will win us the election.”JENNIFER SKITTERED her chair ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First backs the public to decide on the End of Life Choice Bill via a referendum at the 2020 General Election. The Bill, with New Zealand First’s referendum provision incorporated, passed its final reading in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Justice New Zealand First is proud that a key Coalition Agreement commitment which will provide for a more transparent and effective criminal justice system has been realised. Legislation to establish the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body focused on identifying and responding to possible miscarriages of ...
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...
Darroch Ball, New Zealand First List MP A Member’s bill has been proposed that would provide income tax exemptions for all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel while on operational deployment overseas. The Income Tax (Exemption for Salary or Wages of NZDF Members on Active Deployment) Amendment Bill proposed by New Zealand First ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have brought common sense to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which passed its final reading in Parliament today. Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says months of hard work went into negotiating a balanced ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First has listened to calls to recognise paramedics as registered health professionals under the Health Practitioners’ Competence Assurance Act (the Act).Today, the Coalition Government announced plans for paramedics to be registered as health practitioners under the Act, and the establishment of a ...
We began the week by commemorating the New Zealand Wars and celebrating a major increase in the number of teachers. Then, we were busy supporting offenders into work and getting our rail back on track after years of underinvestment. And that's just the start! ...
In October I was sworn in as the Mayor of Lower Hutt.It’s the privilege of my life to serve Hutt people as their Mayor. There is something really special to be able to serve the community where I was raised, and where I live. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters met with Korea Racing Authority Chairperson Nak Soon Kim in Seoul today to discuss closer cooperation between the New Zealand and Korean horse racing industries. As part of the visit to the Seoul Racecourse, Mr Peters witnessed ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $10 million to establish Otago as the centre of New Zealand’s creative digital industry over the next ten years, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “The initiative will bring us closer to the vision of ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)’s skills and employment programme will help young Otago people into long-term forestry careers, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. Te Ara Mahi will invest $63,000 in the 2020 school year to support eight 17 and 18 ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) will support local plans to revitalise and stimulate economic development opportunities in Otago, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The four Regional Economic Development Ministers have approved an in-principle investment of $19.9 million towards the region’s ...
Mark Patterson, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is pleased to have received the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) report on the Coalition Government’s Mycoplasma bovis eradication efforts, which shows significant progress in the fight against the disease. New Zealand First Spokesperson for Primary Industries, Mark Patterson, says the report’s findings ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Hon David Parker, Minister for Trade and Export Growth The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing to support economic growth opportunities for Otago’s engineering and manufacturing sectors, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Trade and Export Minister David Parker announced today. Almost $20 million ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his South Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, discussed in Seoul today opportunities to work more closely in the Pacific and the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Mr Peters and Minister Kang confirmed New Zealand and the ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Hon Nanaia Mahuta, Minister for Māori Development The three marae in the historic Parihaka Pa complex in Taranaki have been upgraded to high speed broadband with the support of the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Connecting the ...
The Government has delivered on its promise to the over one million New Zealanders who now rent to make it fairer and more secure, Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing) Kris Faafoi has announced today. Both renters and landlords will benefit from the suite of practical changes to the Residential ...
A marine conservation milestone - the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Te Tapuwae o Rongokako Marine Reserve - is being celebrated today at a community event in Tairāwhiti/East Coast attended by the Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “The creation of this marine reserve in November 1999 was a game ...
The Government is asking the food industry to step up work to tackle obesity including reducing sugar, fat and salt in their products, better information for consumers, and tighter restrictions on advertising to children. Health Minister David Clark and Food Safety Minister Damien O’Connor have responded to a ...
ew, modern emergency department and outpatient facilities at Queenstown’s Lakes District Hospital mean better emergency care for the growing tourist mecca’s visitors and locals, says Health Minister David Clark. Today Dr Clark officially opened the hospital’s redeveloped Emergency Department and Outpatient facilities. The new facilities include: • An extended Emergency Department ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter says today’s release of sexual and reproductive health data reinforces the significance of the Government’s commitment to providing free or very low-cost contraception. The Ministry of Health today published statistics from the Ministry of Health’s 2014/15 Health Survey. “It is important people can make ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that at the request of the Samoan Government, New Zealand will be providing further support to Samoa as it faces a worsening measles outbreak. “In response to a request from the people of Samoa, New Zealand is providing 3000 measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) ...
“The new Disability Action Plan 2019–2023 moves us towards the inclusive and accessible New Zealand that this government has committed to,” Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni announced today. “The Action Plan was designed by disabled people, their family and supporters, the disability sector and government agencies. It will ensure ...
Third Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting 14 November 2019 Joint Statement 1. Defence Ministers Ron Mark and Dr Ng Eng Hen today conducted their third annual Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Singapore. 2. Building on the Enhanced Partnership signed between both countries in May this year, this annual meeting ...
A Bill to improve the court system’s response to sexual violence has passed its first reading in Parliament today. Justice Minister Andrew Little says the Sexual Violence Legislation Bill will reduce the trauma sexual violence complainants experience in court, while maintaining defendants’ fundamental rights and making sure the trial process ...
Streamlined payment practices are a step closer for Kiwi businesses with the formal launch of New Zealand’s e-Invoicing framework. Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the government has now established the structure to enable automated and direct data exchange between the accounting systems of buyers and sellers. “The move to ...
Another 51 quarantine officers and four new biosecurity detector dog teams will help protect New Zealand from invasive pests and diseases this summer, says Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor. “The Government is delivering on its commitment to strengthen New Zealand’s biosecurity system and support our valuable primary sector “New Zealand’s flora, fauna ...
A new report has found New Zealand’s space sector contributed $1.69 billion to the economy in the last financial year and employs 12,000 people, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford announced today. The report by Deloitte was commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and shows New Zealand ...
Judge Coral Shaw has been appointed as the new Chair of the Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. "Judge Shaw, who is currently one of the inquiry commissioners, is extremely well qualified for the ...
The Government has confirmed its third major mental health facility upgrade since the Budget, this time at Palmerston North Hospital. The Prime Minister and Health Minister today visited MidCentral DHB to announce that $30 million has been allocated to upgrade its acute mental health facility. It follows earlier announcements in ...
The roll out of the National Bowel Screening Programme has reached the halfway mark, with 10 out of 20 District Health Boards now part of the programme. MidCentral DHB, which covers Palmerston North, Manawatu and surrounding districts, this week became the latest to DHB to offer free bowel screening to ...
The Government welcomes PHARMAC’s decision to fund a vaccine to protect young people from meningococcal disease from 1 December this year. “Meningococcal disease is a serious threat which people at higher risk should be protected from,” says Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter. “The combined pharmaceutical budget was increased by ...
Groups involved with innovative fisheries research projects are encouraged to apply for government support in the latest funding round from the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures programme. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash says the SFF Futures funding is designed to be flexible enough to support small or large projects across a ...
The Government has fixed an issue affecting how Immigration New Zealand has processed visa applications for culturally arranged marriages, which will now see a consistent process applied which ensures people with legitimate arranged marriages can visit New Zealand while also preventing any rorting of the system. Earlier this year Immigration ...
The Royal Commission into the Attacks on Christchurch Mosques will report back on 30 April 2020 to give it more time to hear submissions and consider information, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Royal Commission was originally scheduled to report back to Government by 10 December 2019. “There has ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Washington DC today to attend a ministerial meeting focused on defeating ISIS, and to continue pursuing New Zealand’s trade opportunities. Mr Peters will participate in a meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers from key countries contributing to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. ...
The recently crowned Bird of the Year, the hoiho/yellow eyed penguin, is getting a much needed helping hand alongside more than 168 other community conservation projects announced Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage today. 168 community conservation projects throughout New Zealand are benefiting from $8 million in government grants, including $500,000 ...
