Several years ago I attended a seminar of ‘How to be a winner’. In this seminar they spoke of how both real estate and small businesses were the source of large capital gains. Buy the house – do it up as a tax write off – sell it for profit and keep the lot. The same for a business, buy it, make it look profitable, sell it for large tax free returns. For a simple fee of $2000 this mob was willing to let you in on their methods.
Buy a property, use it as leverage to mortgage a second property, use both as leverage for the next properties… This is how you wind up with owning dozens of homes – becoming multi-millionaires yet contributing nothing to society.
With farms it is a similar method of operation. Farms are brought, their books are polished, farms are sold. Now, the way to polish the books on a farm is to raise production. To do this one uses overstocking, supplementary feedstocks, and fertiliser, many many tons of fertiliser. It pays to avoid any expenses that might stand in the way of profit. Erosion control, planting, diversity enhancement unless aesthetically pleasing to hide some problem – all are detrimental to the fast buck farm scheme.
So the rivers get filled with shit and fertiliser but the farmers books look good and the profits realised are enormous.
Now, not all farmers are tax-avoiding small business shifting wannabe millionaires, but there’s enough of them to turn our farming block into a large scale problem. One whiff of treasure and out come the pirates. This is a terrible shame as our decent Farmers are more valuable than ever, as exemplars and teachers in a changing world.
It is not farmers who’ll miss out with an introduced CGT. Farmers stay on and work on the land. The fuss is largely generated by pretend farmers, those with farming portfolios.
The idle rich are polluting our rivers and streams. CGT will slow them down.
oh it’s worse. free movement of employees to oz means that a employee is better off in oz, and isn’t paying a flatter tax system. A flatter tax system means owners pay less of the revenue for govt, and yes, employees pay more. This sucks out productivity since the best and brightest get compensated better in oz, making their products etc.
But wait. It’s even worse, oz is warmer, its businesses aren’t all paying to feed owners greed. Every supermarket, small business, etc is incentivized by 0% CGT to ring ever last cent to pay for all that financing… …And when they do sell out, they invariable move to oz where everyone doesn’t have a heavily leverage financial portfolio, well, not as heavily incentivized, and every worker isn’t carrying their employer.
What is rent, why is it bad it’s a lot worse when you pay for the upkeep of the house, plus the owners cut, plus the extra risk from the premium banks put on coz everyone is doing riskier deals incentuvized by the flatter tax system.
a 0% CGT means a govt back benefit to monied up Nats funded by hard working battlers
It is not farmers who’ll miss out with an introduced CGT. Farmers stay on and work on the land. The fuss is largely generated by pretend farmers, those with farming portfolios.
So true, and what a lot of money those pretend farmers are going to put into propaganda against a CGT. Pretend farming for capital gain is severely detrimental to both the environment and to people who’d like to become actual farmers, so the government should be coming up with ways to make it unattractive. CGT is one of those ways, so journos’ first question to any farmer whinging about CGT should be “What’s your alternative proposal for making farming for capital gain less attractive?”
In the height of the venison boom, there used to be a term ‘Queen Street farmers’ who would have 4 wheel driver, Land Rovers then, to go to work in bought for and tax diminished by their farming operation. They were a badge of success in Auckland.
Yeah, yeah, there will be some sneers about this having always been the case muttering about the Herald, CNN, Faux News etc, but this really is something new.
For a party that likes to court the “Bible-believing Christian” vote, they’re an ethical wasteland. How any actual Christians can vote for these deceitful bags of filth I’ll never understand. But then Sarah Huckabee Sanders purports to be a Christian and spends all day telling massive bare-faced lies and making excuses for a narcissistic sex pest, so I guess they set the bar fairly low.
Yes. But in the interests of fairness those stairs are equipped with a stairlift, so portly, ruddy-faced, cardiac-arrests-waiting-to-happen are able to navigate the family home without risking a premature demise.
Pretty much cliche stuff though:
You could say it was whitewash to cover the vile truth especially coming from the CA. (Chartered Accountants. One thinks of Monty Python who seem to have had a thing about accountants, I suggest you take these once an hour until all used.)
• In general, New Zealand has higher levels of trust in professionals than Australia
• High levels of trust have significant benefits for businesses and professionals
• The importance of communicating a commitment to honesty and ethical behaviour
• Dishonesty and a lack of ethical behaviour are most likely to decrease trust.</i
Trust is at the core of the legitimacy of political parties and, by extension, the political process and our democracy. Our society depends on these power structures be given the authority by us, the people, to govern us. If we feel that we cannot trust those power structures and/or their brokers then society will suffer and eventually crumble. History 101. Trust takes time to build, to earn, and it can easily be lost. It can also be slowly eroded. This is our problem right now and we are not facing up to it and dealing with it. It is easy to say that it is a politicians’ problem and that they should fix it but this would be very mistaken. How can we deal with anything, big (CC) or small (CGT), if the political structure is broken and we don’t really have much confidence in it? This is the problem of our time: we have lost trust and confidence, in institutions, in authorities, in economic doctrines, in religion, and in ourselves …
If you want to summon Gosman, you have to speak his name backwards three times while anointing yourself in the blood of a charter school student. And remember — don’t set foot outside the circle.
Sounds like america,s been at its dirty work in venezuela for quite a while im amazed just how many filthy tentacles can be at work at the same time!! i mean havnt they just brought about regime change in Ukraine ?You,d think that would be enough for a bit but nope lets up the anti on venezuela no matter how many lies need to be told or how many bribes and threats need to be made .
These mayors are an utter disgrace. They should resign and put themselves out to pasture. They are deliberately making it harder for future generations through their ignorance and stupidity.
“Several New Zealand mayors are still reluctant to say they agree with the scientific consensus that human activities have an impact on climate change.”
Judging by the comments section on this article, they are good representatives of a good number of New Zealanders. We really ought to fund education a whole lot better.
A national policy statement on climate change, would require those mayors and their councils to give consideration to that statement when creating planning documents and making resource management decisions. We would not then need any kind of consensus amongst the councils, which is non-binding anyway.
It would be good to see this national policy statement be issued by our coalition government.
Note though from the article that the houses were sold at a price lower than asked originally by Mike Greer Homes to fall inside the Kiwibuild margins.
