“As I write, with over 75% of all yesterday’s English local election results in, Labour has a net gain of 55 councillors compared to the high water mark of the 2014 result in these wards, while the Tories have a net gain of one seat against a 2014 result which was regarded at the time as disastrous for them, and led the Daily Telegraph to editoralise “David Cameron Must Now Assuage the Voters’ Rage”.
Yet both the BBC and Sky News, have all night and this morning, treated these results, in which the Labour Party has increased by 3% an already record number of councillors in this election cycle, as a disaster. What is more, they have used that false analysis to plug again and again the “anti-Semitism in the Labour Party” witch-hunt. It was of course the continuous exacerbation of this mostly false accusation by Blairite MP’s which – deliberately on their part – stopped the Labour Party doing still better. The Blairites are all over the airwaves plugging this meme again today.”
@Ed +1, The establishment ‘western left’ ie the neo liberal Blairites, DNC, and most of our own Labour Party etc, including all their associated ‘liberal’ media arms would rather see the right win than see a real Left Progressive project gain any ground at all, that much is plain for all to see.
May I ask
.
What is Morrissey ? Is he /she proposing a reopening of Auschwitz ?. Buchenwald perhaps. Clearly, he is yet another misogynist misfit bully, kicking the ass off Jacinda.
The sissy Morressy
Whatever, he/she is, he/she is rather spiteful. Smacking women around has become a major national party trait. Sickening.
+1 Morrissey, the lack of pretty much any ongoing MSM coverage of the massacres taking place in Gaza right now is shameful, but also unfortunately unsurprising.
I don’t think Jacinda would never put herself on the line for an issue of morality if it would hurt her politically, remember she is of course only another third way neoliberal, just enabling in softening the multiple blows of a debunked economic ideology.
I have come to the conclusion Corbyn will never be the PM of the UK. Which isn’t to say I don’t think he can – and probably will – win the next general election over there. It is just he will never be allowed to form a government.
Here is what will happen. Labour will win the next election under Corbyn and the Blairite Torys in Labour, having coat tailed back into parliament under a Labour banner, will declare that they “cannot in good conscience” allow Corbyn to rule and implement his “disasterous policies” and that for the “good of the UK” they’ll form a rump centrist party and prop up the Tories for five more years.
That doing so might fatally damage UK democracy and even trigger violent rioting and a semi-coup will be ignored; The Blairites have demonstrated no powers of reflection or introspection. They’ll absolve themselves of all blame, and smear their opponents and pass ever harsher laws to repress dissent until such time as they get their tunr to ascend to the house of Lords and the boards of various financial institutions.
“I have come to the conclusion Corbyn will never be … allowed to form a government.”
Quite possibly – and I have to confess that I’m impatient to see how such a prospect would play out. Your scenario is certainly imaginable – and there are darker alternatives in the background.
What lengths will a corrupt and anti-democratic UK establishment go to in order to prevent it happening? Is there a chance that they will over-reach themselves so disgracefully that they lose control of the narrative? I hope we get the opportunity to see.
WH: What about the global situation, have things turned out as you expected?
KM: Pretty much. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and Party-state leaderships who never read my work properly, we have for the first time in human history unrestricted capitalism across the Earth. The world proletariat has never been larger. But, with the neoliberal roll-back of socialism and social democracy the flaws of capitalism are starkly obvious. Stagnant economic growth, overproduction, underconsumption, massive private debt throughout the system and everyday life, financial bubbles and collapses, periodic economic crises, a truly massive slum population increasingly angry at their plight, wanting to migrate…. Capitalism is not in great shape, don`t you agree?
Sadly we also have ‘tyrants’ still terrorising us all; – destroying our world as this one is;
Fact;
The historic curse of John Key has now finally been visited on every other country he has chosen to curse and live.
It is a fact that during the last decade, the US mainland, Hawaii, and NZ have all been at the centre of either earthquakes, volcanic activity, adverse weather events, or unstable governance.
It just dawned on me that everywhere John Key has resided in has been severely affected by either earthquakes, floods, eruptions and unstable governments.
I just hope that John key just resides elsewhere permanently now so NZ can find a way to recover from the earthquakes, floods, and all the other terrible effects this man has caused us all during his cured rein over us.
I don’t recognise key as morally ‘fit’ for a knighthood.
My goodness.
Your leader must be Brian Tamaki.
Your ridiculous rant about John Key is exactly the same thing as Tamaki was postulating.
According to Brian gays, sinners and murderers were responsible for earthquakes. You pin it on John Key.
Do you really believe this stuff, as Tamaki seems to, or is it simply the hangover from excessive consumption of mind-altering substances?
For your Prophet’s views on the same events see https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11749215
Well maybe Ruth Richardson (Limited) then, as her website used to proudly tell us – as adviser to various Sth American ‘jurisdictions’ (on their policies – going forward).
I’m not too sure she’d be too keen on visiting some of those places now (going forward).
Bloody interesting btw, how you appear to be so protective of JK – that poor wee boy who struggled with a solo-mum having to do her best to put food on the table in a State House, and who rose to fame and fortune (‘on the back of’) his own efforts. Notwithstanding most others were doing loikwoise in those poorer suburbs of ChCH – some even faintly remembering the ‘night cart’.
God how he must have felt SO bloody indequate having to attend BoiseHi rather than Christs.
What rotters we all are to be so cynical of JK’s rise to fame because we happen to disagree with the morals and ethics with which he did so.
JK should probably be shouting Nick Leeson a lunch somewhere in the Middle East where they can both have a replay of throwing the dice – winner takes all
You really have very little connection with the real world.
Protective of JK? Really? Can you demonstrate that or is it like so many of your statements, merely a product of your fetid imagination?
“he must have felt SO bloody indequate having to attend BoiseHi “. I suppose you have access to his deepest thoughts. He doesn’t seem to have ever expressed the thoughts publicly. The only senior politician I have ever seen who expressed such views was Michael Cullen. He of course seems to blame all his bitterness on the fact that he went to Christs, not that he was excluded.
Surely you aren’t as irrational as cleangreen. You do seem to be supporting this little epistle of his so it seems only reasonable to assume that you also think the Key can cause earthquakes.
Can you explain the actual mechanism? Just what does he do to cause the faults to move? How does he cause the volcanoes to erupt?
Please tell us. I am sure there are Geologists and Geophysicists who are dying to know. Of course if you did try and explain they would probably die from laughing about your views.
Maybe you’ve forgotten the spin and bullshit when JK first came to be PM.
There were so many sad sack stories circulating about his rags to riches shit going round that it reminded me that a good many had bogs in the back yard and that for them it was Norman Normal.
I’m not suggesting Key can cause Earthquakes, I am suggesting there are a good many who still think the sun shines brightly from an anus supported by a couple of knock-knees, and that there is a persona of someone that you appear to still idolise that’s about as genuine as a Chinese made Rolex.
You started this comment so well.
Yes I do remember the rather over the top reaction to Key at the beginning. It happens with all of them and you are quite entitled to talk about it.
