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 😛
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. Saying the term OSH in a sneering manner was a call-sign for tories. Many radio jocks and many business leaders contributed to a toxic attitude towards doing tasks/projects in a careful and considered way.
+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 ‘red tape’ is about being PC, nanny state, bureaucratic, costly, bad for business, bla bla bla neobla-ism.”
Yes, that is a role for Labour. Unfortunately Labour abdicated that responsibility when the inner few decided that we should appeal to the light blues. When Phil Goff (ably advised by Shearer’s current advisors) apologied for Labour being perceived as “politically correct”‘ he ceded the high ground to those who knocked OSH.
Labour has to get back to sticking it’s neck above the parapet on issues that effect workers, women, children, minorities and the defenceless. 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.
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 ’90s was a grave mistake. 29 graves, to be precise.
So for Heather Roy to try to shift the blame onto OSH, when legislative “reforms” specifically stated that mines safety had devolved to individual companies, and was no longer the “prescriptive” responsibility of the State is more than a little disingenous – it’s 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!
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: “No, I’m voting for gay marriage, I’m hardly homophobic – I led the charge on it.”
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.
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.
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!
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!).
The old “if more people supported us, we’d be more popular” tautology.
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
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And remember that only one dude could walk on water (ninja lore notwithstanding).
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
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.
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???
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?
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.
Which takes us back to plaintive cries in meetings of a dozen folk, the mournful refrain “why don’t people vote for / support us?”
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.
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 wasn’t safe.”
Yes, I heard of someone who chose not to work in that mine because of this knowledge
“How come they didn’t kick up more of a stink, isn’t 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:
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.
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 “truth,” the one central to the right-wing appeal for generations: that liberalism is a species of madness—an esoteric cult of out-of-touch, Europe-besotted ivory tower elites—and conservatism is the creed of regular Americans and vouchsafes the eternal prosperity, security, and moral excellence of God’s 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!
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?
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.
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.
…the 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?
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...
Back in May, Destiny Church leaders Brian and Hannah Tamaki launched another political party. Despite consisting entirely of followers of their religion, they grandly called it "Coalition New Zealand", in a vain effort to suggest it was something broader. But when they applied for registration, submitters opposed the name, as ...
The following article is excerpted and translated from two articles in recent issues of Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the revolutionary workers group active in France. We don’t necessarily agree with everything in it – for instance, the 1956-62 war for independence involved rather more revolutionary forces than ...
The Pacific is on the front line of climate change, and if we don't cut emissions quickly, some countries are literally going to be underwater. Because of this, small Pacific states had tried to use this week's Pacific Islands Forum meeting to get Pacific countries to agree to ending coal ...
To Limit Another's Rights Is To Limit One's Own: Is it too much to expect senior members of our Government to be capable of explaining that we protect the rights of human-beings precisely because not even the most depraved act can cancel-out the fact that its perpetrator is also a ...
Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...
This section builds on Part 1 of this series to provide a theoretical basis for the final instalment (part 3 – to come). Self-determination: law or resurgence — or both? International law promotes the principal of equal treatment and self-determination, which includes peoples’ rights to freely pursue their social, cultural and ...
Everyone was outraged yesterday to learn that the Christchurch shooting accused had been able to send mail from prison to his Nazi fans, apparently pushing more hate. "How could this possibly happen", people asked. Simple: because New Zealand is a civilised country, and so we let prisoners send and receive ...
If we are to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, we need to rapidly decarbonise our transport fleet. The good news: its starting to happen:The number of electric vehicles on New Zealand's roads have nearly tripled in the past two years. There are currently 15,453 registered electric vehicles (EVs), up ...
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...
Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
AN OPEN LETTER FOR SIGN ON BY ORGANISATIONS AND MOVEMENTS ACROSS THE WORLD, ALLIED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INEQUALITY. This letter was released at the UN Political Forum on 9 July, where the Sustainable Development Goal on inequality was reviewed. The purpose of the letter is to call out the ...
We asked a young gay science student and critic of trans ideology and the trans activists’ assault on women’s and gay rights to outline his views on Redline. Thanks to him for his article. by Cian Ó Catháin Gender identity ideology (Gender ID) is ripping through western society at full ...
The Environment Committee is currently hearing submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill, and Stuff is reporting on the submissions. Today, they're covering yesterday they heard from "NZ" Steel:NZ Steel has told MPs it may be forced to close with the loss of thousands of jobs if changes aren't made to ...
Students are striking against climate change on September 27. And this time, they're asking everyone to join them:Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure ...
Peter McKenzie has a piece on Newsroom this morning about how local body politics is awash with property developer cash. 70% of all the donations in the 2016 Wellington mayoral election came from property developers. And its pretty obvious what they want in exchange:That’s particularly important in local government, according ...
Source: Unknown, twitter user Recently, I wrote a (relatively) short paper titled as above, to explore what self-determination could like in a practical sense. Maybe I’m a bit of an international trade truther or something, but I absolutely believe trade is at the heart of achieving peace and self-determination. Since ...
In the 1960s, after I had graduated with a first-class Oxford postgraduate law degree, I joined the British Foreign Office as the top entrant of my year. There, I worked for a couple of years on European affairs and was eventually posted to the Embassy in Brussels. After this exposure ...
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...