In other words, houses that were empty because of price have been made available for sale and occupancy. That indicates that the policy is working to help make homes more affordable.
With the sale and profit from the sale Mike Greer can continue to build homes, hopefully at more affordable prices in the future, maybe even for Kiwibuild.
Another way of looking at it, is that the high prices were unable to be sustained by the market, and Kiwibuild has provided the mechanism by which the gap between the buyer and the seller was filled.
This is a recognised consequence of help-to-buy programmes, and while some are being housed, we should recognise and admit that in the long-term they do nothing for reducing inflated housing costs and providing access to housing for all.
If Bill were back he would have had great schadenfreude with centre-lefts like me who had hoped for great things from Trudeau. Trudeau rose by social media and is now severely wounded by it. Nothing like a Canadian ‘inferred influence’ scandal to look big against the proper-sized scandals in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere.
Why bother, liberals never change, never listen or learn anything – they just keep supporting evil people thinking they will be better this time.
You just want a cathartic moment, without giving up anything or facing the fact your lesser evil, is still evil.
You can’t accept that the systems you keep forcing on people are broken, and are just their to keep up the illusion of democracy, without actually having a democracy.
We live in a world of corporate tyranny and unless you fight it – you nothing but a apologists, at best.
Hardt and Negri did better a decade ago. Even Bill could do better.
We live in one of the cleanest, institutionally strongest, most regulated, safest, most secular, least populated, least protesting, and most contented liberal states on earth.
You so funny, tell that to the kids killing themselves either quickly through suicide (were number 1, or close enough) or slowly killing themselves with Alcohol and drugs. Tell that to the homeless, the prisoners, the aged, the disabled and people hiding from the immigration department.
Tell them that the systems of power have not been taken over by corporate elects.
No wait, your one of them. You have a position which helps keep working people in check. Keeping them on low wages and not voting – because they know people like you won’t give up an inch of your privilege, or actually do anything real to challenge the dominant power structures.
Good to focus on mental health. That’s precisely what you will see in the 2019 Labour-led completely non-revolutionary Government budget.
What that will build on is New Zealand:
– Least corrupt country in the world
– 4th most peaceful in the world
– 10th best for literacy in the world
– 8th best in world for media freedom
– Highest for political rights and civil liberties
– 2nd easiest for doing business
– 4th for economic freedom
– Top 10 for protected conservation areas
– Regularly top place in the world to visit
You can find these in OECD and Wikipedia stats sources.
Aren’t there enough facts linking Trudeau to business interests pushing
projects. He was the brightest hope wasn’t he an_ thought to be right wing but with left pretensions? Each country needs to look to its own problems with sideways checks on what is happening in the USA. The trouble with big ships going down – they drag surrounding things down with them.
7:22 am today
The US trade gap with the rest of the world jumped to a 10-year high of $621bn ($NZ916bn) last year, dealing a blow to President Donald Trump’s deficit reduction plan. https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/384128/us-president-donald-trump-dealt-blow-as-us-trade-deficit-jumps
Reacting to news that the Trump administration has revoked a part of an Obama executive order requiring reporting on civilian casualties, Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA’s Director of Security with Human Rights stated:
“This is a shameful decision that will shroud this administration’s actions in even more secrecy with little accountability for its victims.
Trump will be ecstatic. “Tremendous decision! One of the best decisions this administration has made, and we’ve made a lot of tremendous decisions! But this one, which essentially allows us to shroud our, erm… ‘collateral damage’ in thick, viscous, nigh-on impenetrable veils of secrecy, well, that’s probably the most tremendous decision we’ve made this week! We continue to drain the swamp by pumping out all that nasty swamp water and replacing it with nastier swamp water! Stay tuned for more tremendousness as it comes to hand, America!”
Elizabeth Warren was struggling to contain her emotions and listening to what she saw it’s not hard to understand why.
This is the USA. The country which claims to be the champion of democracy and freedom for all people. Instead it treats people forced to flee their homelands like animals and yet still has the gall to call out other countries they don’t like for doing the same kind of thing.
My heart goes out to the good, decent Americans who are as appalled as the rest of us is at what is being done in their name.
Disgusting foul waters these lowlifes swim and kill in.
And Joe for your info when Hillary was prez she did much much worse than this and you know it why oh why are you suppressing the truth about well you know everything. 😀
The problem with liberals is the lack of intellectual courage to fight, or at the very least, hold power to account. Your too busy going the other side is bad (which it is, I don’t actually need to be reminded of this), our side good (nope not all of them, some are murderous scum).
When the honest response in that those in power don’t give a damn for people, face it, the death empowering tools in power care nothing for you or your family. So rather then run around like some Byzantine peasant chanting ‘Blue’ or ‘Green’ – have a go at power and those who control the mechanisms of power.
Mark Zuckerberg has sold close to 30 million shares of Facebook to fund an ambitious biomedical-research project, called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, with a goal of curing all disease within a generation.
A less publicized initiative related to the $US5 billion program includes work on brain-machine interfaces, devices that essentially translate thoughts into commands. One recent project is a wireless brain implant that can record, stimulate, and disrupt the movement of a monkey in real time.
In a paper published in the highly cited scientific journal Nature on New Year’s Eve, researchers detail a wireless brain device implanted in a primate that records, stimulates, and modifies its brain activity in real time, sensing a normal movement and stopping it immediately. One of those researchers is an investigator with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a nonprofit medical research group related to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Oh good, just what we needed! What’s the use of having zillions of make-believe money if one oesn’t use it to muck up people’s lives and brains so that they can’t understand anything and can’t enquire and make decisions for themselves and anything else, so being entirely flexible, protean and disposable. Tell them to go jump in the lake! Done!
It is called ‘transhumanism’, gw…wireless tech…smart cities…are the precursors…
Core premise of transhumanism …the human being is broken…weak…a biological liability…mortal…
Clearly the ‘slow kill’ method …is too slow…why invest in the environment…when you can become a machine…which does not share fundamental requirments of biological beings…
It is all coming out into the open…just as many folk decades ago stated would happen…
Which is why…IMO…kiss this biologically habitable planet…goodbye…
Chris Trotter at Bowalley Road applying his questing mind to NZ matters.