Controls on assault rifles and semi-automatic firearms are to be broadened to include some types of pistols, under changes to a bill currently making its way through Parliament. Police Minister Stuart Nash has tabled a Supplementary Order Paper to the Arms Legislation Bill, which is currently before a Select Committee ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark will travel to Singapore today to conduct a counterpart visit and to co-chair the third annual Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting with his counterpart, Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen. “Singapore is one of our most important defence partners in the region, and our ...
Nelson’s Salisbury School is to be rebuilt, creating a modern and suitable learning environment for students at the residential special school, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The school for girls aged 8-15, in Richmond, was earmarked for closure by National until the process ...
The panel undertaking a comprehensive review of the Resource Management Act has identified the main issues to be addressed and options for reform and is calling for feedback to inform its final report. In July the Government announced the comprehensive review of the resource management system, including the RMA - ...
An important safety valve has been added to New Zealand’s criminal justice system with the third reading of the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill today. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) will investigate claimed miscarriages of justice. “We’ve seen how our justice system can very occasionally get things spectacularly wrong, ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters welcomes the tabling of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) 2019 Annual Report in Parliament today. He says the 2019 Annual Report marks the point when New Zealand’s racing industry’s decline was arrested and a turnaround started. RITA’s 2019 Annual Report recorded an industry net profit ...
The New Zealand Government is today sending 21 firefighters to help fight the ongoing catastrophic Australian bushfires. “The fires in Australia are in some of the toughest, most challenging conditions ever,” says Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin. “As of yesterday morning, there were 100 active bushfire-related incidents across Queensland and ...
More frontline support for schools through a new education agency, as part of a redesigned Ministry of Education More support for principals and school boards including through a new centre of leadership and local leadership advisor roles New independent disputes panels for parents and students Management of school property ...
The Government’s reform of the Tomorrow’s Schools system is a watershed moment in education and an opportunity to create meaningful change for ākonga Māori and their whānau, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis said today. “Last year through Kōrero Mātauranga | Education Conversation, Māori teachers, parents, ākonga, whānau, hapū and iwi ...
Infrastructure Minister is welcoming the first of many updated project pipelines from the newly established New Zealand Infrastructure Commission today. The New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga, has released an expanded pipeline of major capital projects – another crucial step towards delivering better infrastructure outcomes. “The first iteration of the ...
Tougher gun laws designed to improve public safety through firearms prohibition orders are proposed in a new document released for public input. Police Minister Stuart Nash says firearms prohibition orders (FPOs) would give new powers to Police to ensure high-risk individuals come nowhere near firearms. “We have already prohibited the ...
Andy Coupe has been confirmed as TVNZ’s new Board Chair. “Mr Coupe has strong commercial and capital markets experience and TVNZ has benefited from his technical knowledge of business and finance, as well as his extensive governance experience,” the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Kris Faafoi said. Andy ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today officially opened a separated pathway, following the completion of the Kaiwharawhara Stream bridge, which will improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians along Hutt Road. The $6.8m Hutt Road project provides a separated path for cycling and pedestrians, the replacement of informal parking ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of career diplomat Si’alei van Toor as New Zealand’s next Ambassador to Russia. “I’m pleased to appoint Ms van Toor to this position. She brings a wealth of experience to the role having previously served as Senior Trade Adviser to the ...
The Treasury’s 2019 Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) will be released on Wednesday December 11, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Coalition Government will publish the 2020 Budget Policy Statement at the same time, outlining the priorities for Budget 2020. Further details on arrangements for the release will ...
A new initiative to better support small businesses through hands-on mentoring and advice has been launched by the Minister for Small Business. The first event in the Kiwi Business Boost series of regional workshops and online tools has been launched in Wairoa by Stuart Nash. “The Business Boost initiative combines ...
The latest Quarterly Connectivity Report shows that more and more New Zealanders are moving to Ultra-fast Broadband (UFB), with Rolleston having the highest uptake at 74 per cent, as at the end of September. “This means that nearly three quarters of Rolleston’s households and businesses have moved to ultra-fast services. ...
The passing of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill will help ensure a safe planet for our kids and grandkids, the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw said today. The landmark legislation which provides a framework to support New Zealanders to prepare for, and adapt to, the effects ...
The review of Oranga Tamariki practice around the planned uplift of a Hastings baby in May shows significant failings by the Ministry and that the planned and funded changes to shift from a child crisis service to a proper care and protection service need to be accelerated, Children’s Minister Tracey ...
As Aotearoa plans for festive season celebrations, The Salvation Army is preparing to make its house a home to hundreds of men, women and children who have nowhere else to stay. ...
Landlords say they feel under siege with the government planning to make it tougher for them to boot out troublesome tenants; and skilled immigrants waiting for a residents visa say its unfair officials are fast tracking applications for those on salaries over $105,000. ...
Standing with the farmers, New Conservative is committed to pushing back against the lunacy of the ETS and Carbon Zero commitments by this government. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tomas Trescak, Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Systems, Western Sydney University Just a few years ago, virtual reality (VR) was being showered with very real money. The industry raised an estimated US$900 million in venture capital in 2016, but by 2018 that figure ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rowena Maguire, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Institute for Future Environments, Queensland University of Technology Over the past two weeks, bushfires have raged across New South Wales and Queensland. While the narrative appears focused on potential causes and political point-scoring, what’s lost ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Davis, Chair of Women’s Health, Monash University At menopause, a woman’s ovaries lose their reproductive function. Eggs are no longer released and the production of the hormones oestrogen and progesterone falls. It’s the lowered levels of oestrogen after menopause that gives ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Bolleter, Deputy Director, Australian Urban Design Research Centre, University of Western Australia Around the world, the vast majority of people are flocking to cities not to dwell in their centres but to live in the new suburbs expanding their outer limits. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Natalya Saldanha, Academic, RMIT University Like any eight-year-old, Ryan Kaji loves to play with toys. But when Ryan plays, millions watch. Since the age of four he’s been the star of his own YouTube channel. All up his videos have gained ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kieran Wong, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Monash University Indigenous voices are finally being acknowledged as important voices in Australian galleries and museums. Since 2014, I have worked as an advisor to Western Australia’s New Museum, a A$450 million project and one of ...
Retiring Green MP Gareth Hughes says the pace of change in the current Government is not fast enough for his liking but that is not the reason he is quitting politics. ...
The Superdiversity Institute for Law, Policy and Business is releasing its latest report today on Culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse parties in the Courts: A Chinese case study . The Report’s author, Mai Chen, Chair of the Superdiversity ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Doubts emerge about Auckland port move, NZDF leaves death-causing material behind in Afghanistan, and laws around renting to be shaken up.Over the last week, the ramifications of moving most of the operations of Auckland’s port north to Whangarei have been ...
An ambitious new partnership between Sky Sports and more than 50 sports promises more free sport for Kiwis. Suzanne McFadden looks at how it will change the way we see female athletes ...
Catriona MacLennan helped conduct a survey of the top NZ companies to establish the ethnicity of their directors. The results were not surprising, but also far from encouraging. ...
Episode 1 in a series on the trials of injured animals as they’re rescued, rehabilitated and released back into the wild follows the rescue of a yellow-eyed penguin. ...
New Zealand Defence Force's failed to clean up properly after itself in Afghanistan - with the result that seven children have been killed and another 10 civilians injured. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Chinese embassy has lashed out at two Liberal members of parliament, Andrew Hastie and James Paterson, saying they would need to “repent and redress their mistakes” before they would be welcome in China. The ...
Tim Costley National’s new candidate in Otaki Local party members have selected Tim Costley as National’s candidate in Ōtaki for the 2020 General Election. Mr Costley is replacing retiring MP Nathan Guy, who is standing down after five terms. ...
“Compelling research out of the UK reaffirms vaping’s life-saving role. Here’s hoping our Government’s pending legislation reflects vaping’s increasingly documented health benefits for smokers,” say Ben Pryor, co-owner of the largest Kiwi-owned ...