The problem is that in the second paragraph you went from the general, “there were so many …..” to the particular “you appear to still idolise ….”.
If you are going to make claims about me then I suggest you provide some evidence. Otherwise you are no different, in principle, to the rat-bags making up the stories about Gayford.
You can’t be all bad. Anyone who appreciates Joe Cocker has some redeeming features.
I have had a soft spot for McFlock’s opinions ever since I found that he was a cigar enthusiast. Nobody who can understand the appeal of a good cigar can really be other than a gentleman underneath.
“With the Budget fast approaching perhaps our government should when selling us a vision not be too quick in over promising. (Included is the broken promise of the “deferred” $10 doctor visit that was to commence 1st July 2018)”
Its too late – they have already done the over selling – now they are in the letting people down phase.
James I lot of people will understand being “let down” but labour having to phase in their policies such as cheaper GP visits given the disgusting underspending and deliberate move to cover up the state of Middlemore Hospital.
Did you read the bit in the link that says we will plant half a billion trees at current rates anyway.. With a bit of creative accounting they could probably get to a billion without lifting a finger 🙂
In the 1930s USA half a million coal miners mined 600million tons.
Today a hundred thousand miners mine a billion tons.
Be careful judging today’s potential by 1930s outputs.
Which explains how only a few thousand forestry workers can “plant” 50-odd million trees a year. The biggest barrier seems to be finding 50,000 more hectares to put pine on over ten years.
As the dike grew, physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz calculated the force of the tide as the smaller gap made it stronger. Ten thousand workers, 27 large dredges, 13 floating cranes, 132 barges, and 88 tugs worked on the project at the end, timed to close the dike at low tide; it was finished on 28 May 1932.[2] Construction progressed better than expected; at three points along the line of the dike there were deeper underwater trenches where the tidal current was much stronger than elsewhere. These had been considered to be major obstacles to completing the dike, but all of them proved to be relatively straightforward. Two years earlier than initially thought, the Zuiderzee ceased to be, as the last tidal trench, the Vlieter, was closed by a final bucket of till. The IJsselmeer was born, even though it was still salty at the time.
…
The amount of material used is estimated at 23 million cubic metres (810,000,000 cu ft) of sand and 13.5 million cubic metres (480,000,000 cu ft) of till and over the years an average of around four to five thousand workers were involved with the construction every day, relieving some of the unemployment following the Great Depression. [my bold]
Herodotus, slaves built many great structures, so did armies way back then.
Tell me again why some men joined the army, was it to avoid prison or a harsh sentence back in the day?
Re the bridge the Romans built… “Since he (Caesar) had over 40,000 soldiers at his disposal, they built the first bridge in only 10 days using local lumber”
What was the punishment for abandoning or disobeying the Roman army?
To plant one billion trees at 1000 per day would be:
1 billion divided by 1000 = 1 million days
1 million days divided by 365 = 2739.72602739726 years
For one person it’s a bit much so it probably pays to hire more than one person to do it. If they hired three thousand they could probably get it done in about a year.
This is why you do at least some basic research before making bollocks assertions.
His figures are supported by a usually reputable source. https://www.history.com/topics/civilian-conservation-corps
You will of course have noted that he never said that there were 3 million people employed for the whole of the 10 years. He just said 3 million were involved.
These people also did lots of other things you know
Why don’t you read the link and then tell us whether you want to revise your comment after considering the facts.
Oh, dear.
Never let a few facts get in the way of a good moan.
Come on. It isn’t a very long article and I’m sure you can face the fact that you may, just occasionally, be wrong.
I did in fact point that out.
“These people also did lots of other things you know”
It doesn’t really make it moot of course, in the meaning of the word that is “no longer relevant”.
It just makes DTB’s calculations look rather silly and the definition of moot as “subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty” is certainly applicable.
IMO it displays the vacuum in the promise of 1b trees when you include existing replenishment replanting to achieve the desired numbers. https://www.labour.org.nz/speech_from_the_throne
This government is committed to a new planting programme, planting 100 million trees a year to reach a billion more trees in ten years. This New Zealand First initiative also connects directly to this government’s determination to take action on climate change.”
See that reach a billion MORE trees, nothing about adding 500m to the existing 500m current replanting program. https://www.labour.org.nz/red_letter_day_for_the_east_coast
“At the heart of this wide-ranging policy is the Government’s billion trees programme with enormous opportunities for our Māori people. It has to be remembered that nurseries are going to be needed for the millions of native trees that will have to be planted this year.
IMO our govt has been found out and they are scrambling to find a way of keeping their vision, even if it requires to act as the way Nation would.
When the policy was announced it was perfectly clear. When Jones was made minister it was perfectly clear: “It is understood that about 50 million trees are already planted in New Zealand each year, meaning the new Government’s planting will double that.” From your own link in the previous comment.
And the goal is a billion trees planted. That is not misleading.
“See that reach a billion MORE trees, nothing about adding 500m to the existing 500m current replanting program.” Well, yeah, it’s a billion more trees than we have now.
Seriously, if your problem with the planting policy is that the new government will only double the number of trees rather than triple it, you’re doing pretty well. And if the challenge were so difficult, how did the nats get to 70million in 2012?
So, can you tell me how to compare a conservation effort doing everything and involving millions of people over a decade can be compared to a single, specific, task that will be done by a couple of thousand people over a year or so?
Can you tell me how, given the maths, it’s not actually possible to plant a billion trees as implied by Herodotus ?
The assertion Herodotus made, and that you objected to was very simple.
“During the depression in the USA the CCC planted over 3 billion trees, that involved 3 million people over 10 years”.
You then tried to claim that these numbers must be false and said
“This is why you do at least some basic research before making bollocks assertions”.
The assertion as stated was not bollocks. There were that many people involved and they did plant that many trees.
You then tried to claim that these numbers must be false
I didn’t say that they were false – I said that they were bollocks and they are. He tried to claim that planting lost of trees couldn’t be done because three million couldn’t do it in the 1930s.
That’s what my calculation was about. There’s absolutely no way that even a volunteer program would have people planting one tree per three and a half days each. It’s obvious that they would have had far fewer people planting 1000+ per day each.
The assertion as stated was not bollocks. There were that many people involved and they did plant that many trees.
No, it was complete bollocks.
There were that many people involved in CCC.
There weren’t that many of them planting trees. There weren’t even that many involved with planting trees.
If there had actually been three million people planting trees it wouldn’t have taken them 10 years. It would have taken them a day.
It’s a hypothetical question on a school homework site. You might as well suppose that the average speed of trains from pittsburgh is 30mph.
I linked to last year’s forestry projections from MPI in this comment here (although I boo-bood the pdf link pasting). Try a thousand trees per hectare, not 120. And it’s bringing total production to a billion trees when we’re on 50mil/yr anyway.