I heard a 45 minute interview with Monica Lewinsky talking to TED’s Chris Anderson on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend, and have listened to it another two times out walking. I recommend it. Highly. Man, I am so impressed with how this woman has integrated her life experiences and ...
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure, London, Penguin, 2019, 352pp; reviewed by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind is a timely book, whose ...
When the Justice Committee reported back on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill, free speech advocates breathed a sigh of relief. As originally introduced, the Bill reitered the ancient offence of "scandalising the court" - basicly, a special sedition law protecting judges from criticism. The select ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. Since then - crickets. Which raises the obvious question: are they actually going to do this, ...
Back in March, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act. 285 people submitted on it. Now, Stuff has trawled through those submissions, and the case for reform is strong:The Justice Ministry asked Kiwis what they thought was ...
National's prisoner voting ban has gone down as one of the worst laws in New Zealand history. Passed after a farcical debate (including this farcial speech from ACT MP Hilary Calvert), it has subsequently been found to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act by the High Court, Court ...
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...
by Daphna Whitmore US social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt spoke on 1 August in Auckland to a crowd of around one thousand people. He is best known for his bookThe Coddling of the American Mind which examines the new climate of trigger warnings and acute sensitivity of Gen Z. ...
What an extraordinarily depressing experience it is to be compelled to watch, at 12,000 miles distance, the contortions and machinations of the British political class as they set about their determined attempt to overturn the decision taken by the British people that they wish to leave the European Union. The ...
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...
by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
Since scientists started studying climate change, they have warned that it will reduce food production. And now, its happening:The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some ...
The Abortion Legislation Bill just passed its first reading, 94-23. Its a far bigger margin than I expected, even allowing for the Winston factor, and it reflects the overwhelming support there is in this country for reform. but that support isn't a new thing - it has existed for literally ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Referendums Framework Bill. The Bill does what it says on the label - establishes a framework for referenda. Things you may want to address in your submission: Whether the bill should apply only at the 2020 election, or whether it should ...
The Thompson and Clark / MBIE spying scandal continues to result in fallout, this time in the form of a report on the implementation of MBIE's "Operation Exploration", its internal operation to enforce the infamous Anadarko Amendment which criminalised protests against the oil industry. MBIE's enforcement operation was tainted by ...
So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
Last week, the ongoing democracy protests in Hong Kong saw a pro-Hong Kong student assaulted at the University of Auckland. The Chinese consulate in Auckland followed this up with a press release "express[ing] its appreciation to the students for their spontaneous patriotism" - effectively condoning the assault and inciting further ...
Only those who close their eyes and minds to the evidence can still be in any doubt that we are facing a climate change crisis. The evidence is conclusive that the world is not only getting inexorably hotter, but also that the rising temperatures are creating a number of other ...
Rural communities are wailing about forestry conversions "taking land out of production" and putting it into locking up carbon. Its driven purely by economics: there's more money and lower costs in carbon than in sheep or beef, and if carbon prices rise, there'll be more net money than dairy even. ...
This week, the government introduced its (underwhelming) Abortion Legislation Bill. And despite having negotiated the text of the bill through the coalition process, Winston Peters is now suggesting that he will demand a referendum on it:NZ First leader Winston Peters has hinted that his party may only support the Government's ...
Blowing-Up The House: Is Winston Peters planning to put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters? The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she ...
Last night the police dramatically incresed their numbers at Ihumātao, shoving over protestors and threatening them with arrest. Despite police talk about the need to maintain "public order" and prevent a "breach of the peace", there appeared to be absolutely no justification for this: the protest camp is, was, and ...
A Cult, that many actors, politicians, and those with a low IQ are joining is sweeping across civilisation, with one main intention – ending humans reign on Earth. Starting as a well meaning though deeply flawed theory, that the Earth was warming due to mankind emitting greenhouse gasses, it was ...
Today's abortion reform announcement is just the latest in a long line of disappointing decisions or outright failures from the Labour government. The 90-day law. KiwiBuild. A capital gains tax. Climate change. Every time they make one of those decisions, we hope for better next time. No repeal of the ...
The Greens used their party conference over the weekend to push for a rent-to-own scheme, where people would be able to work towards home ownership by renting from the government. Its a sensible policy, and one which could make a real difference to home ownership rates. But its also basicly ...
by Daphna Whitmore Over the past fortnight, thousands of people have come to the Ihumātao land protest in South Auckland. On 23 July police prepared to evict a few dozen people who had maintained the encampment at Ihumātao for the past three years. As hundreds of supporters arrived the ...
The following article is translated from an article in Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of the French revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle). The United States’ blacklisting of the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, which took shape in Google’s ban on Huawei using its systems on its phones, marks a ...
There is a military phrase: “Full spectrum dominance”. It refers to the all-encompassing policy to dominate across all spheres of war. Lately, that has come to include the internet – in other words, cyberwarfare initiatives. That is in addition to land, sea, air and the like. Now, if ...
The IMF issued a Report on the state of the Economy as it is at present. Some of it points out significant issues that certainly warrant attention, but that we know already exist. Some of it is very much tied to the very obvious context of global concerns, that everyone ...
I'm glad to see the Lib Dems won.I had a moment of terror yesterday thinking that the Conservatives might cling on, due to a combination of Johnson's elevation to the premiership, the apparent uselessness of the Lib Dem candidate (who had failed to be elected in other constituencies) and the ...