Government has announced a raft of changes to the Residential Tenancies Act. The Minister has said he does not want to be seen to unduly punishing landlords. These changes do more than punish landlords however. They will punish anyone living next ...
Democracy under Fire on Firearms Law Reform - COLFO SUNDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2019 The Government supposedly wants to “hear from all New Zealanders” about firearms law reform – unless you happen to be a licenced firearms owner. ...
From Monday 18 November New Zealand women are working for free until the end of the year because of the gender pay imbalance between men and women. ...
Award-winning investigative team Stuff Circuit is releasing its most hard-hitting documentary yet, exposing a secret the NZ Defence Force doesn’t want Kiwis to know. ...
The government has announced a suite of practical changes to the Residential Tenancies Act in its bid to make renting fairer and more secure. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happening?A number of changes to the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) has just been announced by associate minister of housing Kris ...
US Trumpian Inspired Rhetoric From Anti-Trans Group Not a Good Fit with Nz Society Trans-rights support groups around the country have been dismayed by recent divisive and repellent comments by Stand Up For Women (SUFW), a group calling itself feminist ...
Sam Brooks reviews the third season of The Crown, a show that can’t decide whether it wants to humanise the monarchy or tear it all down.This review contains very mild spoilers for world history, 1964-1977.Three seasons in, there’s no doubt that The Crown is the, well, crown jewel in Netflix’s ...
An easy, flavour-packed noodle recipe from Bounty – Cooking With Vegetables, the new cookbook from national food education charity the Garden to Table Trust.The fresh flavours of these noodles are less complex than many Thai dishes, as the simple spice paste uses just a few ingredients. If you’d rather not ...
Part 2: In this excerpt from the evidence of Sir Maarten Wevers in the High Court case of Winston Peters over his superannuation leak, the former head of the Prime Minister's Department explains what ministers should be told by public servants ...
In this excerpt from the evidence of Sir Maarten Wevers in the High Court case of Winston Peters over his superannuation leak, the former head of the Prime Minister's Department summarises our governing arrangements. ...
With the 2020 cannabis referendum fast approaching, New Zealanders have a unique opportunity to let the government know what they want from drug reform. It will then be up to our policy makers to decide whether drug reform will focus on changing outcomes for those struggling under historically racist policy.By ...
It breaks my heart to think of young queer and trans people seeing this sign, and thinking there are no spaces where they will ever belong, writes Hadassah Grace. The first time I ventured into a gay bar, I vowed never to go back.It was a vulnerable time in my life. ...
It breaks my heart to think of young queer and trans people seeing this sign, and thinking there are no spaces where they will ever belong, writes Hadassah Grace. The first time I ventured into a gay bar, I vowed never to go back.It was a vulnerable time in my life. ...
Hayden Donnell looks for inspiration and innovation on how to house the city’s future.Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan has enabled a building boom. More than 14,600 building consents were issued in the city in the year to September. Despite that, houses remain extremely expensive and out-of-reach for many first home buyers. ...
Simon Shepherd: David Seymour's euthanasia bill passed this week, and next week he will be putting the finishing touches on his next bill. Is he just a very hard-working politician or is this the longest one-person election campaign known to mankind? ...
Simon Shepherd: It's Transgender Awareness Week, the same week a feminist group, Speak Up For Women, has brought Megan Murphy from Canada to speak in New Zealand. Murphy is a radical feminist who believes trans women aren't women, views that have ...
As a follow-up to our post about police station office hours for the public and in the cause of balance, we bring positive news – or rather, we are passing on the positive news which the police delivered in a press statement, It’s all about the productivity gains achieved – it ...
Books editor Catherine Woulfe follows Wellington author Lawrence Patchett into his extraordinary story of heat and humanity and history repeating. The Burning River begins like the best kind of yarn. “Someone had been there. Someone strange. In the centre of his camp, a new circle of sooted rocks. A campfire, with ...
SPECIAL REPORT: By Philip Cass in BrisbaneMelanesian Media Freedom Forum – Day two –The second day of the Melanesian Media Freedom Forum began with praise for the work of young Pacific journalists by Professor David Robie and ended with a warning that threats to journalism in the ...
In this special episode of The Real Pod, brought to you by Nando’s, we chat to the champions of My Restaurant Rules NZ 2019.In the afterglow of Rustic Kitchen’s historic win on My Restaurant Rules NZ, Duncan and Alex got on the blower with Tyson and Denise. Then we forgot ...
Hannah Kronast attends a women’s empowerment panel focused on the huge disparities in training and employment within science and technology. In the far back left-hand corner of a women’s equality and empowerment event, a male stuck up his hand. “What can men do to help?” he asked.It was at a panel ...
Our recent Spinoff Art survey provided a snapshot on gender equality in the local art scene, but it wasn’t the full story. Anna Knox continues the conversation by asking some gallery owners and directors for their responses to our findings.The Spinoff’s survey of gender bias in visual arts found that ...
Based on their study of trans wellbeing Aotearoa, the research team at Counting Ourselves find six data points that highlight the strength of our trans and non-binary community.Last month the first comprehensive national survey on transgender health and wellbeing in Aotearoa was published by the academics and researchers at Counting ...
The SpinoffBy Dr Jaimie Veale, Jack Byrne and Ahi Wi-Hongi
Ten thousand years ago, roasted hares and figs were flat-layed on Levantine flax leaves. Now, we drape prosciutto over strawberries on computer desks. Josie Adams mourns the death of the platter.Three days ago I stumbled on an accidental recreation of a 1950s platter: a giant ham, a cake that was ...
India’s decision not to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership promoted by China is politically significant. But its impact on trade and prosperity is more nuanced, as Bloomberg explains.It avoids some market opening on both sides (India to agriculture; others to services) that would have been economically beneficial. But ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Geoff Crisp discusses the the week in politics the government’s response to the bush fires as well as the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action. They also talk about ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The proposed acquisition of infant formula producer Bellamy’s Australia Ltd by China Mengniu Dairy Company Limited has been given approval by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Strict, legally enforceable conditions, have been set by the treasurer, which ...
The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) is condemning the All Saints Day evening raid on 31 October. With the arrest of over 60 union organisers, human rights defenders and activists in the Philippines province of Negros. The 16th of November is an international ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Assistant professor, University of Canberra What’s happening? Suddenly, at the level of central banks, Australia is regarded as an investment risk. On Wednesday Martin Flodén, the deputy governor of Sweden’s central bank, announced that because Australia and Canada were “not ...
SPECIAL REPORT: By Philip Cass in Brisbane Opening session – Day OneThe problems of operating in the Pacific and the impact of online news and the emergence of ‘citizen journalists’ were common concerns for all delegates to this week’s Melanesian Media Freedom Forum.The forum, held at Griffith ...
Standoff between protesters and the police at Yeung Uk Road, Hong Kong. Image by Studio Incendo – 20190825 Tsuen Wan March. CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81751531.The recent surge in social protests world-wide is quantitatively and qualitatively different than in previous ages. The advent of individualised mass communications technologies and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Livingstone, Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is going to start asking internet service providers to block certain offshore gambling websites. The decision follows former New South Wales premier ...
The Zero Carbon Act (ZCA) is over a week old, but it’s still being heavily debated and analysed. After all, depending on who you listen to, it’s the most significant new law of the year, of this Government, or even of some people’s lifetime. And it deals with a giant ...
Green MP and refugee Golriz Ghahraman was there last night when the former Manus Island detainee and acclaimed writer arrived in New Zealand.Last night, quietly and without fanfare a small group made up of human rights activists, literary folk, and just two journalists, came together at Auckland Airport to welcome ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sandra D’urso, Researcher, The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne To perform an exit is not as simple as it sounds. In fact, exiting a situation can be almost impossible for some. Exit Strategies is a new production by indie performer and theatre ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Niro Kandasamy, Tutor, University of Melbourne Sri Lanka’s presidential election on Saturday comes at a critical time for the country. The government has been in turmoil since President Maithripala Sirisena sacked the prime minister last year and replaced him with former strongman ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Hansen, Chief of Staff, The Conversation If you have kids, chances are you’ve worried about their presence on social media. Who are they talking to? What are they posting? Are they being bullied? Do they spend too much time on it? ...