But I did tumble the land area math, over ten years a total of 500million trees at 1000/hectare = 500,000 hectares. Assuming none of that is replanting, that’s a little under 2% rather than 30% of NZ’s land area, and our current production forest land area is 1.7million hectares (according to the NEFD report on that MPI link).
This is what Herodotus wrote. “During the depression in the USA the CCC planted over 3 billion trees, that involved 3 million people over 10 years !!!”
That states baldly and plainly that the planting involved 3 million people.
Of course, you then read the article, and it says this. “the CCC planted more than three billion trees and constructed trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationwide during its nine years of existence.”
alwyn, there is a difference between what Herodotus paraphrased and what the cited article said.
What Herodotus wrote was an inaccurate and misleading reporting of that article. And indefensible.
That comment btw used “love of the language and a sense of fair play.”
What he said was, in fact, true.
Did you perchance accept some of the efforts at misleading people that the present Government get up to?
When they promised us $700/year in a heating allowance isn’t that just a tad crooked when they meant about $400 this year?
When they said $10 per visit reduction in GP visits from July 1 did they really get free rein to change it to “But not this year”.
And on and on and on.
Did you complain that people had interpreted it in a different way and they should do what everyone thought they meant?
Thought not. If you had you might have been entitled to your complaint on the grounds that you were being consistent. If you didn’t then you political bias is showing.
What he said was not true. Three million people were involved in a whole heap of work more than planting 3 billion trees for the CCC.
To then claim that just as the planting of three billion trees would require three million workers, so the NZ government target of i billion trees would require presumably one million workers is just plain wrong.
Herodotus said, “to give you some idea of the scale of this” referring to the planting of a billion trees, he cited an article and then said, ” “During the depression in the USA the CCC planted over 3 billion trees, that involved 3 million people over 10 years !!!”
That is totally inaccurate as an example of scale.
Land value capture (which allows councils to capture the estimated paper gain increase in the value new infrastructure adds to private property) may be coming to your neighbourhood.
The problems I have with this is it hits low income households the hardest, thus may result in forcing people to sell up and move or become indebted.
Moreover, it will add to the cost of home ownership and potentially add inflationary pressure to rents.
Therefore, if the Government is going to allow this, low income households should be protected by being made exempt.
Additionally, it may backfire as the new tax may deter buyers from purchasing in locations that are targeted, opting to buy in the next street over, resulting in homes just outside of the targeted area increasing in value instead.
Chairman this is definitely a debate to track towards the latter part of this year.
It is going to come to a head with light rail in Auckland, which means it will probably open up the entire Unitary Plan debate. It is certainly building inside government.
Labour has lost elections before just on tax issues – I hope they have the skills for playing ‘capital gain harvest’ taxes.
He is quoted. “”You can believe Stuart believes this stuff, but the guys and girls above him are going to rumble him. There’s no chance they’re going to have a harder approach to the gangs.”
Not only is there that putdown by age and sex, but the reference to ‘rumble’ connects to a second meaning of the word ‘to have a gang fight’ as well as the primary sense he is using of ‘discover his true intent’.
Maybe Bridges is being clever and using this choice of language relating the issue to gangs? Maybe this language is also carefully meant to associate Labour with being gang associated? The term ‘guys’ is often used as a term for gangsters. Maybe the issue of gangs just triggers word associations.
Certainly, the ‘guy and girls’ is a putdown, and unworthy of the Leader of the Opposition to use.
Why did he not say “the men and women above him” or ‘the people above him” or ‘the leadership”or ” senior Cabinet members’ or ‘the cabinet executive’ or even ‘the party bosses’?
That Bridges boy just ain’t sensitive to nuance – and neither are you, so only it slags the Left. But that’s the Right for you – not even intellectual pygmies, much less intellectual giants.
Yup – because my little cabbage you’re an uncritical admirer of all things Right – however inane.
Gone are the days when rightwing trolls aspired to have a shred of intellectual credibility or economic competence – Key and English exhausted that pretention.
Bridges just calls people names. And that’s good enough for you – your expectations are so debased.
What don’t you recall exactly? My criticising the last National led government? I believe I have mentioned my disappointment in them on topics such as tax and regulatory reform on numerous occasions. Their refusal to do anything radical held back the country hugely.
It probably astonishes you to know Gosman, that the Left does not await your every utterance with bated breath. And, as you say, you focus on tax and regulatory reform because you have no interest in people or people’s issues.
Take a large scale political failing like Key’s dishonesty or Carter’s treacherous subversion of ministerial questions however, and you are silent as the grave – if not actually defending the wrongdoers.
It is ethically bereft MF like you that are holding the country back.
No, no.
If you had claimed a sense of humour as well as the other things I wouldn’t have used the phrase I did.
I would have said, instead “Five things listed and you fail four of them”.
There, does that make you feel better?
John Minto points out the anti-social nature of land-banking and ghost houses in this article. In my region, ten per cent of dwellings are unoccupied by permanent residents.
Instead we have some 600 Air B&Bs and Rent a Baches.
I hope the government can first do smiting (should have read ‘something’ but I like my spell checker’s (cocker’s) version) about first the issue of empty housing whilst people are homeless, and second that the tax fraudsters amongst the renters are brought to account financially and legally.
Not if the compliance cost involved in monitoring this are excessive. It could also involve a massive increase in the coercive power of the State if it involves inspectors going around to private property to see what is happening.
Straight off the top of my head, no research, how about a ‘vacancy fee’ for absentee home owners which could be incorporated into rates; or better still, a tax on the capital gains earned on ghost housing when sold over and above the usual taxation.
After all, New Zealand had a problem at the turn of the 19th Century under the Liberal government when land was all locked up in the hands of land owners.
My family benefited from John Mckenzie’s land tax when land was freed up for balloting. Taxation was the method of righting that particular problem.
Taxation was the method of righting the issue of poverty amongst our people and the welfare state and earlier the Liberal’s Old Age Pension which addressed the issue of income for older citizens.
Fair taxation, justly applied and large social, with financial and legal sanctions for the betrayers of the social contract. who at the moment remove from social expenditure use anywhere from $1.5 to $7 billion annually.
As much as I would love to see the left try and implement such a dumb tax it isn’t likely to be implemented any time soon for the main reason the Labour party wants to remain electable
So, what would you do, Gosman, to ensure that all our citizens are housed healthily and safely?
Such a ‘dumb’ tax provided enough land for four families within my grandparent’s generation to survive well enough. Those families then produced great rugby players, priests, district councillors, war heroes, teachers, nurses, etc etc.
Who complained? “Ready Money” Robinson might have. The owner of the Kinloch estate on the Banks Peninsula might have.
But the hundreds of families who benefited did not complain.
The Liberal Party policy was easy to implement in contrast to what is being suggested here. You can’t easily hide how big your land is but you can hide the fact it is not being used for something.
It’s no more difficult than operating Winz’s rules on relationships. In fact staff no longer needed to be punitive to the poor could readily transfer to a role monitoring sociopathic speculators.