Ardern’s game-changing intuition was that all these voters really wanted to hear were different words. Commitments, promises, studies, working-groups, projects: policies filled with good intentions and promoted with powerful displays of empathy. The number of voters eager to focus on the fiscal mechanisms required to pay for Labour’s kinder, gentler New Zealand were considerably fewer.
That had always been the problem with Labour’s dreary procession of earnest middle-aged blokes. They had all been way too keen on the nuts and bolts; far too ready to tell everybody how much fiscal pain they would have to be willing to suffer in order to make all the good things they wanted for New Zealand affordable. Who the hell wanted to hear about that!
That was Jacinda’s gift. A young face. A bright smile. A “Let’s Do This!” willingness to hit the ground running. And, most of all, an extraordinary ability to make her middle-class supporters believe that, as with the relentless rise in the value of their houses, her “politics of kindness” could be brought into being without serious sacrifice or effort.
Under the comments on Ardern’s great style and success which we are all grateful and hopeful for, is the stark thought that it is NZs obvious avarice, weakness of will and moral fibre and compass that may prevent that success. Will we be able to make the bold movement forward needed to cope with the accumulation of neglect and dissolving standards of everything, and more will we forge through with programs that will help to protect and recover from the climatic and societal strikes that are coming to batter us?
Funny I have heard of the same thing in Kaiapoi – houses that failed to sell in the market are now taken over by KiwiBuild.
It could be said that the govt is propping up developers buy purchasing unsold developments. Now isn’t that corporate welfare when the govt saves a failing private enterprise ? But well done to Mike Greer still gets to sell and make a profit 😉 https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/111074456/huapai-kiwibuild-homes-had-already-been-for-sale-on-open-market
What has been is been
What is done is done
there is nothing new under the sun.
THE HOUSING SITUATION.—The number of new houses and flats constructed each year has, approximately doubled since the pre-war period. A peak of 19,200 was reached in each of the years ended 31 March 1956 and 31 March 1957. The total dropped back a little to 18,600 in the year ended 31 March 1958. This rate of house building in relation to population is higher than in most countries. Over 80 per cent of the houses built at present are for private home ownership.
There was a fairly rapid expansion in house building from 1945 to 1951, when there was a noticeable levelling-off at just over 16,000 houses each year. In August 1953 the Government convened a National Housing Conference for the purpose of surveying the general housing situation in New Zealand and investigating ways and means of implementing the Government’s housing policy of promoting the building of more houses at a reasonable cost. The conference was attended by builders and others directly associated with the building industry, and also by employers, workers, welfare organizations, local bodies, organizations interested in housing finance, and other sections of the public. Every aspect of housing was discussed, and action taken on the resolutions adopted by the conference helped to effect a further expansion in house building to the present level. The conference assessed the extent of the housing shortage and set a number of 206,000 houses in ten years as a target to overcome the shortage and provide for the increase in population expected from both natural increase and immigration. This target represented an increase of 25 per cent in the building rate. A National Housing Council was also set up.
The most noteworthy development in house building which has resulted has been the group building scheme. This scheme has been designed to give builders continuity of work, to reduce non-productive time between the finishing of one house and the starting of the next, and to assist builders in administration and supervision by enabling them to build houses for sale in groups. Plans and specifications are checked by the State Advances Corporation, which also inspects the work and, on behalf of the Government, gives an undertaking to take over at approved prices a specified number of any unsold houses. At 31 December 1958 there were 490 builders participating in the scheme, and 12,415 houses had been programmed; of these 9,785 had been completed and sold, and 675 were under construction.
So basically it removes some of the risk if the developer takes a wee discount on the sale price. The other possibility is that maybe the developer slows everything down, maybe puts some subbies on the “pay when I’m ready if I don’t go bankrupt” list.
Now, I’d like to see a ministry of works-style development, but if some deveopers build houses with the kiwibuild backstop in mind, it’s still doing the job of keeping construction going.
Ending poverty is more important than global warming. Everyone benefits from cheap oil prices. Action proposed to stop global warming usually involves raising oil prices through the roof, to the benefit of the oil companies. The result of these policies is to squeeze the middle class. This country has enormous untapped oil and gas reserves. The profits currently go to oligarchs overseas. If these resource extraction companies were state-owned, everyone would all get a tax cut from the profits.
We do need to reduce our oil usage, but until we’ve implemented a workable replacement technology (or more probably a suite of them), using domestic oil would be better both in terms carbon footprints and balance of payments.
I haven’t seen a credible policy designed to reduce our oil consumption yet, so exploration isn’t entirely stupid – except for the Key terms that give 95% of discovered resources to foreign corporations just for finding them.
Bit of over reach and hyperbole there cinny You got facts to back that statement up We get rid of oil a lot of people starve , ie no tractors, no trucks, no harvester, no ships…., we basically grind to a halt and move to preindustrial agriculture to feed a world that is 16x more populated
I think you are missing my point, which is….. drilling for more oil will not reduce poverty.
A massive amount of poverty can be attributed to climate change. Food, water and shelter are the most important factors of a human life. A changing climate affects all of that.
We don’t need tractors to commercially grow food, nor do we need to suffer from floods, droughts etc…. what we do need to do is grow smarter. Think hydroponic food growing warehouses.
Such growing techniques require no soil, no sun and up to 95% less water. Meaning crops would be cheap to grow and not weather dependent. Cheap fresh food helps those in poverty etc etc. Take it to the next level, robots growing food, like at Iron Ox… http://ironox.com/
Free/cheap energy will decrease poverty, drilling for more oil will not.
Don’t think your a twit Cinny but here is some food for thought, excuse the pun 😊
Patrick Moore, the co-founder of the environmentalist group Greenpeace, ripped into New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over the weekend as a “pompous little twit,” saying the Green New Deal plan she’s advocating is “completely crazy.”
Patrick Moore
@EcoSenseNow
Pompous little twit. You don’t have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels, or get the food into the cities. Horses? If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating.
Lmao 🙂 A particularly humorous Roald Dahl book springs to mind 🙂
Anyways…… context is important… so first I found out just who Patrick Moore is…. and hello… a media statement from Greenpeace, back in 2010 appeared..
“Patrick Moore often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental “expert” or even an “environmentalist,” while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues and taking a distinctly anti-environmental stance.
He also exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson, usually taking positions that Greenpeace opposes.”