New Zealand Police has won a prestigious World Class Policing Award for its ‘more street than station approach’ Mobility programme, which has saved millions of hours of officers’ time. ...
SEA-Unite SkyCity workers are expected to strike this weekend after 50 called in sick with symptoms linked to smoke inhalation from the convention centre fire. ...
In a powerful rebuff to critics who question whether the prime minister is willing to use her political capital, this morning she powerfully demonstrated her commitment to New Zealand culture.For two years, my professional life has been devoted to winning respect for the lowbrow, beaten-up, off-brand artefacts that truly define ...
MPs and staffers will likely begin moving out of their Bowen House offices over the next six months, so the building can undergo earthquake strengthening work. ...
The party that sold off the BNZ, NZ Rail, Petrocorp, Postbank, the Shipping Corporation, Air New Zealand, the State Insurance Office, the Tourist Hotel Corporation and a host of other New Zealand assets is at it again – with the assistance of its coalition ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trent Penman, Associate professor, University of Melbourne As sure as night follows day, this week’s bushfires prompted inevitable debate about whether fire authorities should have carried out more hazard reduction burning, and whether opposition from conservationists prevented this. There are two key ...
A new poem by writer and performer Freya Daly Sadgrove.TURDUCKEN I blow my body around like the huge clump of brown hairthat I once saw blowing up Cuba StreetI follow its movements with interestI put a video of it on the internet my favourite bragis that a groundskeeper ...
Open mike 06/11/2012 
Words and images by Jacqui Gibson Gone are Auckland Museum’s days of doing science using a museum-centric academic approach, after Māori land rights holders Ngāti Kuri gave the museum an ultimatum.
MediaWorks announced in October 2019 that it intended to sell off its struggling television business and cancel or cut back on several popular local programmes, including New Zealand Today, Married at First Sight New Zealand and 7 Days. Its radio and outdoor advertising arms are currently performing well, but MediaWorks’ ...4 hours ago
Some readers may remember that I mentioned last year that I was applying for NZ citizenship. I filled out the paperwork and had my original citizenship interview in February. Everything went well until they discovered that, because I had spent five months in the US in 2017, I had not ...21 hours ago
by Deirdre O’Neill It is becoming quite acceptable for certain sections of the left to declare that people like me – women who are ‘gender critical’ – should not be allowed in leftist or anarchist spaces. Leaving aside the arrogance and implicit authoritarianism of this claim, its lack of critical ...22 hours ago
There is an article in The Conversation, written by Jeremy P. Shapiro (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University), about what he sees as the psychologically-based underpinnings of three main matters that seem to vex people all around the planet. The article is titled “The Thinking ...2 days ago
. . Blogger Martyn Bradbury has won his case against unreasonable search and surveillance against the NZ Police; and subsequent Police attempts to produce evidence in secrecy, in a closed Court. His case highlights a disturbing growing trend in Aotearoa New Zealand for State power to be used against ...2 days ago
That's the only response to the findings of the Ombudsman's investigation into LGOIMA practices at the Christchurch City Council:My investigation identified serious concerns about the Council’s leadership and culture, and its commitment to openness and transparency. In particular, Council staff raised concerns with me about various methods employed by some ...3 days ago
Different Strokes: If a multicultural immigration policy imposes no obligation on immigrant communities to acknowledge and ultimately embrace their host nation’s most cherished traditions and values, then how is that nation to prevent itself from being reduced to a collection of inward-looking and self-replicating ethnic and cultural enclaves?THE COALITION GOVERNMENT’S ...3 days ago
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...6 days ago
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ... 1 week ago
And to think he gave all the potential goodwill away with that moronic, cult-like statement (repeated ad nauseam by many National hardliners) that Key is quite simply “the greatest PM we ever had”…
Installation complete: this was nothing ... 2 weeks ago
We're setting our young people up for success, investing in education around the country. ...1 hour ago
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First backs the public to decide on the End of Life Choice Bill via a referendum at the 2020 General Election. The Bill, with New Zealand First’s referendum provision incorporated, passed its final reading in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for ...4 days ago
The Government has delivered on its promise to the over one million New Zealanders who now rent to make it fairer and more secure, Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing) Kris Faafoi has announced today. Both renters and landlords will benefit from the suite of practical changes to the Residential ...20 hours ago
As Aotearoa plans for festive season celebrations, The Salvation Army is preparing to make its house a home to hundreds of men, women and children who have nowhere else to stay. ...33 mins ago
Landlords say they feel under siege with the government planning to make it tougher for them to boot out troublesome tenants; and skilled immigrants waiting for a residents visa say its unfair officials are fast tracking applications for those on salaries over $105,000. ...1 hour ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tomas Trescak, Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Systems, Western Sydney University Just a few years ago, virtual reality (VR) was being showered with very real money. The industry raised an estimated US$900 million in venture capital in 2016, but by 2018 that figure ...1 hour ago
Retiring Green MP Gareth Hughes says the pace of change in the current Government is not fast enough for his liking but that is not the reason he is quitting politics. ...2 hours ago
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Catriona MacLennan helped conduct a survey of the top NZ companies to establish the ethnicity of their directors. The results were not surprising, but also far from encouraging. ...5 hours ago
Episode 1 in a series on the trials of injured animals as they’re rescued, rehabilitated and released back into the wild follows the rescue of a yellow-eyed penguin. ...5 hours ago
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Part 2: In this excerpt from the evidence of Sir Maarten Wevers in the High Court case of Winston Peters over his superannuation leak, the former head of the Prime Minister's Department explains what ministers should be told by public servants ...1 day ago
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New Zealand's coroners learnt lessons of cultural competency and communication from March 15. ...1 day ago
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Kudos to whomever made the $50K donation to Wellington Rape Crisis : )
You’re a star!
Excellent!
Excellent indeed! At the same time we note that private donations are compensating for government negligence and the government counts on this.
Sadly this is the way it will remain. Still…tax deductable (Wellington Rape Crisis is a registered charity and they run a tight ship so books in order). Vote with your wallet, I say! Do you prefer a faceless government servant deciding which organisations get funding …… OR….. do you prefer to allocate funds yourself? Easy choice for me đ
I prefer that the government provides these essential services rather than relying on the good will of the rich which always results in there not being enough of the essential services.
Yes, I do agree with Dr T and DTB that these services should be paid for and provided by the government.
Since around 2000, from being in opposition to being in government, the members of the current administration have gone up and down the country and chanted, from every which and where, the same meme, “Cut red tape this, cut red tape that! OSH this, OSH that. They are preventing progress! Let’s remove the obstacles to progress …! Get government out of the way! Reduce costs here, reduce costs there! The market must be given a chance to self regulate!”
Sadly, it would appear, it has needed a tragedy to stop Key and his cohorts in their tracks… and now they appear to be ducking for cover. Shame on them.
+1.
Slagging OSH went hand-in-hand with slagging Labour for being PC. Â Saying the term OSH in a sneering manner was a call-sign for tories. Â Â Many radio jocks and many business leaders contributed to a toxic attitude towards doing tasks/projects in a careful and considered way.Â
+1 yes well said Logi97 & KhandallaMan,
They frame their approach so that people are fooled into going along with them, “Oh that sounds good” and the purposes of any “red tape” go by the way-side. Good to make the connection. We can add “streamlining” to the list of words they use for that purpose too.
It would be nice to see some commentators reclaim the argument about the necessity and prudence of having ‘red tape’ for the benefit, protection and security of life and limb. This now is the time to start voicing this.