We could use the 1800 new police that Stuart Nash is proposing. After they’ve cleaned up the “P” problem, they can move onto the “H” problem. 🙂
Seriously, though, when society accepts the depth of the problem and the social ills concomitant with homelessness and sub-standard housing, part of which is “P”, then it can find solutions equally in depth that most of us can accept and justify.
No need for “a massive increase in the coercive power of the State”.
Those Search And Surveillance powers enable this already.
How about a camera mounted on every telephone pole/street light to monitor the use of housing?
Smart meter data would paint an accurate picture re: occupancy. Spurts of consumption over weekends and long weekends would indicate air bnb or holiday house usage. Flat lining water/power consumption = empty house. Doesn’t need inspectors, just a robotic drill into the data.
While I agree that it would be good to discourage leaving houses empty for long periods of time, I can’t see a workable solution as there so many variables for why people may leave a house empty – e.g. working away from home, family commitments, changes in household, house empty for renovations, repair after major damage or sale.
Water meter usage is not monitored across New Zealand and how would the goverment access that information for the places that do? Do we want government to have access to that information (water and power) about individual households?
There were many houses empty for months and years after the earthquakes in Christchurch and in the east of Christchurch there still are – some at least are due to people not being in a position to repair and or sell. Even Housing New Zealand houses have been empty for monthes and monthes even in 2018.
My point is how can government differentiate between those that are landbanking and those whose circumstances mean that their house is empty (or is occupied but doesn’t use much power).
Actually Gos, there are a few ways. You know how your ilk were in favour of water meters and privatising power companies and telcos? There’s also this thing called ‘big data’ you’d be an advocate for.
At the moment though, the only problem is the purpose for which it is used, and you do realise those nanny state authorities actually have supremacy (unless of course some jumped up little army general decides otherwise and is able to persuade his underlings to agree)
Whilst any profiling is in its infancy, it does allow ‘officials’, or those ‘in authority’ to direct their attention to a particular property (going forward).
It’s not too dissimilar to all that demographic profiling thingy that MBIE had heavily invested in – until they were told to pull their heads in. Even though they haven’t YET come to grips with it all ….
Unless someone wants to leave the garden hose on as a drip, and perhaps run a modest hooch operation in the attic, if you provided me with the data, I’d be happy to direct those ‘officials’ in the right direction ….. for a modest fee of course (plus GST). I won’t even charge for any intermediary consultancy – such as finder’s fees or those ‘independent’ people verifying my impartiality (going forward).
I’m bloody sure there are others that’ll do likewise.
Clip go the shears boys clip clip clip
Bloody good points john makes that we should all seriously consider carefully now as the ‘land/house banking system is only used by banks and very rich investors trying to push prices up and will distort the whole economy again like 2007 what Enron did.
Wake up kiwis, we are being rorted here.
Ban these ‘leeches’ as house/land bankers and send them packing.
I agree chairman, but why stop at state housing.
Why not make a 3-5 kw array grid tied, compulsory on every new dwelling or building?
Water catchment/tanks too while we are at it.
Spinoff: “Considering your WORLD clothing tags say “Fabriqué en Nouvelle Zelande”, would customers reasonably assume these t-shirts and more have been made in New Zealand?”
Dame Denise: “As already stated, the WORLD clothing tags that say Made in NZ are Made in NZ, so there is nothing misleading about this. As explained, the t-shirts do not state this”.
Oh dear, that’s a frightfully wobbly defense. The garment swing tags that state ‘Made in NZ’ were die-cut and printed in NZ so they’re not deceptive…..what a load of bollix. I thought she was smarter than trying to float such a leaky boat.
Spinoff asked…
“Considering your WORLD clothing tags say “Fabriqué en Nouvelle Zelande”, would customers reasonably assume these t-shirts and more have been made in New Zealand?”
Dame Whatsherface replies…
“As already stated, the WORLD clothing tags that say Made in NZ are Made in NZ, so there is nothing misleading about this. As explained, the t-shirts do not state this.”
How embarrassing though.
Particularly as it was this Government that gave her the award entitling her to call herself “Dame”
I hope that Ardern hasn’t been wearing any of these clothes in her numerous woman’s magazine photo ops?
Please tell us she wasn’t wearing anything from this lot in the Vogue article.
alwyn I think you might be wrong. My understanding is the Honours awards are determined around six months in advance of their publication date. Since she received a dame-hood in the 2018 New Year, that means it was the previous National led government who determined her award.
I think you would be right if you said they started the process at that time. That would be immediately after the last lot were announced. In his case of course the last Government would have gone into caretaker mode in about mid-August and stayed there until the coalition took over. The new Government had about two and a half months to change things. I’m afraid they have to carry the, not very massive, can.
After all a whole bunch of them flew off on a jolly to the Chatham Islands to claim credit for something they had opposed in Opposition.
You take it one way you have to wear it the other.
Yes, given that there is no evidence of Ardern patronising the business. That would have been a little embarrassing but the presentation of a gong doesn’t matter.
They took lots and lots of their own, tax-payer funded, booze.
Then they dined on crayfish, lots and lots of crayfish.
I could easily be tempted to describe that as a jolly.
Shane may have missed out on his pornographic videos but the others were probably quite happy.
Actually gsays… I didn’t like john Key. I didn’t like his MO and I didn’t like is often sneaky ways. But he was PM for eight years and not everything he did was bad. So he was deserving of a gong. And bear in mind not many Kiwis care about who has gongs and who doesn’t anyway.
Put it another way. All prime ministers are offered a knighthood after they cease to be PM. Most but not all accept them. So, it was inevitable John Key would be offered a knighthood and equally inevitable he would be one of those who accept it. It was in that sense I used the term “deserving”.
Yep, as is usually the case, Dame Denise would of been much better off telling the truth . Said something like: “Thanks for drawing this to our attention Spinoff and I think you’re right, the wording could be taken the wrong way. It should read ‘Designed in NZ’ and that’s what they will say in the future.”
Spinoff would have their scalp, Dame Denise would prove she does the right thing when she can and the story would die.
“You might very well now feel that $99 is an outrageous price to pay for a locally produced swing tag Mr McFlock but you entered into the transaction of your own free will.”
““You might very well now feel that $99 is an outrageous price to pay for a locally produced swing tag Mr McFlock but you entered into the transaction of your own free will.””
Someone, please, check that them there tags are actually fabriqué en Nouvelle Zelande….
When I put ‘Designed in New Zealand’ into Google translate, the French is: Conçu en Nouvelle-Zélande. I think most of Dame Denise’s local customers would read that and still surmise that it says ‘Made in New Zealand’….I think I would…
“Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet has slammed a report by the Spinoff, calling it “trash” and “gutter journalism”.
In an interview with Newstalk ZB, she said she found the report disgusting and that it has damaged her brand.
“I am furious,” she told Newstalk ZB.
“I will not be torn down by some two-bit writer who thinks she can air her opinions that are not truthful.””
Btw, did anyone count the number of “but”s and “I don’t know”s DL’E-C said during her JC interview on Checkpoint?