. . Current Leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges gave the usual rah-rah speech to the Loyal & Faithful in Christchurch today (27 July). With National’s party polling and his own personal popularity sliding steadily in the polls, Mr Bridges has not much left to reverse his fortunes. ...
Those concerned for Langridge’s wellbeing say they hope he’ll change his mind when he sees the ocean coming. The protester who has vowed to stand outside Parliament every day until the Government announces a climate emergency says he accepts that his quest will most likely end in drowning. Ollie Langridge, ...
What will climate change do to our capital city? The Wellington City Council has updated its projections, ditching its optimistic 0.6m estimate for sea-level rise in favour of a more realistic 1.5m. And the result is devastating:Wellington City Council has unofficially ditched an optimistic sea-level rise scenario in favour of ...
Image Credit: How To Start a Blog – Beginner’s Guide for 2019 I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. ...
More complaints have been aired about the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCICh) into the Christchurch terrorist attacks. These have centred on the perception that the RBICh has not paid enough attention to the Muslim community who were the targets of the attacks and the sole victims of them. Even though ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the report of the Small Business Council will help maintain the momentum for innovation and improvements in the sector. Mr Nash has thanked the members of the Small Business Council (SBC) who this week handed over their report, Empowering small businesses to aspire, succeed ...
Extra Police officers are being deployed from Northland to Southland with the graduation of a new wing of recruits from the Royal New Zealand Police College. “The graduation of 78 constables today means that 1524 new constables have been deployed since the government took office,” says Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
Almost $600 million has been paid into taxpayers’ bank accounts in the past two months, after the first season of automatic tax assessments. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says the completion of this year’s tax refund season is a significant milestone. “The ability of Inland Revenue to run auto calculations for ...
The Government’s proposed rescue plan must be strengthened because it is the last chance to save Māui dolphins from extinction and secure the future for Hector’s dolphins, Forest & Bird says. ...
Simon Shepherd: Roads, schools, hospitals, prisons, the building blocks that keep society functioning. And we don't have enough. It's called the infrastructure deficit and will be the focus of a major conference this coming week. The man charged with ...
New Zealand has been issued a stark challenge from Pacific leaders to dramatically upscale its action to address climate breakdown, Oxfam says, after a clear rallying cry from nations at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum. ...
Support for Recreational Dope Going ‘Up in Smoke’ Family First NZ is welcoming yet another poll showing plummeting support for legalising cannabis in New Zealand. The Horizon Research poll shows support for legalising has plummeted from 60% last ...
The prospect of ending wider cannabis prohibition looks increasingly unlikely. Over the last nine months, the percentage of New Zealanders who would vote for legalising the personal use of cannabis has declined at a near linear rate of around 10% per ...
“It’s disappointing that news out of the United States of hospitalisations linked to illegal street drugs is somehow seen as relevant to the New Zealand vaping scene,” says Ben Pryor, Director of Alt New Zealand – the largest Kiwi-owned vaping company. ...
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) welcomes the successful passing of Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill through parliament, by the New Zealand Government. ...
Today’s news from the Electoral Commission has provided the party with the clarity it was seeking around use of the word “Coalition” being used as the brand name of the party. ...
A recently released Otago University study has provided further evidence that low-quality housing is a significant problem in Aotearoa. This has prompted the Chief Executive of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ) Paul Evans to question “why ...
With the BNZ-Business NZ PMI signaling manufacturing is contracting , the Government needs to seriously consider tax relief, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . ...
The New Zealand Maori Council has called for an overhaul of the Public Services executive ranks as the Corrections debacle shows mis-management and incompetence at the highest level. Matthew Tukaki, Executive Director of the New Zealand Maori Council has said ...
Findings from the 2018 New Zealand Consumer Survey have been released and the results are in; 48 per cent of respondents consider their purchases based on how ethically employees are treated. ...
The responsibility for the fact that Westland Milk Products is now in the hands of an overseas conglomerate 25% owned by the Chinese government can be laid fair and square at our government's doorstep. ...
As Fonterra is projecting multi million dollar losses for the second year in a row, it is clear the writing is on the wall for dairy as more and more Kiwis turn to plant milks. 22nd August is International Plant Milk Day and there is now a different plant ...
The $65,000 granted to Interislander so it can install electric vehicle chargers on its ferries is the most absurd waste of money yet to be delivered by the “Low Emissions” vehicle fund, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...
Wellingtonians will have the chance to hear international child rights experts from Ireland, Scotland and Samoa speak at the Making Child Rights Real in Aotearoa New Zealand seminar to be held in the city on Wednesday 21 August. ...
Paul Evans, Chief Executive of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ), is advocating a balanced approach to the development of productive land. ...
CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group) says that new research from the University of Otago provides a solid foundation for why the Government must not delay instating a comprehensive Warrant of Fitness for tenanted homes in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that an officer drove carelessly during a pursuit and that this was the primary cause of a collision with a motorcycle that injured the rider. ...
Responding to the Prime Minister’s commitment of $150 million in funding for climate change response in the Pacific, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says: “It is no secret that many Pacific nations lack serious oversight when it ...
AUT research not only shows an increase in political affiliation, but that candidates affiliated to a central political party are more likely to win seats in Auckland local government. ...