It would be just as good to see some commentators front-foot and strongly dismiss and damn accusations that ‘red tape’ is about being PC, nanny state, bureaucratic, costly, bad for business, bla bla bla neobla-ism.
It would be even better to see legally, morally and socially responsible business people and corporations – on the same side with workers, looking out for the interests of workers – speak out in defence of, and argue for, the need to have ‘red tape’.
The best standards and practices for workers are also best for employers, markets and businesses.
+1 Jim Nald
“It would be just as good to see some commentators front-foot and strongly dismiss and damn accusations that âred tapeâ is about being PC, nanny state, bureaucratic, costly, bad for business, bla bla bla neobla-ism.”
Â
Yes, that is a role for Labour. Â Unfortunately Labour abdicated that responsibility when the inner few decided that we should appeal to the light blues. Â When Phil Goff (ably advised by Shearer’s current advisors) apologied for Labour being perceived as “politically correct”‘Â Â he ceded the high ground to those who knocked OSH. Â
Labour has to get back to sticking it’s neck above the parapet on issues that effect workers, women, children, minorities and the defenceless. Â When it resorts to mimicking the themes of the powerful and the yob-mob it has lost its way. That happened when Labour apologised at the confence in Rotorua in Sept ’09.Â
Â
++1 Jim Nald, thoroughly agree
KM and BL
Could we also replace the words ‘radio jocks’ with ‘radio dicks’? Its seems more accurate.
That reminds me of this post:
Dunnokeyo reckons the word gay means weird. Leaving aside for a moment how insulting that definition is, lets look at the other definition he used to defend his homophobic outburst; the Oxford dictionary. Obviously Key never actually looked it up, because there’s no way he would agree with the example they give for the word’s use!
Â
I think you’ll find what he’s doing there is lying, TRP.
Rhino pointed out this other lie last night too:
Asked at his post-Cabinet press conference whether he was homophobic, Mr Key said: âNo, Iâm voting for gay marriage, Iâm hardly homophobic â I led the charge on it.â
It seems Key wants to take credit for having “led the charge on” marriage equality, in spite of the whole country knowing that he’s not Louisa Wall.
Not only does this blatant lie come hot on the heels of lying about which way he voted on the liquor purchase age, it’s also a disgraceful attempt at the traditional bigot’s fallback “but some of my best friends are (x)” defense.
Hopefully ‘traditional bigots’ will decide they don’t want to vote for the man who ‘led the charge’ on ‘weird’ marriage. Good news for the Conservative Party?
Batshit Key, the media whore and shameless, lying self-publicist, squeeked out about gay marriage, wanting to quickly gatecrash into the halo effect generated by Obama’s socially enlightened prior announcement.
Louisa Wall did the correct thing with the opportunity of a private member’s bill to follow through on the socially just thing to do.
Batshit Key now needs to be held account for what he said.
And as leader of a party of many Nasties, this is an opportunity for him to demonstrate true leadership by persuading each one of his party MPs* to exercise their individual conscience votes with their conscience for discriminated individuals.
*MPs – whether they are gay, stray or sway (or whether they are out or not)
As best I can recall, in the first instance Key did not support gay marriage.
I concur Dr Terry. Without bothering to Google check, Key is simply indulging in another brainfade…
The irony of course is that those who Key “represents”, are in fact far beyond “weird”, so perhaps this is JK being somewhat lucid.
Why are you bothering yourself over use of the word, when you can’t get your head around the real problems!
Yes its inappropriate, however its par for the course, its a non-event!
I think any event so to speak where the PM shows the world what a complete idiot he is should be highlighted.
John Key homophobe
The ignorant PM dug himself even deeper into the batshit yesterday when he said; “gay just means weird”…
Here’s an idea, let’s call a bigot a bigot.
Dunnokeyo denial plan (translated into coherent English):
I don’t think anything was said;
Something might have been said but I wasn’t responsible for it;
You can’t prove I said it;
I didn’t use those exact words;
Somebody overheard/secretly recorded the private conversation I had with 300 attendees over a PA system;
I was using the words according to the hitherto unknown definition I just made up now;
It was Opposite Day when I said that.Â
Just listening to Melbourne Cup pre race reportage on commercial radio, could have sworn it was Paddy Gower talking (bollocks) about the US elections.
Its going to go down to the wire…
Close race…
Favourite to win…
The race that stops a Nation….
On TV 3 this morning more Planet Key Speak re Beckham.
Dunnokeyo notes a “hearsay” report of something he said in private (???).
“But did you say it ?” presses the TV 3 person in response to this hint of denial.
“I’m not going to ‘characterise’ that…….” replies Dunnokeyo.
Planet Key for “Truth…truth…truth…what the fuck is that ?”
Never mind…yet a further example of prime minister as a devious, cynical bullshitter. Public consciousness of shit mountain continues to build.
And Stuffs take on Key is just Horseshit.
The Heralds is just Last coupla Days Bullshit Re Heated
And the Blame game has started.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10845396
What is it with Key ?? He should have exploded in the biggest pile of shit ever.
David H
Yesterday! In a shower of sparks that also made a loud raspberry sound followed by a short percussion.
Accrding to a tweet reported in a front page Guardian piece “John Key is quickly becoming to New Zealand what Borat was to Kazakhstan.”
About sums it up.
[fixed link – r0b]
Thanks for that Bill
đ
That page is now gone!!!!
http://bat-bean-beam.blogspot.co.nz/
Okay I’m a groupie. GT on ‘Bat Bean Beam’ draws the connection between tools for managing blogs, news groups, and other social media, and drone warfare.
…The CIA will never run out of high-level targets. The internet will never run out of trolls. This is simply because should either of those categories be emptied, the database would fill them again with the people previously defined as mid-level targets, or a nuisance. The danger of terrorism or insurgency will never disappear in the same way that online social interactions will never become perfectly smooth. This is why the kill list and the kill file are not to be understood as temporary solutions but rather as permanent features, a way not just of dealing with concrete problems but of imagining and seeing the world…
I am really glad that The Standard makes minimal use of banning and the other more insidious silencing technologies such as like-dislike scales. I find it worrying that more and more in these kinds of these media, it is possible to almost never hear alternative views. Even whole subjects can disappear entirely, fresh perspectives, any uncomfortable voices, memories or thoughts, all are smoothed away before they can even impinge on anyone’s consciousness.
This at the same time as whanau and social groups are increasingly batoning down the hatchets against out-group members, and our communities are slipping into survival mode.
Actual Link
.
Cut the “red tape” meme has led to, among others, these deaths at Pike River and tens of thousands of leaking homes.
The recent proposal to do similar regulation-cutting to the heavy trucking industry ……….. would anyone like to predict the outcome of such a proposal?
And note how even National had to institute a bunch of “red tape” in order to help secure the finance company sector and protect investors after SCF, Hanover, etc.
Yep, methinks the right wing religion of smaller regulation, freer markets, more private enterprise involvement etc etc has without doubt passed its time now.
The tide is now no longer drifting at the pleasant sandy high tide beach, it is now well on the way out exposing the mud flats and the detritus that had previously been covered by the tide.
What’s that saying about geting exposed by an outgoing tide? Well, that entire political philosophy is lying stinked up on the mud flats with no togs. Think Brownlee Key and English. End.
What it shows is that the people who are actually directing NZs “sovereign parliament”, have managed, over decades to completely corrupt the systems that are needed for societies, and communities to function well.
What we are currently seeing is the latest outputs of that corruption!
umm… profits unfettered by beastly considerations such as health and safety for a few
and higher likelihood of injury and death for many more….