But wait… there’s more…. ‘He claims he “saw the light” but what Moore really saw was an opportunity for financial gain. Since then he has gone from defender of the planet to a paid representative of corporate polluters.’
Let’s continue…. lololol 🙂 here’s my response to your above reply 🙂
‘If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating.’
We mostly use renewable energy for power in NZ, so Patrick Moore’s statement seems slightly irrelevant for us, and we grow trees.
‘ You don’t have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels, or get the food into the cities’
Hydroponic warehouses are often located in cities, that is part of it, a farm in the city, small footprint, tall building.
Free clean energy for all would solve so much poverty, but drilling for more oil won’t accomplish that, instead technology will. Reluctance to engage in finding such answers keeps the planet reliant on a method which is killing it.
Climate change is already causing mass death and the extinction of species. Come to think about it oil rich countries such as saudi arabia also bring about mass death, Yemen.
1: we need to address poverty and AGW both, not one at the expense of the other.
2: Tax cuts help rich people more than poor people, and besides we need to transition to a low-employment automated economy anyway.
3: raising oil prices makes alternative energies more profitable, so they get more development investment rather than developing new fracking methods to go even deeper. Longer term everyone is better off with new, more efficient tech than the internal combustion engine.
I’m trying to work out why Amy Adams has got her knickers in a twist about the census, the lack of reliability of it and the lack of important information which it should have gathered.
James Shaw said today that it took 5-7 years to get it organised to do it right. When he was made Minister he had no more than 47 working days before Christmas for an exercise which was to happen before March 6th. (Comfortably before that I suppose if it was to be done online.)
Not many days to become au fait with all the brilliant things the previous Ministers had been in charge of.
Actually I do know why she’s in the state she’s in – she’s a bloody idiot. She should look to her left in Parliament. Just before her eyes reach David Seymour they should land on Scott Simpson (starts the same as ‘simple’). The eyes would have to travel past another who was involved in the census oversight – Mark Mitchell (doesn’t start the same as ‘simple’ but is that anyway.)
She should ask them about the cock-up they spent years ‘organising.’
The Democrats announce that they will not invite the FOX Network to be a host for the upcoming Democratic Party primary debates, after allegations of corrupt practice by the FOX Netowork.
In response President Trump threatens to ban all other networks from hosting presidential debates. (Presumably all except FOX)
Trump threatens to block networks from hosting debates after Dems reject Fox
Tal Axelrod – March 6, 2019
…..allegations that late Fox News founder Roger Ailes passed along questions to Trump prior to a 2016 Republican primary debate and noted that former Fox executive Bill Shine is now the White House communications director. Several other former Fox News employees and contributors work in the Trump administration….
Kia ora Te ao Maori News Congratulat to Noa Nicholson from Dannvirke 100 years old is a great for A Maori Wahine it looks like the Whanau put on a great hakari for her.
Ka pai for protesting about whenua that was taken by stealf stolen I have one that I will be following my tupuna and taking to Court as the whenua was granted to the wrong WHANAU.
I have a strong interest in Matariki now. I have a lot to learn.
Ka pai to Kanikani 2 cool for there win in America.
Graham Tipene for getting to design that walk way in Auckland it looks awesome with the Maori art involved in the design. Ka kite ano
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Clean Streams and Capital Gains Tax.
Several years ago I attended a seminar of ‘How to be a winner’. In this seminar they spoke of how both real estate and small businesses were the source of large capital gains. Buy the house – do it up as a tax write off – sell it for profit and keep the lot. The same for a business, buy it, make it look profitable, sell it for large tax free returns. For a simple fee of $2000 this mob was willing to let you in on their methods.
Buy a property, use it as leverage to mortgage a second property, use both as leverage for the next properties… This is how you wind up with owning dozens of homes – becoming multi-millionaires yet contributing nothing to society.
With farms it is a similar method of operation. Farms are brought, their books are polished, farms are sold. Now, the way to polish the books on a farm is to raise production. To do this one uses overstocking, supplementary feedstocks, and fertiliser, many many tons of fertiliser. It pays to avoid any expenses that might stand in the way of profit. Erosion control, planting, diversity enhancement unless aesthetically pleasing to hide some problem – all are detrimental to the fast buck farm scheme.
So the rivers get filled with shit and fertiliser but the farmers books look good and the profits realised are enormous.
Now, not all farmers are tax-avoiding small business shifting wannabe millionaires, but there’s enough of them to turn our farming block into a large scale problem. One whiff of treasure and out come the pirates. This is a terrible shame as our decent Farmers are more valuable than ever, as exemplars and teachers in a changing world.
It is not farmers who’ll miss out with an introduced CGT. Farmers stay on and work on the land. The fuss is largely generated by pretend farmers, those with farming portfolios.
The idle rich are polluting our rivers and streams. CGT will slow them down.
oh it’s worse. free movement of employees to oz means that a employee is better off in oz, and isn’t paying a flatter tax system. A flatter tax system means owners pay less of the revenue for govt, and yes, employees pay more. This sucks out productivity since the best and brightest get compensated better in oz, making their products etc.
But wait. It’s even worse, oz is warmer, its businesses aren’t all paying to feed owners greed. Every supermarket, small business, etc is incentivized by 0% CGT to ring ever last cent to pay for all that financing… …And when they do sell out, they invariable move to oz where everyone doesn’t have a heavily leverage financial portfolio, well, not as heavily incentivized, and every worker isn’t carrying their employer.
What is rent, why is it bad it’s a lot worse when you pay for the upkeep of the house, plus the owners cut, plus the extra risk from the premium banks put on coz everyone is doing riskier deals incentuvized by the flatter tax system.
a 0% CGT means a govt back benefit to monied up Nats funded by hard working battlers
It is not farmers who’ll miss out with an introduced CGT. Farmers stay on and work on the land. The fuss is largely generated by pretend farmers, those with farming portfolios.
So true, and what a lot of money those pretend farmers are going to put into propaganda against a CGT. Pretend farming for capital gain is severely detrimental to both the environment and to people who’d like to become actual farmers, so the government should be coming up with ways to make it unattractive. CGT is one of those ways, so journos’ first question to any farmer whinging about CGT should be “What’s your alternative proposal for making farming for capital gain less attractive?”