On the 23rd of August School Strike NZ will join Ollie Langridge in his 100th day of sitting outside of New Zealand Parliament calling for the government to declare a climate emergency. School Strike 4 Climate NZ also demand that Parliament acknowledge ...
You have stood up for what is fair, and I am sure you will speak for over 7 million people who have been muted and rendered voiceless in Indian occupied Kashmir for more than a 10 days now. I am writing to bring to your notice the plight of Kashmiri ...
In the last 10 months alone, 11 petitions have been delivered to Parliament calling for medicines to be funded by Pharmac. Today, another nine petitions have been launched by Patient Voice Aotearoa (PVA) members asking that life changing, saving and extending ...
When we were first working to get Miscanthus approved for import into New Zealand, the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) waived the fee for their work because they thought that having Miscanthus in New Zealand was so very much in the ...
PHARMAC’s recent decision to fund two additional drugs from December this year has been widely welcomed by patients and the general public alike. The drugs, Kadcyla and Ibrance, are used in the treatment of advanced lung and breast cancers and will ...
Animal rights organisation SAFE is urging the Government to include experts and advocates from outside the agriculture industry on its newly announced winter crop grazing taskforce. ...
The Government’s plans to prohibit housing on ‘productive’ farmland will serve as yet another regulatory tax on housing, and is a shameful breach of Jacinda Ardern’s promise to fix housing supply, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . ...
The latest round of the Ethnic Communities Development Fund opens today, supporting projects that grow the leadership and capability of ethnic groups, improve cultural understanding, and ensure our ethnic communities are a vibrant and celebrated part ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is warning of the dangers of hiking excise tax, in response to calls from a former Prime Minister for stronger action on alcohol harm. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “It seems inevitable ...
LGNZ will be cautiously assessing the wider implications of the newly proposed National Position Statement on Highly Productive Land (NPS-HPL), noting that that it traverses a number of highly complex policy areas including housing affordability and property ...
Horticulture New Zealand has welcomed the Government’s draft National Policy Statement on Highly Productive Land, saying it will help ensure that New Zealand can grow its own vegetables and fruit. ...
Background documents for Budget 2019 are now available from on the Treasury website: https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/information-release/budget-2019-information-release ...
The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry has welcomed a move by Crown agencies to lift confidentiality obligations on survivors of abuse in State care arising from settlement agreements with the Crown. ...
An evaluation of New Zealand’s first sexual violence court has confirmed that the approach taken in the judge-led pilot considerably reduces the time that cases take to reach trial. ...
The National Party is pleased to announce the appointment of Paula Bennett as our Campaign Chair for the 2020 General Election, President Peter Goodfellow says. ...
14 August 2019 – 18 senior business leaders and employment experts have been appointed as judges for New Zealand’s sixth annual Equal Pay Awards reflecting the breadth of companies who have entered. The Awards added three new categories in 2018: Innovation, ...
Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “This is more proof that bureaucrats do not make good tech tycoons, no matter how much taxpayer money they throw at geeks in Silicon Valley.” ...
August marks five years of the Community Finance initiative. In addition to its well established Financial Mentoring service, The Salvation Army has held more than 5800 financial conversations with Community Finance clients. The loan program helps ...
Today 14/8/19 on news hub AM show Duncan Garner asked National Party leader Simon Bridges ‘what would he do to combat climate change and improve the economy again if he is the next PM”. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/08/simon-bridges-says-most-kiwis-believe-system-gamed-at-last-election.html ...
DairyNZ Chief Executive Dr Tim Mackle is urging the Government to work with agricultural groups to drive real behaviour change on farm, instead of imposing a broad-based tax. Sector organisations have put forward an alternative Primary Sector Climate ...
Iwi forging closer relationship with Stats NZ over Māori data solutions The Data Iwi Leaders Group supports the findings of an independent review into the 2018 New Zealand Census – but says its failings provide a unique opportunity to co-design ...
“Any justification for paying exorbitant salaries to senior managers in business has just been buried in the Fonterra debacle” said Peter Malcolm spokesperson for Income Equality Aotearoa New Zealand Inc---“Closing the Gap” ...
Good on their own, even better with cheese – these crisp, moreish crackers are destined to become your new go-to savoury snack.These crackers have been on high rotation in our household – they’ve filled lunchboxes, accompanied fine cheeses on evening platters and been eaten by the fistful straight from the jar. ...
Lists are good and so are Sundays. We combine both those things in a new Spinoff feature. This week: Headlines from the past six months about the the Reserve Bank governor, Adrian OrrRBNZ prepares to stick its Orr inASB, March 29Banks Orr-struck yet againThe Australian, April 10Big banks brace for ...
Over 300 hours of interviews condensed into five episodes that cover the entirety of New Zealand’s comedy history – how do you even start to approach that? Sam Brooks interviews Paul Horan, the documentarian behind the show.It’s one of those projects that sounds utterly futile – how does one cover ...
Judgement prevents understanding, which in itself is a barrier to preventing unsafe behaviour. Are different approaches to harm reduction in the Rainbow community needed? Sex. Drugs. Carly Rae Jepsen. This is the iconography that tends to be massaged into mainstream conceptions of gay culture. Depictions in TV/film see us railing lines ...