Or it could be described like this …… 45 tonne unregistered truck crushes elderly lady.
yes, I think your description has more impact
đ
Does the elderly lady have any connection to the successive governments she voted in during her life that created an environment that allowed her to fill her house full of things transported by trucks and feed herself with food transported by trucks? Did she vote for people who destroyed the railways, with the smugness of an armchair ideologue? Did the woman, at some point in her life, know she ran the risk or did it come as a complete surprise when she bought a retirement home on a busy highway route?
Are the public responsible for the actions of the masters they vote for and the ideas they arrange their lives around, or can they cast off their actions entirely onto any number of random ministers?
You raise a good point of debate – in that voters need to be engaged in what they are really voting for however your point omits the role of trust and the role of someone in government, with which that trust is reasonably based on also the role of “authority” and how people relate to that, in fact the very role of government in the first place.
A political party proposes a way forward, people trust that the consequences of such have been soundly thought out. If everyone has to double guess and think deeply on each proposal, then half the point of having representatives has been lost. i.e. not everyone wants to be thinking about these things in depth; that is why we elect people to do that for us.
Sadly, the time for relying on these people to be taking their role conscientiously is over and we can no longer afford to have such beliefs. This is the message that needs to get out to the general public, once more people start pressuring government to take their role seriously again, they might start doing their jobs properly and then perhaps we can start to trust them again.
blue leopard
I don’t notice much attempt at political discussion by others. There are some comments that come from deeply held prejudices and all events that are received and remembered in their minds are then shaped to fit those prejudices and reinforce them. I don’t think most people engage in the democratic process of critical thinking about means and ends which is our responsibility if we want to live in a democracy. I was just the same when I was younger, there was no role model of active thinker on politics in my life to follow. I think its the same for most. What to do about this?
The aim would be to engage just 100K new people to Left Wing politics. Aged 16 and up.
In such a scenario the Right would almost never win again (oohhh McFlock!).
lol
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The old “if more people supported us, we’d be more popular” tautology.
   Â
The number of meetings I’ve been in where plans have been hatched to “engage with [segment or donor XXX]” is large. The number of successful socialist revolutions in NZ in that time period: 0.00000
   Â
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And remember that only one dude could walk on water (ninja lore notwithstanding).Â
In that case perhaps the common factor for failure is you McFlock. With your outlook it’s not a surprise.
lol
   Â
Well, let me know how your 100k-strong youth organisation goes. I’ll be looking out for them leafleting at the next election…
You’re mad McFlock. Why would you consider voting for the Alliance for instance if not to help them build a 100,000 strong voting base???
By the way, I said nothing about a “youth” organisation. Better keep your imagination in check mate. It seems you are reading a lot into what I write which is not there.
Leafletting lol your strategies really would be a failure.
Because I agree with their policies. Which is an entirely separate issue to how successful they are, or I think they’ll be. Maybe if the Alliance get 1% lab/greens would recognise the demand and take a step to the left. Who knows?
    Â
Hey, I’d love it if the Alliance had a half-million strong voting base. But anyone can say “we will engage x-hundred thousand people”. Actually getting more than thirty is the challenge, and only comes from hard work: entertaining and persuasive speakers on the hustings, doorknocking, social media, and indeed walking around in the rain delivering thousand of leaflets. And no, social media does not remove that work.
   Â
Which takes us back to plaintive cries in meetings of a dozen folk, the mournful refrain “why don’t people vote for / support us?”Â
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As for reading a lot into what you write, the problem is that in order to turn what you write into a coherent and realistic plan, lots and lots of holes need to be filled in.Â
If you want to walk on water you got to get out of the boat.
spread that left wing thought
đ
I don’t think most people think, full stop. There is likely to be heard from many “When’s the next footy match”. In other words, so very much discussion centres upon trivia rather than upon the huge issues going on all around us.
@Prism,
Yes, I agree with your comments, and I have in the past got rather annoyed about people not engaging with politics (!), yet I realise this is unfair, and I have to remind myself that not everyone has the same interests, most are very busy and people do things in a variety of ways to help improve “the way things are”.
As to what to do about this. “ummm” is the first thing that comes to mind!
Then the standard criticism that arises of our media; information sources.
It is my experience (and from what I’ve read too) that when one meets up with a person with a real interest in political issues and critical thinking, this what sparks interest in another. This can be a real life person, and it can also be an article in a paper, or books and now, on the internet too. The issue being, the more people read banal propaganda, the more they switch off. This was my experience, a thought that politics was simply mediocre and compromised. Then coming across books that relayed intelligently presented “connected” arguments which made me realise that there really was a purpose behind all the banality that is presented to us.
I guess the best thing that any one person can do is share a passion for critical thinking when one has the opportunity to (sometimes this involves speaking out when there is pressure to remain silent) and I think that an optimism that things can change positively when there are enough people involved is also a very important thing to impart to people. All of this requires going against some of our cultural attitudes, which I believe are pretty anti politics, keep your head down, don’t complain…etc.
I really do think that there needs to be an information source in print or on TV that imparts information on this level and I am unclear as to why this hasn’t occurred yet. Perhaps a bit to do with what Nicky Hagar’s Bruce Jesson Speech touched on, left-wing people have been disempowered?
Time to institute charges of corporate manslaughter and corporate grevious bodily harm which can be laid against directors and executive management.
Think a lot of things would improve if we simply removed all protections from “legal persons” aka corporations and give them protections on a case by case basis depending upon how much of a public service they were providing, this would effectively remind people of the reasons the protections were devised for corporations in the first place.
And shareholders too.
If you want to make money off other peoples labour you should at least make sure everything possible is done to ensure their safety.
Shareholders should know how slack the governance and management of the companies they invest in is but deliberately decide to ignore it unless the dividends fall.
It would be amazing how corporate behaviour would change if people through the whole ownership/governance/management chain were held accountable for their actions.
CV, Why not the owners, the shareholders ?
Because people with more cash than they need would only give it to enterprises where their liability was limited to the amount of cash they put in.
Limited liability companies distance the owners from the consequences of their actions.
If you could end up supporting the family of a man killed by poor safety measures in a mine you partly owned you would think very hard before investing and you would insist on good safety.
Because the Board of Directors have existing statutory responsibilities for governance and direction of executive management.
You have to remember that for widely held firms, the “owners” may be a hundred thousand people with KiwiSaver accounts.
Whereas the ten people in the Board Room have far more day to day and week to week power and influence over the company.
I read some where that the Miners union knew the mine wasn’t safe.
How come they didn’t kick up more of a stink, isn’t that their job?
You read somewhere the turgid stench that flies out your own arse BM? Yeah! We already knew that.
Can’t comment on the specifics of blame you’d like to attribute, but bear in mind that Unions were designed to be transitional devices, not static everlasting organisations. If Unions in NZ crossed the line that they were theoretically designed to cross, we’d have our long awaited revolution. The reality is that they presently contribute to keeping our population well fed and protected, but to do that they need to be collaborating with the thing they supposedly must overthrow. National or Labour, more or less regulation? Deaths, or a series of occasional serious injury? Work, or poverty and revolution? Which is better and what is the question we’re all avoiding?
Yeah basically. For the unions to truly succeed they would have to accept that their role would be much less needed.
@BM
“I read some where that the Miners union knew the mine wasnât safe.”
Yes, I heard of someone who chose not to work in that mine because of this knowledge
“How come they didnât kick up more of a stink, isnât that their job?”
This is the hidden “cost” of low employment, poor working conditions and low pay as well as a basic trust in employer’s concern over the welfare of their staff.
Although people “knew” the mine was unsafe, or suspected as much, there would be a basic “trust” that it “would be alright”, a person might consider that they were being paranoid and that their boss ultimately wouldn’t risk their workers lives.
This line of reasoning would be all the more likely when there are few jobs around and many poorly paid ones. i.e. the other option is to what? not work and not be able to keep your family in good health? Knowing the unemployment benefit is a trap, a person who quit their job wouldn’t be entitled to an unemployment benefit anyway and such an option isn’t even considered an option for a lot of people, due to both/either their value system &/or the fact that they have a family to support and welfare isn’t sufficient for that.