And Christ! at the end of that interview, she put it all back on the consumer for being ‘stupid’ …… as in “I thought [the consumer] was smarter”.
Gorgeous darling! Almost gorgeous enough to come back for a fling on “The Panel”
And I’m sincerely hoping she’s not related to a former registrar because if he’s not tucked up somewhere with a minimum-waged Filipino wiping his arse, he’s sure as shit busy rolling in discomfort 3 feet below
Very interesting slice of history, and extremely relevant to today’s discussion.
Politics…
“”Named after Sir Edwin Airey, a construction magnate, around 200 of the houses were built on the estate in the late 50s as homes for miners, and few thought they would see in the millennium.
Made from prefabricated concrete and scrap metal salvaged from military vehicles, they were designed to meet the housing needs of the growing numbers of workers living outside cities.
Barry and Mavis Abbey, both in their early 70s, have lived on the estate since 1970, when the homes were owned by the National Coal Board.
At one stage the Abbeys had been led to believe they would be able to buy their home under the Thatcher government’s right-to-buy scheme. But this option was denied them for reasons that remain opaque. Ex-miners like Barry believe it was in revenge for them going on strike in the mid-1980s.
The estate was sold off by the NCB in 1986, after which the homes passed through a series of owners until they ended up in the hands of the Pemberstone Group, a private investment firm that boasts a diverse portfolio of interests including an Italian tour operator, an indoor ski slope and the Ilford camera-film brand.
Pemberstone’s “scheme” involves replacing the existing 70 Airey houses with 71 new properties, only 11 of which will be reserved for “affordable accommodation”, a number that it says is in line with Leeds city council’s Strategic Homes plan.
Locals have heard that the new homes will be priced at around £300,000 – 10 times what a three-bedroom Airey house on another estate fetched recently. Surrounded by attractive green spaces, close to motorways and 20 minutes from the city centre, they should sell easily.”
And in the important issues of the day:
does anybody else happen to listen to RNZ’s business news (going forward)?
I find it bloody hard whenever I have to listen to Nona Pelletier reporting.
I know I’m living ‘on the back of’ the age of the curmudgeon, but it’s not just that. Just as I need to listen to Soimun 10 Bridges twice before I’m able to decipher his wuzdim words, or avail moisef of a tranny, Nona sounds like she’s singing the descant.
Can she not be promoted to an off-ear pizzishun?
OR maybe I should just fuck off somewhere else where basic things like communicating with other human beings are no longer such an earfit.
Ekshully, I’ll take it all back and count myself lucky I’m not Donny the Don Brash who has to deal with listening to Mary
I have no issue with Nona’s voice … maybe that’s because I watch her on TV rather than just listen – on RNZ on channel 50. Sometimes I find it hard to understand on the phone or radio but if I can see them it’s easier for some reason. Similarly if I know where they are from I find it easier to tune into their accent.
“Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan has been meeting with New Zealand ministers and members of the opposition over the past couple of days in Wellington.
Before the Sheikh arrived at Ardern’s 9th floor office for the meeting he sent up a somewhat mysterious gift, in a large box, on a gurney. It was wheeled into Ardern’s office where she was later expected to open it.”
“Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on United Arab Emirates authorities to disclose the whereabouts and condition of a daughter of Dubai’s ruler, following reports she was forcibly returned after fleeing the Gulf Arab state”
Today I helped a family member who had to take a Medical Certificate to the Hamilton central WINZ office.
In the past we’ve waited in the cue inside the building. Today we had to wait in a cue of 12 people standing outside on the footpath. One of the three security gaurds said he had been told to only let one person through the door when someone else left. The footpath cue included a very frail elderly lady and a person with one leg using crutches. It took around 40 minuites waiting on the footpath just to get into the building.
The five parking spaces directly outside were blocked with orange cones. I asked why and was told that only WINZ staff could park there.
The fact that any government department can treat people like this is truly shocking and humilating.
Thank you Fireblade. I am not familiar with that particular location as being a WINZ office-sorry-“Service Centre”. The only one I could think of around here with 5 parking places outside the building was Dinsdale.
Have you or your family member complained about this? Who you’d complain to I’d be guessing. Complain to a local Nat MP? They’d really get off on blaming this on the current incumbents. Complain to Labour/Green/NZF? Who?
Perhaps someone in the local media? Treating people like this is totally unacceptable.
Actually…I might wander down there with a camera, take a few pictures, post them somewhere….
Obviously the office didn’t get the “show a little kindness” memo.
It’s quite interesting really – the degree to which some in the public service are pushing back against their political elected masters – probably on the basis that they’re ‘independent’ and immune from matters that are of an ‘operational’ nature.
(not just MSD/WINZ).
It’s going to be the true test of this coalition government – i.e. just how far politicians are prepared to accept obvious obfuscation, lies, spin and bullshit from their ‘officials’ before they react.
As things stand, so many hints have been given re the expectations of the public service and the policies on which they (the government) were elected.
Just as happened in the 80s, public service reform is long overdue, and they’re doing themselves no favours.
We’ll see over the next few months whether the new government is up to the challenge.
Ummm… David Seymour doesn’t look anything like the character of Alfred E Neuman. It would be like asking has anyone ever seen Chewbacca and David Seymour in the same room together.
There IS a superficial resemblance to the actor Chris Barrie who played/plays Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf and Gordon Brittas from The Brittas Empire. But so what?
There’s a pretty bloody good resemblance when Barrie is actually in character.
The “so what” is that it might partially explain why he’s spending more time on Dancing with the Lols rather than being a caucus leader.
Whether he is electoral cyanide because he does things like that, or whether he has the time to do things like that because he’s electoral cyanide, is a point of passing interest.
Concerning the Shameful Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet:
A Message from the Knights and Dames of the British Empire
May 7, 2018
It comes down to education. Don’t smoke it, don’t drink it, don’t buy Lotto tickets. I don’t believe there IS a shortage of jobs in New Zealand….
—Denise L’Estrange-Corbet, Sept. 5, 2014
We would like to point out that the rogue Denise L’Estrange-Corbet is an aberration, an abomination, an irritant, a boor, an exploiter, a liar, a racist, and a cad. An asshole, if one were to employ the vernacular. The rest of New Zealand’s, and indeed the Empire’s, knights and dames, however, are men and women of the highest character.
So let’s condemn Denise L’Estrange-Corbet by all means, but let us also praise good men and true (and good women and true), like the following exemplars of moral courage and intellectual excellence…..
Sir Paul Holmes
Sir Robert Jones
Sir John Howard
Sir William Gallagher
Sir Thomas Eichelbaum
Sir James Savile
Dame Margaret Thatcher
Sir Peter Leitch
Sir Jeremiah Mateparae
Sir John Key
Sir Clive Woodward
Easier to just add her to your list Morrisey.
She’d have been better off to have just fessed up and said she had no idea, and that she is disappointed and will make changes.
And IF, as she claims, the problem is a mere 1% of her business enterprise, and IF she has the concerns she claims she has, then I’d have expected her to forgo that 1%.