The Spinoff is covering local elections across the country with a new pop-up section. To kick things off, Hayden Donnell went to a mayoral debate at Grey Power on the North Shore of Auckland.John Tamihere walked into the mayoral debate at North Shore Grey Power on Friday just minutes after ...
The Spinoff is covering local elections across the country with a new pop-up section. To kick things off, Hayden Donnell went to a mayoral debate at Grey Power on the North Shore of Auckland.John Tamihere walked into the mayoral debate at North Shore Grey Power on Friday just minutes after ...
Things I Learned at Art School is a new series featuring artists discussing how they do what they do and know what they know. In the second instalment, Megan Dunn talks to Berlin-based New Zealander Simon Denny about Michael Parekowhai, teaching and technology, and an idea involving the online shoe ...
With the acquisition of global rugby streaming leader RugbyPass, Sky might have just secured its future, writes Trevor McKewen.For several months now, the war between Sky and Spark Sport for the peerless prize of All Blacks and New Zealand rugby rights from 2021 onwards has been escalating. Every week, one ...
The Lightbulb asks innovators and entrepreneurs how they turned their ideas into reality. This week we talk to Jamie Cashmore, co-founder of Auckland-based edible packaging company Twiice. First of all, give us your elevator pitch for Twiice.Twiice is a company making edible coffee cups with plans to progress into other areas ...
The recent discovery of a fossil parrot the size of a human toddler is even more reason for Foulden Maar to be protected, writes the chairperson of Save Foulden Maar, Kimberley Collins.Last week, scientists discovered a new species of extinct parrot in the St Bathans Fauna. Weighing in at seven ...
Could a new hybrid of all the government’s major media holdings solve multiple media and government problems? Duncan Greive assesses the case.The media industry, despite what some of us might like to believe, really doesn’t matter all that much economically. Doesn’t employ all that many people. Relatively low wage. ...
The three governing parties are turning their attention to next year’s general election. RNZ‘s Jo Moir surveys the field.The night New Zealand First formed a government with Labour and the Greens, its leader Winston Peters quoted the song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”.Almost two years later all three ...
Analysis: The botched census brings down a chief executive, there's another wave of speculation about Christopher Luxon standing for National and NZ First could sink an attempt to reverse the ban on prisoner voting. ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Wording has played a crucial role in a reportedly “fierce” Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu with Australia allegedly managing to alter documental terms to downplay its commitment to climate change mitigation. According to RNZ Pacific, a communiqué and separate statement on climate change was released ...
Australia’s coal policy and its use of carry over credits to fulfill its obligations under the Paris Agreement have come under fire and been major points of contention at this year’s 50th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Meeting in Funafuti, Tuvalu. READ MORE: ‘We should have done more for our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael O’Keefe, Head of Department, Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University The Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Tuvalu this week has ended in open division over climate change. Australia ensured its official communique watered down commitments to respond to climate change, gaining ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Xanthe Mallett, Forensic Criminologist, University of Newcastle Even in death, the voice of Carl Williams is louder than that of his victims. Intimate prison letters written by the convicted murderer and drug trafficker to his ex-wife, Roberta – herself arrested this month ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brianna Chesser, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Justice, RMIT University In September 2018, a prominent Melbourne surgeon and academic was charged with rape and sexual assault for alleged offences committed a year earlier against a male doctor. The surgeon and doctor had ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Dearnaley, Associate Professor, University of Southern Queensland The blotched butterfly orchid (Sarcochilus weinthalii) looks fairly unremarkable when it’s not flowering, generally resembling the far more common orange blossom orchid. But when it flowers, it is exquisite. Dark purple blotches stand out ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Cropper, Senior Lecturer, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne Almost every person throughout the existence of humankind has looked up at the night sky and seen more than just a random scattering of light. Constellations of stars have helped ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Desbrow, Associate Professor, Nutrition and Dietetics, Griffith University A recent study published in the journal Depression and Anxiety has attracted widespread media attention. Media reports said eating chocolate, in particular, dark chocolate, was linked to reduced symptoms of depression. Unfortunately, we ...
He’s the artist who launched a million memes and over a billion streams. Sam Brooks picks out Bazzi’s best moments so far, from his career-making breakthrough to his mature new mixtape Soulsearching.1. ‘Mine’“You’re so fuckin’ precious when you smile.”It’s the line that didn’t just launch a million memes, it’s the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Crosby, Professor, Monash University Since President Trump tweeted about imposing new tariffs on China, global equity markets have gone into a tailspin. Trump’s more recent announcement that the new tariffs would be delayed has not calmed the markets, with recent days ...
A new poem by Waikato poet Loren Thomas.to convince myself we’re dreamingwe were walking through suburbia houses kissing front lawns copied one after anotheryou tasted like mint leaves and chlorophyll that’s been pissed on by catsI held your hand and we walked towards the ocean dodging planks from dead train ...
The ancient Australian shock-jock yesterday targeted Jacinda Ardern, urging Australia’s PM to ‘shove a sock down her throat’. It’s all in keeping with a substantial history of being an arse.The plucky nation of Australia excels in a range of endeavours, but nowhere more than the angry, anguished howls of bloated, ...