Isn’t that the advantage about Unions, strength in numbers, nobody would have to quit.
Everyone downs tools for a week unless the safety concerns get sorted.
Many of the workers were contractors who the Commission said did not have the required training to carry out the tasks management gave them. Contractors are not usually associated with Unions, so it’s doubtful any strike would have been effective. The Union workers would have simply been replaced by contractors, with much applause from Brownlee and Wilkinson.
It’s good that you’re advocating for more Union powers to ensure workplace safety BM… Perhaps Slater, Farrar and the rest of the Union bashing sycophants might like to hear about your ideas?
Blind Monetarist some miners just up and left but in New Zealand the right wing have hobbled unions one of the first pieces of legislation by your shonkey led govt was to stop unions free access to the work place 2008 followed by Kate wilkinsons shelving of the recommendations of the labour parties report on mining safety 2009 preceded by Mad max bradfords sacking of mine inspectors 1998 preceeded by bill birchs gutting of mine safety rules 1992 that had been built up over the previous century.
Not trying to shift the blame their Bob.
The Labour party was born on the coast out of concern for mine safety and workers rights!
BM, the report I read was that miners, not the unions so much, new that it was unsafe. Kudos to ABC Aussie for comprehensive public service broadcasting coverage:
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Wouldn’t surprise me if Pike River ran a blacklist. If you were an employee or contractor who caused too much trouble, you were never hired again.
I thought the worker were being paid bonuses to meet targets?
BM
You’re like those guys in the comedy routine acting out simple-minded types spotting cars on a motorway, ooh look there’s another one. You question, someone answers, and it just flows right past you without entering your brain, and you repeat the question later on with the same result. I think you are an example of the snowfall effect that I put forward in Open Mike I think on 6/11.
The poor old miners got caught in a moral hazard that existed for miners in Emile Zola’s time. They want to make a living, have housing, and every time they delay production for safety reasons they hurt the company, it’s profitability and their jobs. In Zola’s time their safety was their own responsibility and I understand they had to shore up the passages and support the ceiling themselves.
Read about it and learn – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germinal_(novel)
It seems strange to me vto, that the millions of dollars needed to fix leaky homes is not clearly sheeted home to the National deregulation in the 90s. You would think that along with Mining deregulation the people would be very angry. I am.
Who was the minister responsible? Lockwood Smith comes to mind.
Bill Birch and then MAD Max Bradford
Kate Chapman reports:
Is she part of the parliamentary gallery? Does she not regularly see how Key does his stand-up routine in order to deflect serious questions in Question Time? Why is she not reporting that, rather than just uncritically reporting what Key says?
Karol – The question is:
What is the selection criteria is to be “any reporter or editor”, responsible for the media balackouts which exist, to provide the cover stories and misdirection, to blatant lies that are sold via the MSM.
When one starts to think about those who are “selected to report the news”, one can reasonably deduce that those people are as easily “swayed”, as those chosen to be the options NZ gets to vote for!
NZ inc – Rotten to the core!
Did you know that you can make up to $1200 per week? [spam deleted – r0b]
Is that you Rodney Hide?
You probably need an HIV test to go along with your job application…
”I dare you to show me one example where I haven’t discharged my responsibility seriously, professionally and appropriately,” he told TV3’s Firstline. (Sorry,had to cut and paste) Guess who in DomPost?
Yesterday I noted a discussion of interest rate and currency swaps that I heard on Jim Mora on Radionz. I put live links in my comment. It was new stuff to me, the financial instruments or derivatives (D) market is not my everyday experience and I would say not to the ordinary citizen.
http://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/afternoons-with-jim-mora-the-panel-today-dcc-interest-rate-swaps/
also
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/7903907/Banks-plundering-society-globally
I just listened again and there are some points that we should know. First between them Auckland and Dunedin City Councils lost $200 million last year resulting from these Ds. Then we should know that the Ds are contingent liabilities which have floating rates and there is no knowing how the rates will change year to year. It may be $1 billion that they lose next year (and that is a debt on top of the principal still owing).
I don’t know if they are the same as hedge funds, but the point was made as with hedge funds, that the seller of the D has a conflict of interest as it wants to win and you to lose, (so it will want to tip the scales against you). One thinks of the Melbourne Cup – the TAB have better rules and standards. Apparently our chief national earners, Fonterra and farming interests, are involved in these derivatives and that gives a cold feeling down the spine.
There is something called a Dual currency interest rate swap. This involves two different currencies and when one is NZ, which is very volatile and may fall, then the repayments go up, a particularly risky tricky thing to be in.
In Europe there has been legal proceedings brought against mis-selling by banks of derivatives (mis-selling another neo-lib euphemism) and a Milan bank had returned millions of dollars, might have been $1 billion not sure.
It can be difficult to find what has been done with this public money because of the old excuse “It’s commercially sensitive”. We may think we have the right to know what our officials are doing in our name, but no, ‘It’s trust us we know more than you, and we know what we are doing”. That sounds dodgy, but how can we force the issue under the present regime??
So after the GFC, these City Councils and their investment banking mates decided to get in on the game themselves.
STUPID
technical note – a contingent liability is a potential sum owing, the size and nature of which depends on some future event or measure.
With interest rate D’s, there is a vast amount of uncertainty and lack of control around what this might be, year to year. As prism notes, the investment banks on the other side of the trade often PROFIT when their clients LOSE.
It’s a level of risk which no public organisation should involve itself in unless it really knows how to use D’s as tools to reduce risk and uncertainty.
Many municipal authorities in the US have gone bankrupt due to these kinds of “investments”.
CV
Thanks for putting right my understandings of contingencies et al. I don’t want to pass on my ignorance of these matters to others.
No probs mate, you were very close to getting it right. Your monthly power bill could be considered a contingent liability which depends on how much power you use – will your next invoice be $300 or will it be $600?
At least in that case you have significant influence over the end result. With an interest rate swap you are at the mercy of market fraud and banker fine print scams.
I was thinking of that general competence thing for councils. At one time they couldn’t get high-flown ideas of risk-taking in exotic financial transactions – they were too tightly controlled. It seems as a citizen who isn’t snuggling up for juicy tenders and projects to councils, that the general competence should be abandoned and a slightly more lenient than the previous control should be the new norm.
Also, one of the skills that a CEO is now being paid for is no doubt the ability to handle a large budget and be able to do this financial horse-trading. So if councils had less money, which they had to parcel out in a rational way, there would be less need to do their double book-keeping. The Jim Mora Radionz item I listened to said that the borrowings and interest rate swaps were not always shown in the appropriate part of the balance sheet and there wasn’t a signal of their likely cost long-term.
And I think that employing contractors is almost double-bookeeping. Government and businesses can fudge their expenditure on human resources. Contractors are paid out of one pot, and staff and wages out of another. Staff and wages will appear to be kept at a low rate yet the real need of the organisation is met by high-paid hourly contractors. A wasteful and often mendacious system.
This Local Bodies explanation piece on council general competence and processes is very straightforward and a good example of providing clear information.
http://insider.thomsonreuters.co.nz/2012/03/local-government-law-nz/
2. Financial management strategies
Commencing in 1996, with abolition of the former Local Authorities Loans Board, local authorities have had greater powers to undertake works and to fund the works through different fiscal policies and determinations. The ability of local authorities to borrow money, or to undertake rating, has been substantially liberalised. The introduction of differential rating, and annual charges, has been modernised, and the ability to impose targeted rates has been extended. Again, to provide direction and restraint, the law requires councils to develop strategies for funding and borrowing, and to provide for implementation through the long-term plan and annual plan, and to make an annual report. These obligations are subject to overview by the Auditor-General.
Good work Prism..
Does it say who is responsible for making the “investments” at either council, or who provided the advise to do so?