In the height of the venison boom, there used to be a term ‘Queen Street farmers’ who would have 4 wheel driver, Land Rovers then, to go to work in bought for and tax diminished by their farming operation. They were a badge of success in Auckland.
I think you’ll like this. I’d like to read the textbook myself.
’20 minutes of TED talk has done more than 50 years of struggling against official opposition’
This is not that TED talk 😀
‘Running Out Of Time”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7pI7IYaJLI
Thanks WtB I’ll put that on my list for today. I’m off to save the world. Hah.
Another deceptive dirty politics tactic – creating entire new websites disguised as legitimate news outlets to spread political propaganda.
https://www.salon.com/2019/03/05/republicans-launch-propaganda-sites-designed-to-look-like-local-news-outlets/
Yeah, yeah, there will be some sneers about this having always been the case muttering about the Herald, CNN, Faux News etc, but this really is something new.
For a party that likes to court the “Bible-believing Christian” vote, they’re an ethical wasteland. How any actual Christians can vote for these deceitful bags of filth I’ll never understand. But then Sarah Huckabee Sanders purports to be a Christian and spends all day telling massive bare-faced lies and making excuses for a narcissistic sex pest, so I guess they set the bar fairly low.
Thanks for that link, dang!
Houston, we have a problem with our trusters.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1903/S00082/experts-defy-falling-public-trust.htm
Would have been interesting if political party trust had been broken down into each party. Which one would you trust most?
That’s conducted every election.
No its not. There would be many National supporters who would not Trust National but at election time, they could not vote for anyone else.
Who would you most trust to babysit your grandchildren? Gerry Brownlee, or Trevor Mallard?
Take all the time you need.
Does the babysitting location contain stairs?
Yes. But in the interests of fairness those stairs are equipped with a stairlift, so portly, ruddy-faced, cardiac-arrests-waiting-to-happen are able to navigate the family home without risking a premature demise.
One million people don’t vote. Do you think lack of trust has got anything to do with this?
Pretty much cliche stuff though:
You could say it was whitewash to cover the vile truth especially coming from the CA. (Chartered Accountants. One thinks of Monty Python who seem to have had a thing about accountants, I suggest you take these once an hour until all used.)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrsB1RfksEA
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuFMHybILuw
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg0l8bn5UuM
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5aN0VmvFn4
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YUiBBltOg4
The Crimson Assurance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_IuuQZ0IO8
Meaning of Life – The Crimson Permanent Assurance
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSO9OFJNMBA
The Crimson Assurance Part 2 7.+mins
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNlYBNTCBG8
Other key report findings include:
• In general, New Zealand has higher levels of trust in professionals than Australia
• High levels of trust have significant benefits for businesses and professionals
• The importance of communicating a commitment to honesty and ethical behaviour
• Dishonesty and a lack of ethical behaviour are most likely to decrease trust.</i
Trust is at the core of the legitimacy of political parties and, by extension, the political process and our democracy. Our society depends on these power structures be given the authority by us, the people, to govern us. If we feel that we cannot trust those power structures and/or their brokers then society will suffer and eventually crumble. History 101. Trust takes time to build, to earn, and it can easily be lost. It can also be slowly eroded. This is our problem right now and we are not facing up to it and dealing with it. It is easy to say that it is a politicians’ problem and that they should fix it but this would be very mistaken. How can we deal with anything, big (CC) or small (CGT), if the political structure is broken and we don’t really have much confidence in it? This is the problem of our time: we have lost trust and confidence, in institutions, in authorities, in economic doctrines, in religion, and in ourselves …
Greg Palast – clears a few things up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeNCbXVHrR8&ab_channel=TheJimmyDoreShow
Excellent. Thanks Adam.
Where’s our resident Venezuela expert Gosman on this?
If you want to summon Gosman, you have to speak his name backwards three times while anointing yourself in the blood of a charter school student. And remember — don’t set foot outside the circle.
Sounds like america,s been at its dirty work in venezuela for quite a while im amazed just how many filthy tentacles can be at work at the same time!! i mean havnt they just brought about regime change in Ukraine ?You,d think that would be enough for a bit but nope lets up the anti on venezuela no matter how many lies need to be told or how many bribes and threats need to be made .
These mayors are an utter disgrace. They should resign and put themselves out to pasture. They are deliberately making it harder for future generations through their ignorance and stupidity.
“Several New Zealand mayors are still reluctant to say they agree with the scientific consensus that human activities have an impact on climate change.”
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/111063926/several-mayors-unsure-whether-human-activities-contribute-to-climate-change
Judging by the comments section on this article, they are good representatives of a good number of New Zealanders. We really ought to fund education a whole lot better.
A national policy statement on climate change, would require those mayors and their councils to give consideration to that statement when creating planning documents and making resource management decisions. We would not then need any kind of consensus amongst the councils, which is non-binding anyway.
It would be good to see this national policy statement be issued by our coalition government.
A good read on cost-benefit analyses as applied to the idea of carbon taxes.
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2019/03/06/green-new-deal-000884
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/111074456/huapai-kiwibuild-homes-had-already-been-for-sale-on-open-market
Slow hand clap anyone?
Twyford strikes again!
Note though from the article that the houses were sold at a price lower than asked originally by Mike Greer Homes to fall inside the Kiwibuild margins.
In other words, houses that were empty because of price have been made available for sale and occupancy. That indicates that the policy is working to help make homes more affordable.
With the sale and profit from the sale Mike Greer can continue to build homes, hopefully at more affordable prices in the future, maybe even for Kiwibuild.
But its not increasing the number of homes available
Yes it is . That builder can now get on with the next ones he was going build instead of sitting on his hands doing renos while they sell.
It is increasing the number of houses below the Kiwibuild threshold price.
The builder, as bwaghorn below says, gets on with building new houses.
The builder might just join the Kiwibuild scheme in a bigger way.
These are all pluses.
Another way of looking at it, is that the high prices were unable to be sustained by the market, and Kiwibuild has provided the mechanism by which the gap between the buyer and the seller was filled.
This is a recognised consequence of help-to-buy programmes, and while some are being housed, we should recognise and admit that in the long-term they do nothing for reducing inflated housing costs and providing access to housing for all.
If Bill were back he would have had great schadenfreude with centre-lefts like me who had hoped for great things from Trudeau. Trudeau rose by social media and is now severely wounded by it. Nothing like a Canadian ‘inferred influence’ scandal to look big against the proper-sized scandals in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere.