Today, TVNZ released its latest findings on who is watching what on TVNZ OnDemand. Sam Brooks analyses the results.Today, TVNZ released the 2019 figures for who is watching TVNZ OnDemand, what they’re watching and in what kind of numbers. The big numbers are hopeful – over 1.4 million people reached ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics, UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney The federal government wants to boost the number of migrants moving to regional areas in Australia to fill job vacancies and reduce the pressure on our cities. That’s why ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Associate Professor, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University There can be no doubt violence against women is a national crisis. On average in Australia, one woman every week is killed. A 2016 survey found one in four women experienced violence ...
One dignified resignation was a bouquet in a sea of brickbats this week as low levels of accountability had eyes rolling. James Elliott has the news of the week. ...
Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein on the band’s ninth studio album, working with St Vincent, and the departure of bandmate and drummer, Janet Weiss.It’s been almost five years since Sleater-Kinney broke their decade-long hiatus with an album that received almost near-universal praise. It was “raw”, “bristling”, “emotive”, “taut” – all adjectives you’d ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Colleen Murrell, Associate Professor, Journalism, Swinburne University of Technology When news of the stabbings in Sydney on Tuesday afternoon came through, one of the first tweets about the incident came from Sky News reporter Laura Jayes. Immediately it got retweeted and sent ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $23)Sally Rooney Sally Rooney Sally Rooney Sally Rooney2 An ...
When Emily Writes reviewed a life-changing sex toy, the response from orgasm-starved women was huge. So why are so many having so few orgasms, and what can be done?For the last two years I’ve been running a pretty small – about 600-odd member – group for mostly New Zealand women ...
When Josie Adams broke her laptop last week, she knew she’d never find love like that again. Can the Asus Chromebook Flip C213SA offer a new kind of technological relationship? She reviews how it stands up to everyday use and the cosmic forces that seek to destroy her.Last Thursday I ...
Wine should be fun, not intimidating, all you need is a little knowledge. Yvonne Lorkin co-founder and chief tasting officer of WineFriend provides some simple tips to help you empower your palate. Even I can get scared by wine. I’m usually super-meek and a tad feeble at high-brow, ‘industry’ wine tastings. ...
Pacific Media Watch NewsdeskBy Makereta Komai in Funafuti, Tuvalu Tonga’s Prime Minister, ‘Akilisi Pohiva, has delivered a stinging attack against regionalism and the Pacific Islands Forum’s stance of leaving no one behind, for failing to amicably resolve the issue of West Papua. Pohiva admitted the issue has divided ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Corrections, Christchurch mosque shootings Chris Trotter (Daily Blog): Upholding The Accused’s Right To Write Mark Daalder ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amber Marshall, Research fellow, Queensland University of Technology Farming families and communities in Queensland’s remote north are being left behind by the digital economy, putting them at significant social and economic disadvantage. Our report, launched in Cairns today, details the impacts of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Cameron, Associate professor, and Associate Director of the Global Obesity Centre, Deakin University Half-price chips, “two for one” chocolates, “buy one get one free” soft drinks: Australian supermarkets make it very easy for us to fill our trolleys with junk food. ...
Open mike 06/11/2012 
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...43 mins ago
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...2 days ago
Back in May, Destiny Church leaders Brian and Hannah Tamaki launched another political party. Despite consisting entirely of followers of their religion, they grandly called it "Coalition New Zealand", in a vain effort to suggest it was something broader. But when they applied for registration, submitters opposed the name, as ...2 days ago
The following article is excerpted and translated from two articles in recent issues of Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the revolutionary workers group active in France. We don’t necessarily agree with everything in it – for instance, the 1956-62 war for independence involved rather more revolutionary forces than ...2 days ago
2 days ago
Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...2 days ago
This section builds on Part 1 of this series to provide a theoretical basis for the final instalment (part 3 – to come). Self-determination: law or resurgence — or both? International law promotes the principal of equal treatment and self-determination, which includes peoples’ rights to freely pursue their social, cultural and ...3 days ago
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...4 days ago
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...4 days ago
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...4 days ago
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...4 days ago
Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...4 days ago
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...4 days ago
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ... 4 days ago
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...5 days ago
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...6 days ago
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...7 days ago
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...1 week ago
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...2 weeks ago
Blowing-Up The House: Is Winston Peters planning to put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters? The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she ...2 weeks ago
A Cult, that many actors, politicians, and those with a low IQ are joining is sweeping across civilisation, with one main intention – ending humans reign on Earth. Starting as a well meaning though deeply flawed theory, that the Earth was warming due to mankind emitting greenhouse gasses, it was ...2 weeks ago
There is a military phrase: “Full spectrum dominance”. It refers to the all-encompassing policy to dominate across all spheres of war. Lately, that has come to include the internet – in other words, cyberwarfare initiatives. That is in addition to land, sea, air and the like. Now, if ...2 weeks ago
The IMF issued a Report on the state of the Economy as it is at present. Some of it points out significant issues that certainly warrant attention, but that we know already exist. Some of it is very much tied to the very obvious context of global concerns, that everyone ...2 weeks ago