Still, the quicker the councils can get themselves into debt the quicker the assets can be stolen.
The new owners of the assets, will be the same gang who also will have swallowed up the “investments”.
Like a win win for them, but a huge loss for everyone else.
The Power of the Right-Wing Echo Chamber
We see the same things here with the RWNJs continual re-writing of history when the facts conflict with what the RWNJs believe.
Yes how about calling it the snowfall effect? The brains of RWNJs get stirred up by new and unwelcome stats which register for a brief moment in time, but similar to the little globes with snow and bits of glitter in them which swirl around after a shaking, soon everything settles back to the same configuration as before.
Great imagery there Prism.
I expect there are more RWNJ who believe in a god and in a heaven as they are more likely to exist in faith rather than science or factual evidence. It is god’s will you know.
ianmac
Well when you’re on the top of the heap perhaps you feel closer to god. Then you could almost be convinced that he/she is on your side and it’s all the wonderful way that god willed it to be.
Bless you my son.
More on RWNJ liars and their lies.
http://www.thebaffler.com/past/the_long_con/print
Each constituent lie is an instance pointing to a larger, elaborately constructed âtruth,â the one central to the right-wing appeal for generations: that liberalism is a species of madnessâan esoteric cult of out-of-touch, Europe-besotted ivory tower elitesâand conservatism is the creed of regular Americans and vouchsafes the eternal prosperity, security, and moral excellence of Godâs chosen nation, which was doing just fine before Bolsheviks started gumming up the works.
briefly listened to RNZ last night; an interveiw with a co-author of a recent popular publication on the findings of “political science” research into the benefits the introduction of democracy had provided to newly democratic nation states in our life-times. The interviewer was very dry and sceptical of the authors conclusions (very american) and the author just dribbled a whole lot of waffle imo.
It seemed, the advances in rule of law, social justice etc, in African countries for example, were comparitively short-lived.
Some one commented recently concerning the population attritions we are likely to see in Africa in the coming decades.
very sad.
Like Columbia we should drop the voting age to 16.
More representative balance.
+1
Just read that Rakon are taking sum jobs overseas due to the high dollar. As the Nat election billboard said:
“wave goodbye to Kiwi jobs, as well as your loved ones”
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/media-unions-political-parties-corrupt-20121105-28u3w.html
Wonder how similar this would be in NZ?
Its crucial that we enhance and strengthen workers organisations in NZ to offset the power of the media and of moneyed capitalists.
Not sure how that relates but thanks for your input
Oh I thought I’d just bat back the idea of ‘union corruption’ with the idea that yes, unions have to evolve and tighten up their organisations – at the same time as making them far stronger and more effective.
NZ’s systemic corruption is on levels which people can’t even begin to fathom, so they blow it off as “poor politics”, or right/left or other ideology!
Its not!
Agreed Viper, thats one thing that is needed!
Given that the perceptions of many of those organisations are significantly affected by the media (which “won” hands down), much lolz.
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I’m surprised the Australian police are only at 16%, given their record.Â
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No one prepared to speak out in case they are arrested
It seems like a fairly wishy washy poll with no possibility of drawing conclusions.
It’s a survey of people’s perceptions not the reality. What a surpirse that a lot of people have a negative view of unions Wonder how they got thatidea?Â
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Yet the respondents views of individual politicians as not being corrupt, contradict the strong belief that poltiicians are corrupt. It’s all in the mind.
Â
And they’ve been doing those surveys for the last 30 years – roughly coincides with neoliberalism and the rise of tabloid and highly commercialised journalism. This does support research that indicates such journalism leads to cynicism about politics.
Having said that, Australian unions (and politicians very closely aligned to major unions) have had some serious shockers in the last couple of years. And the AWU scandal is crippling Gillard.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/silence-kept-the-fraud-happening/story-fn6tcxar-1226510180413
Roy Morgan says bugger off Chalupa, we like earning decent wages and having good working conditions. That’s why we like unions.
In the last week – has anyone been getting those server failure messages that were so common?
I haven’t had one since the start of last week after I’d fixed a number of things that were locking up the database and a separate set that were preventing the full use of cloudflare.
It’s been pretty good for me for several days now.
Great.
All good here too.
Darn – just got one. Looks like a CPU spike when update was added to the US election post…..
More work to do on Edits. My comment went in OK – just failed to load the updated screen.
Heh I got one maybe two hours ago…first for ages though. And it was only one.
Cunliffe says it’s a dark day for hi-tech manufacturing – Fisher and Paykel sold, Rakon outsourcing jobs to Asia. And a Labour government would do more to keep such businesses and work in NZ, he says.
This is what you get when a relatively small number of shareholders and institutional investors, all of whom are already plenty wealthy, decide that maximising their return on capital is more important than anything else eg keeping jobs in NZ.
Our economic system is broken.
Capitalism has been broken for 5000 years. We just don’t seem to be getting the message.
Well, capitalism hasn’t been around for 5000 years…guess it depends how you define it. I see it as taking hold after the time of Adam Smith and Ricardo.
Debt based money with a top down hierarchical structure which resulted in a few people owning nearly everything and the collapse of the economy was recorded in Sumer 5000 years ago. Which brings up that old saying: If it looks like a duck and quacks like duck, chances are, it’s a duck.
Feudalism.
There is, essentially, no difference.
Can I make a suggestion for your summer reading list DTB, Karl Polanyi – The Great transformation. If your into your history and political economy its makes for a great read, should be around in ebook form on Gutenberg or something.
“Not until 1834 was a competitive labor market established in England; hence, industrial capitalism as a social system cannot be said to have existed before that date. Yet almost immediately the self-protection of society set in: factory laws and social legislation, and a political and industrial working class movement sprang into being. It was in this attempt to stave off the entirely new dangers of the market mechanism that protective action conflicted fatally with the self-regulation of the system. It is no exaggeration to say that the social history of the nineteenth century was determined by the logic of the market system proper after it was released by the Poor Law Reform Act of 1834.”
http://www.uncharted.org/frownland/books/Polanyi/POLANYI%20KARL%20-%20The%20Great%20Transformation%20-%20v.1.0.html
State owned factories run by the workers as a cooperative with the production then done under contract/license. Run R&D through the universities to keep the factories up to date. Much better idea.
You can’t have the state owning the factories, the workers or their local communities have to own the factories. With state owned enterprises, the first thing a Tory Govt will do is sell the bloody things off. Need to observe and learn their patterns of behaviour.
And what else do you think the state is?
So we change government rules so that they can’t. It’s part and parcel of making them accountable to the people of NZ in such a way so that they do what the people of NZ want them to do and not what their major backers want.
OK to clarify, when you say “the state”, do you mean the Crown?
The Tories will simply repeal or amend those rules and then sell off the assets. Like we see them doing now.
No, the community.
Which is why we make it so that they can’t and if they try it we book them for treason and hang the bastards.
Leaving the system as it is now with government having all power and no responsibility isn’t an option.
How do you do this? You can’t charge someone for treason if they’ve legalised the process of selling publicly owned assets.
Well, I’m all for democracy and having it so that it must go to referendum. If they try to get rid of the referendum, as the arseholes did with Auckland, then they are immediately in breach of the law and are automatically found as treasonous.
Put in the right laws, make sure everyone knows what those laws are and what they’re there to do and we can limit the government which is what we really need to do.
This from your sister Blog.
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/why-romney-will-win_660391.html
That’s as much a sister to The Standard as Kim Kardashian is my sister.
And I should care much about the US presidential circus, because?
The way you wrote your question answers your question, Karol.
Dug take the spade out of your head!
Does anyone recall the government saying that they were going to support KidsCan “feeding the lower decile” children?
Just as we thought would happen, they have managed to get Campbell Live off their backs
but can anyone report an improvement in the diets of the needy school children…? Nah, hasn’t happened, I bet. Or has it?
Just wondering.