Come back Bill and spank us liberals .
Why bother, liberals never change, never listen or learn anything – they just keep supporting evil people thinking they will be better this time.
You just want a cathartic moment, without giving up anything or facing the fact your lesser evil, is still evil.
You can’t accept that the systems you keep forcing on people are broken, and are just their to keep up the illusion of democracy, without actually having a democracy.
We live in a world of corporate tyranny and unless you fight it – you nothing but a apologists, at best.
Harder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30GusMbvj9k&ab_channel=AerO%27Head
That’s what you’ve got?
Hardt and Negri did better a decade ago. Even Bill could do better.
We live in one of the cleanest, institutionally strongest, most regulated, safest, most secular, least populated, least protesting, and most contented liberal states on earth.
Rebellion? Not here.
You so funny, tell that to the kids killing themselves either quickly through suicide (were number 1, or close enough) or slowly killing themselves with Alcohol and drugs. Tell that to the homeless, the prisoners, the aged, the disabled and people hiding from the immigration department.
Tell them that the systems of power have not been taken over by corporate elects.
No wait, your one of them. You have a position which helps keep working people in check. Keeping them on low wages and not voting – because they know people like you won’t give up an inch of your privilege, or actually do anything real to challenge the dominant power structures.
Good to focus on mental health. That’s precisely what you will see in the 2019 Labour-led completely non-revolutionary Government budget.
What that will build on is New Zealand:
– Least corrupt country in the world
– 4th most peaceful in the world
– 10th best for literacy in the world
– 8th best in world for media freedom
– Highest for political rights and civil liberties
– 2nd easiest for doing business
– 4th for economic freedom
– Top 10 for protected conservation areas
– Regularly top place in the world to visit
You can find these in OECD and Wikipedia stats sources.
Plenty to do, but lots to build on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRVAmv74Eiw
Yeah wonderful – if you’ve financial security. Otherwise it’s miserable.
Aren’t there enough facts linking Trudeau to business interests pushing
projects. He was the brightest hope wasn’t he an_ thought to be right wing but with left pretensions? Each country needs to look to its own problems with sideways checks on what is happening in the USA. The trouble with big ships going down – they drag surrounding things down with them.
7:22 am today
The US trade gap with the rest of the world jumped to a 10-year high of $621bn ($NZ916bn) last year, dealing a blow to President Donald Trump’s deficit reduction plan.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/384128/us-president-donald-trump-dealt-blow-as-us-trade-deficit-jumps
Best to lower your political expectation standards and avoid perpetual disappointment.
Prefer to maintain high expectations re our politicians – I can handle perpetual disappointment, both receiving and giving. 🙂
Somehow this thread reminds me of …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NP-kD4C1SA
Dunno why.
Of course HRC was the real villain.
/
Reacting to news that the Trump administration has revoked a part of an Obama executive order requiring reporting on civilian casualties, Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA’s Director of Security with Human Rights stated:
“This is a shameful decision that will shroud this administration’s actions in even more secrecy with little accountability for its victims.
https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/trump-administration-makes-shameful-decision-to-shroud-civilian-casualties-in-secrecy/
Trump will be ecstatic. “Tremendous decision! One of the best decisions this administration has made, and we’ve made a lot of tremendous decisions! But this one, which essentially allows us to shroud our, erm… ‘collateral damage’ in thick, viscous, nigh-on impenetrable veils of secrecy, well, that’s probably the most tremendous decision we’ve made this week! We continue to drain the swamp by pumping out all that nasty swamp water and replacing it with nastier swamp water! Stay tuned for more tremendousness as it comes to hand, America!”
Elizabeth Warren on ‘Murican tremendousness
https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1103427009290608640
Elizabeth Warren was struggling to contain her emotions and listening to what she saw it’s not hard to understand why.
This is the USA. The country which claims to be the champion of democracy and freedom for all people. Instead it treats people forced to flee their homelands like animals and yet still has the gall to call out other countries they don’t like for doing the same kind of thing.
My heart goes out to the good, decent Americans who are as appalled as the rest of us is at what is being done in their name.
Disgusting foul waters these lowlifes swim and kill in.
And Joe for your info when Hillary was prez she did much much worse than this and you know it why oh why are you suppressing the truth about well you know everything. 😀
The problem with liberals is the lack of intellectual courage to fight, or at the very least, hold power to account. Your too busy going the other side is bad (which it is, I don’t actually need to be reminded of this), our side good (nope not all of them, some are murderous scum).
When the honest response in that those in power don’t give a damn for people, face it, the death empowering tools in power care nothing for you or your family. So rather then run around like some Byzantine peasant chanting ‘Blue’ or ‘Green’ – have a go at power and those who control the mechanisms of power.
Daniel Graystone?
Mark Zuckerberg has sold close to 30 million shares of Facebook to fund an ambitious biomedical-research project, called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, with a goal of curing all disease within a generation.
A less publicized initiative related to the $US5 billion program includes work on brain-machine interfaces, devices that essentially translate thoughts into commands. One recent project is a wireless brain implant that can record, stimulate, and disrupt the movement of a monkey in real time.
In a paper published in the highly cited scientific journal Nature on New Year’s Eve, researchers detail a wireless brain device implanted in a primate that records, stimulates, and modifies its brain activity in real time, sensing a normal movement and stopping it immediately. One of those researchers is an investigator with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a nonprofit medical research group related to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/chan-zuckerberg-research-implantable-brain-device-primates-2018-12
Oh good, just what we needed! What’s the use of having zillions of make-believe money if one oesn’t use it to muck up people’s lives and brains so that they can’t understand anything and can’t enquire and make decisions for themselves and anything else, so being entirely flexible, protean and disposable. Tell them to go jump in the lake! Done!
It is called ‘transhumanism’, gw…wireless tech…smart cities…are the precursors…
Core premise of transhumanism …the human being is broken…weak…a biological liability…mortal…
Clearly the ‘slow kill’ method …is too slow…why invest in the environment…when you can become a machine…which does not share fundamental requirments of biological beings…
It is all coming out into the open…just as many folk decades ago stated would happen…
Which is why…IMO…kiss this biologically habitable planet…goodbye…
Some semblance of justice for a courageous journalist.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/111098258/nicky-hager-settles-with-westpac-after-personal-information-released-to-police
Now, has any police officer faced investigation for making the unjustified request?