I'm glad to see the Lib Dems won.I had a moment of terror yesterday thinking that the Conservatives might cling on, due to a combination of Johnson's elevation to the premiership, the apparent uselessness of the Lib Dem candidate (who had failed to be elected in other constituencies) and the ...2 weeks ago
. . Current Leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges gave the usual rah-rah speech to the Loyal & Faithful in Christchurch today (27 July). With National’s party polling and his own personal popularity sliding steadily in the polls, Mr Bridges has not much left to reverse his fortunes. ...2 weeks ago
Those concerned for Langridge’s wellbeing say they hope he’ll change his mind when he sees the ocean coming. The protester who has vowed to stand outside Parliament every day until the Government announces a climate emergency says he accepts that his quest will most likely end in drowning. Ollie Langridge, ...2 weeks ago
Image Credit: How To Start a Blog – Beginner’s Guide for 2019 I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. ... 2 weeks ago
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...1 week ago
The Government’s proposed rescue plan must be strengthened because it is the last chance to save Māui dolphins from extinction and secure the future for Hector’s dolphins, Forest & Bird says. ...50 mins ago
The government has announced extra measures to prevent and reduce homelessness. ...30 mins ago
Good on their own, even better with cheese – these crisp, moreish crackers are destined to become your new go-to savoury snack.These crackers have been on high rotation in our household – they’ve filled lunchboxes, accompanied fine cheeses on evening platters and been eaten by the fistful straight from the jar. ...3 hours ago
Over 300 hours of interviews condensed into five episodes that cover the entirety of New Zealand’s comedy history – how do you even start to approach that? Sam Brooks interviews Paul Horan, the documentarian behind the show.It’s one of those projects that sounds utterly futile – how does one cover ...7 hours ago
Judgement prevents understanding, which in itself is a barrier to preventing unsafe behaviour. Are different approaches to harm reduction in the Rainbow community needed? Sex. Drugs. Carly Rae Jepsen. This is the iconography that tends to be massaged into mainstream conceptions of gay culture. Depictions in TV/film see us railing lines ...7 hours ago
The Spinoff is covering local elections across the country with a new pop-up section. To kick things off, Hayden Donnell went to a mayoral debate at Grey Power on the North Shore of Auckland.John Tamihere walked into the mayoral debate at North Shore Grey Power on Friday just minutes after ...19 hours ago
The Spinoff is covering local elections across the country with a new pop-up section. To kick things off, Hayden Donnell went to a mayoral debate at Grey Power on the North Shore of Auckland.John Tamihere walked into the mayoral debate at North Shore Grey Power on Friday just minutes after ...19 hours ago
The three parties in the coalition have to negotiate compromises, concessions and conquests week after week. ...1 day ago
Things I Learned at Art School is a new series featuring artists discussing how they do what they do and know what they know. In the second instalment, Megan Dunn talks to Berlin-based New Zealander Simon Denny about Michael Parekowhai, teaching and technology, and an idea involving the online shoe ...1 day ago
With the acquisition of global rugby streaming leader RugbyPass, Sky might have just secured its future, writes Trevor McKewen.For several months now, the war between Sky and Spark Sport for the peerless prize of All Blacks and New Zealand rugby rights from 2021 onwards has been escalating. Every week, one ...1 day ago
Today, a short story from the late 1920s, published in a posthumous new collection by Marlborough writer Eileen Duggan. Photo by Peter Black. ...1 day ago
The Lightbulb asks innovators and entrepreneurs how they turned their ideas into reality. This week we talk to Jamie Cashmore, co-founder of Auckland-based edible packaging company Twiice. First of all, give us your elevator pitch for Twiice.Twiice is a company making edible coffee cups with plans to progress into other areas ...1 day ago
Black Fern Aleisha-Pearl Nelson was told by doctors, twice, that her rugby days were over - after serious horse-riding accidents. ...1 day ago
The recent discovery of a fossil parrot the size of a human toddler is even more reason for Foulden Maar to be protected, writes the chairperson of Save Foulden Maar, Kimberley Collins.Last week, scientists discovered a new species of extinct parrot in the St Bathans Fauna. Weighing in at seven ...1 day ago
The three governing parties are turning their attention to next year’s general election. RNZ‘s Jo Moir surveys the field.The night New Zealand First formed a government with Labour and the Greens, its leader Winston Peters quoted the song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”.Almost two years later all three ...1 day ago
Protests in Hong Kong have attracted worldwide attention - but are we ignoring a more serious situation across the sea? ...2 days ago
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Wording has played a crucial role in a reportedly “fierce” Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu with Australia allegedly managing to alter documental terms to downplay its commitment to climate change mitigation. According to RNZ Pacific, a communiqué and separate statement on climate change was released ...2 days ago
Australia’s coal policy and its use of carry over credits to fulfill its obligations under the Paris Agreement have come under fire and been major points of contention at this year’s 50th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Meeting in Funafuti, Tuvalu. READ MORE: ‘We should have done more for our ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael O’Keefe, Head of Department, Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University The Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Tuvalu this week has ended in open division over climate change. Australia ensured its official communique watered down commitments to respond to climate change, gaining ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Xanthe Mallett, Forensic Criminologist, University of Newcastle Even in death, the voice of Carl Williams is louder than that of his victims. Intimate prison letters written by the convicted murderer and drug trafficker to his ex-wife, Roberta – herself arrested this month ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brianna Chesser, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Justice, RMIT University In September 2018, a prominent Melbourne surgeon and academic was charged with rape and sexual assault for alleged offences committed a year earlier against a male doctor. The surgeon and doctor had ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Dearnaley, Associate Professor, University of Southern Queensland The blotched butterfly orchid (Sarcochilus weinthalii) looks fairly unremarkable when it’s not flowering, generally resembling the far more common orange blossom orchid. But when it flowers, it is exquisite. Dark purple blotches stand out ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Cropper, Senior Lecturer, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne Almost every person throughout the existence of humankind has looked up at the night sky and seen more than just a random scattering of light. Constellations of stars have helped ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Desbrow, Associate Professor, Nutrition and Dietetics, Griffith University A recent study published in the journal Depression and Anxiety has attracted widespread media attention. Media reports said eating chocolate, in particular, dark chocolate, was linked to reduced symptoms of depression. Unfortunately, we ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Crosby, Professor, Monash University Since President Trump tweeted about imposing new tariffs on China, global equity markets have gone into a tailspin. Trump’s more recent announcement that the new tariffs would be delayed has not calmed the markets, with recent days ...2 days ago