But then as I said yesterday, we should let Jim Mora’s “The Panel” resolve it all. She might even end up being the new Brian Edwards ‘on the back of’ a Gallery interview and resolution of an industrial dispute.
We could even call in Julie Christie to make a reality TV show of proceedings and she could clip the ticket to compensate for the loss of that 1%.
There ya go see @ Morrisey. Jim and his ‘The Panel’ have dealt with the issue and it’s now resolved.
End of story!
How could we have been so foolish as to have made such a mountain out of a molehill.
And btw ….. there’s no mole a bit of mascara can’t cover – even if it’s to highlight it as a fashion asset (going forward)
What sets apart Gaza from Gandhi and Martin Luther King is not that children participate in the Gaza marches…
…. but that unlike the British in India, and the white racists in the American South, only Israel targets and kills innocent children in demonstrations.
Add to that the famines England caused in Ireland (1840s) and in Bengal (1940s) – and that Russia caused in Ukraine (1930s) – still not good company for Bibi the Butcher to find himself in.
Good evening Newshub adventure tourism is a great way to bring vip tourist to Aotearoa.
I had a good escort this morning on the way to Auckland Im working and I get to see my mokos and daughter at the same time the youngest is 4 months old she really chubby.
Football NZ is going to pay the Football Ferns I’m a bit late tonight Ka kite ano P.S sorry about the heat they are just a bunch of intimidating bullies just ignore them there intimidation does not work on ECO MAORI
Good morning Newshub it shows that the last government did not want to help our Pacific Islands slashing the aid we gave the. If we give aid for renewable energy this will solve two problems lower there carbon footprint and save them money. Our other Pacific Islands cousins ad a lot of good thing to OUR country.
The old Maori way was to try and give back better than what was received.
I say this is the way a society should behave. As for Trump and Iran there is always another story behind the seens like the trade sanctions they are being employed to slow China from catching the west Technology domanince.
Many thanks to the Labour government for there new Labour laws the big employers are just screwing the employee with there no minimum hours temporary contracts I no some one who has all the bills one has like rent ect one week she gets 2 days work and the next 5 how can one live on 2 days a week work when rents cost 2 days work to pay for it.
Ka kite ano
I thought Winston was a Maori he is stuck in the 1940 when Maori we tricked in to a believing that the crown had OUR wellbeing in there policy truth be told they just want us to disappear so they can have our Whenua heres the link.
The Referendums Framework Bill was due back from select committee today. But there's no report on it. Instead, the bill has been bounced back to the House under Standing order 29593) because the Committee didn't bother to produce one. They probably tried. But given the membership of the committee (which ...
Two years into New Zealand’s Labour-led government, the long-delayed Zero Carbon Bill became law on 7 November. Passed essentially unanimously, the lengthy public debates and political manoeuvring faded away until the final passage was even anticlimactic: Flipping through the @nzstuff@DomPost I was starting to wonder if I’d dreamt ...
Now the Zero Carbon Bill is law, what's next? Obviously, the ETS changes currently before select committee are going to be the next battleground. But we're also going to get a good idea of where we're going, and if the progress the Zero Carbon Act promises is good enough, during ...
Grant PearceThe effects of the current Australian bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland (and also again in California) are devastating and far-reaching. To date, the fires have resulted in several lives being lost and many homes and properties destroyed. Here in New Zealand, the impacts have been only ...
A passing comment in a post the other day about the labour force participation rates of older people prompted me to pull down the fuller data and see what we could see about various participation rates over the decades since the HLFS began in 1986. As it happens, the ...
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...
"I saw a newspaper picture,From the political campaignA woman was kissing a child,Who was obviously in pain.She spills with compassion,As that young child'sFace in her hands she gripsCan you imagine all that greed and avariceComing down on that child's lips?" ...
Dr Matt Boyd, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick WilsonThe Global Health Security Index which considers pandemic threats has just been published. Unfortunately, NZ scores approximately half marks (54/100), coming in 35th in the world rankings – far behind Australia. This poor result suggests that the NZ Government needs to ...
The Zero Carbon Act is inadequate, with a weak methane target designed to give farmers a free ride. But it turns out it could have been worse: Climate Change Minister James Shaw was so desperate to get National on board, he wanted to gut that target, and leave it in ...
The Herald reprints an Australian story on a couple of tragic deaths in Bali from drinking cocktails that had methanol in them. The story argues that methanol is likely the result of home distillation. But what the young tourists were experiencing was far from a hangover. They’d consumed a toxic cocktail ...
Last month, the police announced a trial of specialist roaming armed units, which would drive round (poor, brown) areas in armoured SUVs, armed to the teeth. When they announced the trial, they told us it was about having armed police "ready to attend major incidents at any time if needed". ...
Spain went to the polls today in the second elections this year, after the Socialists (who had come to power in a confidence vote, then gone to the polls in April) rejected the offer of a coalition with the left-wing PoDemos, and instead decided to gamble n a better outcome ...
A couple of days ago I attended (and spoke at) the University of Waikato’s “LearnFest” event. There were lots of talks and sessions on very diverse aspects of teaching, mostly at tertiary level. One was by Myra Williamson from Te Piringa Faculty of Law here at Waikato, on Contract Cheating ...
There will be a transit of Mercury – the planet Mercury will pass across the face of the Sun – taking place at sunrise in New Zealand on Tuesday, 12th November. It was by observing such an event 250 years ago that James Cook and his scientist colleagues were able ...
Since becoming the world’s first openly transexual mayor and member of parliament, Georgina Beyer has been recognised as a trailblazer for trans rights. Daphna Whitmore talks with her about where she sees the current trans movement We start out talking about legislation the government put on hold that would have ...
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ...
National Messiah? Chris Luxon identifies himself as an evangelical Christian. If he is genuine in this self-characterisation, then he will take every opportunity his public office provides to proselytise on behalf of his faith. He will also feel obliged to bear witness against beliefs and practices he believes to be ...
I'm going to make a Reckless Prediction™ that the Tories have 'topped out' in the 'poll of polls' / Britain Elects multipoll tracker at about 38%, and in the next week we will start to see Labour creep up on them.In fact, we might just be seeing the start of ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Lizzie Marvelly: “I may have missed this… has @afterellen gone all terf-y? Or am I reading something incorrectly? “ https://twitter.com/LizzieMarvelly/status/1191840059105742849 After Ellen is a lesbian website that is unashamedly pro-lesbian, as you’d expect. So why is Ms Marvelly so bothered about lesbians having their ...
Did you know there once was a time when it was illegal to be a gypsy (aka Romani) in Britain?That was between 1530, when the Egyptians Act was passed, and 1856, when it was repealed.Amongst other things, the act forbade the entry of 'Egyptians' into England, ordered those already there ...
Some days I sit and think, “what will I write…?” What do you say when you get to 1000 posts? Maybe you just start where you are, diverge to where this all began, then offer a collection of reader’s favourite posts, and a few of your own? (And throw in ...