Or is that being handled by officer forgetful?
Chris Trotter at Bowalley Road applying his questing mind to NZ matters.
Ardern’s game-changing intuition was that all these voters really wanted to hear were different words. Commitments, promises, studies, working-groups, projects: policies filled with good intentions and promoted with powerful displays of empathy. The number of voters eager to focus on the fiscal mechanisms required to pay for Labour’s kinder, gentler New Zealand were considerably fewer.
That had always been the problem with Labour’s dreary procession of earnest middle-aged blokes. They had all been way too keen on the nuts and bolts; far too ready to tell everybody how much fiscal pain they would have to be willing to suffer in order to make all the good things they wanted for New Zealand affordable. Who the hell wanted to hear about that!
That was Jacinda’s gift. A young face. A bright smile. A “Let’s Do This!” willingness to hit the ground running. And, most of all, an extraordinary ability to make her middle-class supporters believe that, as with the relentless rise in the value of their houses, her “politics of kindness” could be brought into being without serious sacrifice or effort.
Under the comments on Ardern’s great style and success which we are all grateful and hopeful for, is the stark thought that it is NZs obvious avarice, weakness of will and moral fibre and compass that may prevent that success. Will we be able to make the bold movement forward needed to cope with the accumulation of neglect and dissolving standards of everything, and more will we forge through with programs that will help to protect and recover from the climatic and societal strikes that are coming to batter us?
Funny I have heard of the same thing in Kaiapoi – houses that failed to sell in the market are now taken over by KiwiBuild.
It could be said that the govt is propping up developers buy purchasing unsold developments. Now isn’t that corporate welfare when the govt saves a failing private enterprise ? But well done to Mike Greer still gets to sell and make a profit 😉
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/111074456/huapai-kiwibuild-homes-had-already-been-for-sale-on-open-market
Needs must when the devil drives. Old saying.
And the Labour Coalition isn’t the devil here.
What has been is been
What is done is done
there is nothing new under the sun.
THE HOUSING SITUATION.—The number of new houses and flats constructed each year has, approximately doubled since the pre-war period. A peak of 19,200 was reached in each of the years ended 31 March 1956 and 31 March 1957. The total dropped back a little to 18,600 in the year ended 31 March 1958. This rate of house building in relation to population is higher than in most countries. Over 80 per cent of the houses built at present are for private home ownership.
There was a fairly rapid expansion in house building from 1945 to 1951, when there was a noticeable levelling-off at just over 16,000 houses each year. In August 1953 the Government convened a National Housing Conference for the purpose of surveying the general housing situation in New Zealand and investigating ways and means of implementing the Government’s housing policy of promoting the building of more houses at a reasonable cost. The conference was attended by builders and others directly associated with the building industry, and also by employers, workers, welfare organizations, local bodies, organizations interested in housing finance, and other sections of the public. Every aspect of housing was discussed, and action taken on the resolutions adopted by the conference helped to effect a further expansion in house building to the present level. The conference assessed the extent of the housing shortage and set a number of 206,000 houses in ten years as a target to overcome the shortage and provide for the increase in population expected from both natural increase and immigration. This target represented an increase of 25 per cent in the building rate. A National Housing Council was also set up.
The most noteworthy development in house building which has resulted has been the group building scheme. This scheme has been designed to give builders continuity of work, to reduce non-productive time between the finishing of one house and the starting of the next, and to assist builders in administration and supervision by enabling them to build houses for sale in groups. Plans and specifications are checked by the State Advances Corporation, which also inspects the work and, on behalf of the Government, gives an undertaking to take over at approved prices a specified number of any unsold houses. At 31 December 1958 there were 490 builders participating in the scheme, and 12,415 houses had been programmed; of these 9,785 had been completed and sold, and 675 were under construction.
https://www3.stats.govt.nz/New_Zealand_Official_Yearbooks/1959/NZOYB_1959.html?_ga=2.6355505.2035999012.1551916704-443778311.1515815050#idchapter_1_211608
So basically it removes some of the risk if the developer takes a wee discount on the sale price. The other possibility is that maybe the developer slows everything down, maybe puts some subbies on the “pay when I’m ready if I don’t go bankrupt” list.
Now, I’d like to see a ministry of works-style development, but if some deveopers build houses with the kiwibuild backstop in mind, it’s still doing the job of keeping construction going.
“He said the company had to discount the houses to get to the KiwiBuild price threshold, which caps two-bedroom properties in Auckland at $600,000.”
So says the Mike Greer manager.
Part of the deal for kiwibuild is to get prices down to more affordable levels, yes? And inhabited.
Six houses uninhabited helps no-one, except those who own’ghost’ houses for the sole purpose of making capital gains.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/103962397/minister-of-housing-blames-national-for-empty-ghost-houses
Twyford said “Ghost houses can be blamed on the previous government’s policies that have allowed rampant capital gain.”
Another good reason for a CGT. Auckland at one stage had 33,000 empty houses.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11654495
Sounds like a successful public-private partnership.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/383693/arrow-the-latest-pawn-in-construction-chess-match
A good report on the construction industry’s woes from 3/1/2019.
Ending poverty is more important than global warming. Everyone benefits from cheap oil prices. Action proposed to stop global warming usually involves raising oil prices through the roof, to the benefit of the oil companies. The result of these policies is to squeeze the middle class. This country has enormous untapped oil and gas reserves. The profits currently go to oligarchs overseas. If these resource extraction companies were state-owned, everyone would all get a tax cut from the profits.
Global warming aka Climate Change is a massive reason why people are in poverty. Failing crops, displacement due to climate, flooding, fires etc etc
Drilling for more oil won’t do bugger all for either poverty or climate change IMHO.
We do need to reduce our oil usage, but until we’ve implemented a workable replacement technology (or more probably a suite of them), using domestic oil would be better both in terms carbon footprints and balance of payments.
I haven’t seen a credible policy designed to reduce our oil consumption yet, so exploration isn’t entirely stupid – except for the Key terms that give 95% of discovered resources to foreign corporations just for finding them.