Today, TVNZ released its latest findings on who is watching what on TVNZ OnDemand. Sam Brooks analyses the results.Today, TVNZ released the 2019 figures for who is watching TVNZ OnDemand, what they’re watching and in what kind of numbers. The big numbers are hopeful – over 1.4 million people reached ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics, UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney The federal government wants to boost the number of migrants moving to regional areas in Australia to fill job vacancies and reduce the pressure on our cities. That’s why ...2 days ago
One dignified resignation was a bouquet in a sea of brickbats this week as low levels of accountability had eyes rolling. James Elliott has the news of the week. ...2 days ago
Corrections has referred a letter written by the alleged Christchurch terrorist to police for further investigation. ...2 days ago
Sky Television is purchasing online rugby streaming service RugbyPass for $US40 million ($NZ62m). ...2 days ago
Jewellery retailer Michael Hill International has reported a lift in profit but is feeling the pinch of lower sales and squeezed margins. ...2 days ago
Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein on the band’s ninth studio album, working with St Vincent, and the departure of bandmate and drummer, Janet Weiss.It’s been almost five years since Sleater-Kinney broke their decade-long hiatus with an album that received almost near-universal praise. It was “raw”, “bristling”, “emotive”, “taut” – all adjectives you’d ...2 days ago
When Emily Writes reviewed a life-changing sex toy, the response from orgasm-starved women was huge. So why are so many having so few orgasms, and what can be done?For the last two years I’ve been running a pretty small – about 600-odd member – group for mostly New Zealand women ...2 days ago
Wine should be fun, not intimidating, all you need is a little knowledge. Yvonne Lorkin co-founder and chief tasting officer of WineFriend provides some simple tips to help you empower your palate. Even I can get scared by wine. I’m usually super-meek and a tad feeble at high-brow, ‘industry’ wine tastings. ...2 days ago
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk By Makereta Komai in Funafuti, Tuvalu Tonga’s Prime Minister, ‘Akilisi Pohiva, has delivered a stinging attack against regionalism and the Pacific Islands Forum’s stance of leaving no one behind, for failing to amicably resolve the issue of West Papua. Pohiva admitted the issue has divided ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amber Marshall, Research fellow, Queensland University of Technology Farming families and communities in Queensland’s remote north are being left behind by the digital economy, putting them at significant social and economic disadvantage. Our report, launched in Cairns today, details the impacts of ...2 days ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Cameron, Associate professor, and Associate Director of the Global Obesity Centre, Deakin University Half-price chips, “two for one” chocolates, “buy one get one free” soft drinks: Australian supermarkets make it very easy for us to fill our trolleys with junk food. ...2 days ago
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 😛
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. Saying the term OSH in a sneering manner was a call-sign for tories. Many radio jocks and many business leaders contributed to a toxic attitude towards doing tasks/projects in a careful and considered way.
+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 ‘red tape’ is about being PC, nanny state, bureaucratic, costly, bad for business, bla bla bla neobla-ism.”
Yes, that is a role for Labour. Unfortunately Labour abdicated that responsibility when the inner few decided that we should appeal to the light blues. When Phil Goff (ably advised by Shearer’s current advisors) apologied for Labour being perceived as “politically correct”‘ he ceded the high ground to those who knocked OSH.
Labour has to get back to sticking it’s neck above the parapet on issues that effect workers, women, children, minorities and the defenceless. 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.
++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!
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: “No, I’m voting for gay marriage, I’m hardly homophobic – I led the charge on it.”
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.
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
😀
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
🙁
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
The old “if more people supported us, we’d be more popular” tautology.
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
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And remember that only one dude could walk on water (ninja lore notwithstanding).
In that case perhaps the common factor for failure is you McFlock. With your outlook it’s not a surprise.
lol
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?
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.
Which takes us back to plaintive cries in meetings of a dozen folk, the mournful refrain “why don’t people vote for / support us?”
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.
If you want to walk on water you got to get out of the boat.
spread that left wing thought
🙂
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 wasn’t safe.”
Yes, I heard of someone who chose not to work in that mine because of this knowledge
“How come they didn’t kick up more of a stink, isn’t 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:
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 “truth,” the one central to the right-wing appeal for generations: that liberalism is a species of madness—an esoteric cult of out-of-touch, Europe-besotted ivory tower elites—and conservatism is the creed of regular Americans and vouchsafes the eternal prosperity, security, and moral excellence of God’s 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.
I’m surprised the Australian police are only at 16%, given their record.
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?
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.
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.