Counter-Puncher: The “activists” and “radicals” (his own words) from the Indian community who took such strong exception to Shane Jones’ remarks about Immigration NZ’s treatment of arranged marriages, may end up bitterly regretting their intervention. Jones is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to his critics.SHANE ...
In the spirit of Remember, remember the fifth of November, let's keep this in mind FOREVER.
Oh dear. Extraordinary interview on PM with Andrew Bridgen and @EvanHD just now. Bridgen was defending Jacob Rees Mogg’s Grenfell comments. Evan asked him if JRM had meant to say he would have left ...
Collision Course? In conditions of ideological white-out, the international bankers’ “Woop-Woop! Pull Up!” warning may have come too late to save global capitalism.WHAT DOES IT MEAN when international bankers are more willing to embrace radical solutions than our politicians and their electors? At both the International Monetary Fund and the ...
Pertussis (whooping cough) is a conundrum. It is a disease that was described hundreds of years ago and the bacteria that causes it (Bordetella pertussis) isolated in 1906. We have had vaccines for about 80 years but this disease is defiant in the face of human immunity. I wanted to ...
The Zero Carbon Bill has just passed its third reading, uanimously. In the end, National supported it - but we all know they'll turn around and gut it the moment they regain power. Meanwhile, I guess ACT's David Seymour didn't even bother to show up. I am on record as ...
Dr Lindsay Robertson, Dr Jerram Bateman, Professor Janet HoekMembers of the public health community hold divergent views on how access to vaping products or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products should be arranged. Some believe ENDS should be as widely available as smoked tobacco and argue for liberal ...
When the Police were trying to cover up for the National Party over Dirty Politics, they went all-in with their abuses of power. They illegally search Nicky Hager's house, violating his journalistic privilege and invading his privacy. They unlawfully acquired Hager's bank records. They did the same to left-wing blogger ...
Last month, in response to a wave of protests by Extinction Rebellion, the British government purported to ban their protests from the whole of London. It was a significant interference with the freedoms of expression and assembly, and another sign of the country's decline into tyranny. But now, a court ...
Last year, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security reported on significant problems with the intelligence warrant system. While they were unwilling to declare any warrant "irregular" (meaning unlawful) due to the recent law change, they were also not willing to give the system a clean bill of health. Now, they've ...
The National Party has come out in support of encouraging greater vaccination uptake. But it sure isn’t the way I’d do it. National’s suggested docking the benefits of those on benefit whose kids aren’t keeping up with their vaccinations. Some in National have suggested extending that to payments under Working ...
Feeding The Flames: It is simply not enough to demand an end to “corruption”, or “inequality”, or the overbearing influence of the authorities in Beijing. These are just “lowest common denominator” demands: the sort of slogans that pull people onto the streets. They are not a plan.WHERE’S THE PLAN? Across ...
The labour market statistics have been released, and unemployment has risen to 4.2%. There are 115,000 unemployed - 11,000 fewer than when Labour took office. In that time the minimum wage has gone up by $2 an hour, which shows that the right's fears about increases causing unemployment are simply ...
The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has called for submissions on Andrew Little's tyrannicalTerrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill. Normally I encourage participation in the democratic process. I am not doing so in this case. Instead, I encourage all of you to boycott this submissions process, and to post ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzIf tiny concentrations of carbon dioxide can hold enough heat ...
Aviation is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and within it, one of the fastest sources is elite travel: billionaires flitting around the world in their private jets, spewing excessive pollution into the atmosphere just so they can avoid mixing with us dirty peasants. But in ...
That's what we face if we don't stop climate change, according to a warning from 11,000 scientists:The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists. “We declare clearly and unequivocally ...
by Phil Duncan Here’s just a few of the kind of threats issued day in and day out against gender-critical women – feminists, marxists, etc – overwhelmingly by MEN (albeit men identifying as women). “Kill all Terfs”. “Shoot a Terf today”. “All terfs deserve to be shot in the head”. ...
This is the third of the synopses of parts of the opening chapter of John Smith’s Imperialism in the 21st Century (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2016). The synopsis and commentary below is written by Phil Duncan. Unlike the humble cup of coffee and t-shirt that we looked at in ...
Tom MooreTraditionally a food source and cutting tool, freshwater mussels/kākahi are now widely valued as water filters that help clean our waterbodies and maintain ecosystem health throughout Aotearoa. The improvement they provide in water quality can make it easier for other animals to live in streams and rivers, as ...
And to think he gave all the potential goodwill away with that moronic, cult-like statement (repeated ad nauseam by many National hardliners) that Key is quite simply “the greatest PM we ever had”…Installation complete: this was nothing ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is back in the House today for its second reading. While this isn't the final stage, its still effectively D-Day for the bill. Because today, at around 5pm, is when we're going to find out if it has a majority, whether National will support it or ...
Winston Peters is in court today, suing a bunch of former Minister and civil servants over their pre-election leak of his superannuation repayment. He's characterised the leak as malicious, and said that it is repugnant that his information was passed on to Ministers to use for political advantage. And he's ...
Murray CoxDo I have to finish my favourite genome? That’s an often-asked question. Geneticists generally strive to produce high-quality genomes that sequence every last gene, making full use of the state-of-the-art technologies coming on stream. Sequencing DNA means determining the order of the four chemical building blocks – called ...
Transformative Politics: The idea is to turn each recipient into an unwitting accomplice in their own transformation. From interested observer to hyped-up activist, sharing our messages promiscuously with ‘friends’. You’ll be part of an ever-expanding circulatory system, Jennifer, for the ideas that will win us the election.”JENNIFER SKITTERED her chair ...
The boycott is a fundamental tool of protest. By choosing who we buy from, we can send a message, and hopefully change corporate behaviour. Historically, boycotts have been effective, for example over apartheid in South Africa and Israel, in forcing divestment from Myanmar, and in ending bus segregation in the ...
Jan Rivers spoke at the Abortion Legislation Select Committee in favour of the bill, but in opposition to calls from other submitters to exchange the word ‘woman’ for ‘person’ throughout the bill. Jan is a supporter of the feminist group Speak Up For Women and has recently written an excellent ...
I checked my traffic stats:I was intrigued by 'monica29' - who was this very dedicated individual? I clicked on the link, to be greeted with ...Ho, hum.Spreadin' the word, spreadin' the word. Doesn't matter who hears it, as long as it gets out there. ...
There have been three polls since the election was announced, and I will shamelessly steal YouGov / UK Polling Report's Anthony Wells' summary of them:Survation – CON 34%, LAB 26%, LDEM 19%, BREX 12%, GRN 1% Ipsos MORI – CON 41%, LAB 24%, LDEM 20%, BREX 7%, GRN 3% YouGov ...
The following article is translated from Lutte Ouvrière, the weekly newspaper of the organisation usually known by the same name in France. When, for the second time this year, Chilean President Piñera announced an increase in the price of Metro tickets from 800 to 830 pesos, students in the high ...