Bit of over reach and hyperbole there cinny You got facts to back that statement up We get rid of oil a lot of people starve , ie no tractors, no trucks, no harvester, no ships…., we basically grind to a halt and move to preindustrial agriculture to feed a world that is 16x more populated
I think you are missing my point, which is….. drilling for more oil will not reduce poverty.
A massive amount of poverty can be attributed to climate change. Food, water and shelter are the most important factors of a human life. A changing climate affects all of that.
“climate change is an acute threat to poorer people across the world, with the power to push more than 100 million people back into poverty over the next fifteen years.”
https://www.gfdrr.org/en/feature-story/managing-impacts-climate-change-poverty
We don’t need tractors to commercially grow food, nor do we need to suffer from floods, droughts etc…. what we do need to do is grow smarter. Think hydroponic food growing warehouses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_tvJtUHnmU
Such growing techniques require no soil, no sun and up to 95% less water. Meaning crops would be cheap to grow and not weather dependent. Cheap fresh food helps those in poverty etc etc. Take it to the next level, robots growing food, like at Iron Ox… http://ironox.com/
Free/cheap energy will decrease poverty, drilling for more oil will not.
Don’t think your a twit Cinny but here is some food for thought, excuse the pun 😊
Patrick Moore, the co-founder of the environmentalist group Greenpeace, ripped into New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over the weekend as a “pompous little twit,” saying the Green New Deal plan she’s advocating is “completely crazy.”
Patrick Moore
@EcoSenseNow
Pompous little twit. You don’t have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels, or get the food into the cities. Horses? If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating.
You would bring about mass death.
Lmao 🙂 A particularly humorous Roald Dahl book springs to mind 🙂
Anyways…… context is important… so first I found out just who Patrick Moore is…. and hello… a media statement from Greenpeace, back in 2010 appeared..
“Patrick Moore often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental “expert” or even an “environmentalist,” while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues and taking a distinctly anti-environmental stance.
He also exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson, usually taking positions that Greenpeace opposes.”
But wait… there’s more…. ‘He claims he “saw the light” but what Moore really saw was an opportunity for financial gain. Since then he has gone from defender of the planet to a paid representative of corporate polluters.’
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/greenpeace-statement-on-patric/
Let’s continue…. lololol 🙂 here’s my response to your above reply 🙂
‘If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating.’
We mostly use renewable energy for power in NZ, so Patrick Moore’s statement seems slightly irrelevant for us, and we grow trees.
‘ You don’t have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels, or get the food into the cities’
Hydroponic warehouses are often located in cities, that is part of it, a farm in the city, small footprint, tall building.
Free clean energy for all would solve so much poverty, but drilling for more oil won’t accomplish that, instead technology will. Reluctance to engage in finding such answers keeps the planet reliant on a method which is killing it.
Climate change is already causing mass death and the extinction of species. Come to think about it oil rich countries such as saudi arabia also bring about mass death, Yemen.
Nitey nite 🙂 Bedtime for me.
1: we need to address poverty and AGW both, not one at the expense of the other.
2: Tax cuts help rich people more than poor people, and besides we need to transition to a low-employment automated economy anyway.
3: raising oil prices makes alternative energies more profitable, so they get more development investment rather than developing new fracking methods to go even deeper. Longer term everyone is better off with new, more efficient tech than the internal combustion engine.
Energy poverty in the North Island in may is a real risk.What is this hi tech stuff going to run on ?
https://nzgb.redspider.co.nz/
Fucked if I know, but increasing fossil fuel mining won’t fix a May problem, either.
Electricity.
Which we have plenty of. If we use the off peak power.
Stella performance by Soimon in the house today during question time.
“Stella”? Was he drunk?
I guess it’s hard to tell with Simon…
Dang Tony, that’s than better a married at first sight bait advert…lmao
*skips off grinning to find the clip*
Laughing here, can’t find him on any of today’s clips. Was it a stella performance because he wasn’t there?
I’m trying to work out why Amy Adams has got her knickers in a twist about the census, the lack of reliability of it and the lack of important information which it should have gathered.
James Shaw said today that it took 5-7 years to get it organised to do it right. When he was made Minister he had no more than 47 working days before Christmas for an exercise which was to happen before March 6th. (Comfortably before that I suppose if it was to be done online.)
Not many days to become au fait with all the brilliant things the previous Ministers had been in charge of.
Actually I do know why she’s in the state she’s in – she’s a bloody idiot. She should look to her left in Parliament. Just before her eyes reach David Seymour they should land on Scott Simpson (starts the same as ‘simple’). The eyes would have to travel past another who was involved in the census oversight – Mark Mitchell (doesn’t start the same as ‘simple’ but is that anyway.)
She should ask them about the cock-up they spent years ‘organising.’
“can’t handle the truth”
Meet the new one party US state broadcaster
The Democrats announce that they will not invite the FOX Network to be a host for the upcoming Democratic Party primary debates, after allegations of corrupt practice by the FOX Netowork.
In response President Trump threatens to ban all other networks from hosting presidential debates. (Presumably all except FOX)
Trump threatens to block networks from hosting debates after Dems reject Fox
Tal Axelrod – March 6, 2019
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/432961-trump-threatens-to-block-networks-from-hosting-debates-after-dems
…..allegations that late Fox News founder Roger Ailes passed along questions to Trump prior to a 2016 Republican primary debate and noted that former Fox executive Bill Shine is now the White House communications director. Several other former Fox News employees and contributors work in the Trump administration….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXU2vZTTeMU
Any Capital Gains Tax is really a punishment for planning,thinking ,saving,investing and distributing to those who don’t.
or cannot
I fully agree and they should call it Capital Punishment Tax.
Just like income tax is really a punishment for having a job and GST is really a punishment for needing to eat – ie, no not really at all.
Kia ora Te ao Maori News Congratulat to Noa Nicholson from Dannvirke 100 years old is a great for A Maori Wahine it looks like the Whanau put on a great hakari for her.
Ka pai for protesting about whenua that was taken by stealf stolen I have one that I will be following my tupuna and taking to Court as the whenua was granted to the wrong WHANAU.
I have a strong interest in Matariki now. I have a lot to learn.
Ka pai to Kanikani 2 cool for there win in America.
Graham Tipene for getting to design that walk way in Auckland it looks awesome with the Maori art involved in the design. Ka kite ano