Today, a worker contacted me asking if she could go to the police over her employer stealing thousands of dollars from her in unpaid wages. The employer also did not pay this worker’s taxes or student loan which amounts to tax fraud. As a workers rights activist, who founded the ...
Signed, Sealed, Delivered, They're Yours: Is there any person more vulnerable than a jilted lover on the rebound? Or, anything more certain than that the charmer, the predator, the glib spinner of lies and promises will seek such broken people out? Yes, of course, he will love every one of ...
Though Jonathan Romain is a fairly high profile Rabbi, writing in several papers and popping up on TV and the radio, this story doesn't seem to have made it to the Guardian yet, so I'll take the unusual step of linking the Stephen Pollard edited Jewish Chronicle:Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain ...
There's an election afoot, and that is when noted opinion formers such as myself get to make wild fools of ourselves by pretending we have the faintest idea what will happen.So, here is my absurdly optimistic prediction:Labour - 285Conservative - 262SNP - 53Lib Dems - 20PC - 5Ireland - 18 ...
Image Credit:Increase Social Media Traffic & Website Traffic I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your ...
Belinda CridgeI was reading my son a story last night. A great tale of derring-do of five mountaineers scaling the Matterhorn for the first time. One in the party had tried six times previously and failed, this was the last attempt before winter closed another season. They tried a ...
As introduced, the Zero Carbon Bill included an expansive secrecy clause, which would have covered virtually all decisions by the Climate Change Commission over our most important policy area. The Ministry for the Environment admitted this was a mistake (or as they put it, an "oversight"), and the select committee ...
Rachael Shaw, Victoria University of WellingtonWhen we think about animals storing food, the image that usually comes to mind is a squirrel busily hiding nuts for the winter. We don’t usually think of a small songbird taking down an enormous invertebrate, tearing it into pieces and hiding these titbits ...
. . NZ First’s success in putting the euthenasia bill to a public referenda may not be the victory they believe it to be. They may even have sounded the death-knell for a second Labour-NZ First-Green coalition. On 23 July this year, NZ First MP, Jenny Marcroft, submitted a Supplementary ...
Interesting contrasting pictures in the Guardian:Corbyn gets the classic positive shot - low angle and a clear background, making him look authoritative (of course, being Corbyn, he doesn't do authoritative very well).Where as Johnson gets pictured with children at some sort of mad-hatters' tea party:Begging the question, who is the ...
Paternalism is contentious. Arguments for state action to protect us from ourselves are fraught. I come down pretty heavily on the anti-paternalism side of the argument, but I’ve heard respectable defences of paternalism. But policy around vaccination is hardly paternalistic. There’s a clear market failure that could be pointed to ...
I’ve been reading Jules Verne’s novel Twenty thousand leagues under the sea, considered as one of the very earliest science fiction stories. In brief, Monsieur Aronnax and a couple of sidekicks are taken prisoner by Captain Nemo and his mysterious crew and treated to an underwater voyage around the world ...
The climate crisis is going to mean some pretty big changes in our country, both from its impacts and the policies required to address them. Most obviously, whole suburbs are going to be underwater by 2100, meaning people and businesses are going to have to relocate to higher ground. But ...
Yesterday a dairy company was fined $483,000 for repeatedly failing to report listeria in its facility. Its a serious fine for a serious crime: listeria is a serious disease, and they were effectively trying to kill people with it. But there's another story hidden in there, and its not a ...
Gay men see the excesses of trans activism and are increasingly speaking out. A new Facebook group addressing ‘gender identity’ and contemporary trans activism has been set up for gay men, by gay men. The following is the group’s Statement of Intent, Group Rules, and link to the group for ...
Criminal Enterprises: Gangs are not welfare institutions. Nor are they a substitute for the family their members never had. They are ruthless, violent, criminal money-making machines. That is all.OKAY, first-things-first. Gangs exist for one purpose – and only one. They are a sure-fired, time-tested institution for making crime pay – ...
Prof Nick Wilson, A/Prof George Thomson, A/Prof Simon Hales, Prof Michael BakerThe NZ Ministry for the Environment has produced a valuable discussion document with many good ideas for improving the health of waterways in New Zealand. But there are important gaps. In this blog we consider three big-ticket items ...
Finding reality needs more than wishful thinking. The problem is that statistical arguments often provide a jargon to confirm biases. Image credit:Accurate Thinking Versus Wishful Thinking in Gambling I worry at the way some ...
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...
Darroch Ball, New Zealand First List MP A Member’s bill has been proposed that would provide income tax exemptions for all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel while on operational deployment overseas. The Income Tax (Exemption for Salary or Wages of NZDF Members on Active Deployment) Amendment Bill proposed by New Zealand First ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have brought common sense to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which passed its final reading in Parliament today. Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says months of hard work went into negotiating a balanced ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First has listened to calls to recognise paramedics as registered health professionals under the Health Practitioners’ Competence Assurance Act (the Act).Today, the Coalition Government announced plans for paramedics to be registered as health practitioners under the Act, and the establishment of a ...
We began the week by commemorating the New Zealand Wars and celebrating a major increase in the number of teachers. Then, we were busy supporting offenders into work and getting our rail back on track after years of underinvestment. And that's just the start! ...
In October I was sworn in as the Mayor of Lower Hutt.It’s the privilege of my life to serve Hutt people as their Mayor. There is something really special to be able to serve the community where I was raised, and where I live. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters met with Korea Racing Authority Chairperson Nak Soon Kim in Seoul today to discuss closer cooperation between the New Zealand and Korean horse racing industries. As part of the visit to the Seoul Racecourse, Mr Peters witnessed ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $10 million to establish Otago as the centre of New Zealand’s creative digital industry over the next ten years, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “The initiative will bring us closer to the vision of ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)’s skills and employment programme will help young Otago people into long-term forestry careers, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. Te Ara Mahi will invest $63,000 in the 2020 school year to support eight 17 and 18 ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) will support local plans to revitalise and stimulate economic development opportunities in Otago, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The four Regional Economic Development Ministers have approved an in-principle investment of $19.9 million towards the region’s ...
Mark Patterson, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is pleased to have received the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) report on the Coalition Government’s Mycoplasma bovis eradication efforts, which shows significant progress in the fight against the disease. New Zealand First Spokesperson for Primary Industries, Mark Patterson, says the report’s findings ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Hon David Parker, Minister for Trade and Export Growth The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing to support economic growth opportunities for Otago’s engineering and manufacturing sectors, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Trade and Export Minister David Parker announced today. Almost $20 million ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his South Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, discussed in Seoul today opportunities to work more closely in the Pacific and the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Mr Peters and Minister Kang confirmed New Zealand and the ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Hon Nanaia Mahuta, Minister for Māori Development The three marae in the historic Parihaka Pa complex in Taranaki have been upgraded to high speed broadband with the support of the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Connecting the ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence Minister of Defence Ron Mark will today launch the Advancing Pacific Partnerships 2019 Defence Assessment during a speech at Te Papa. The Assessment outlines how Defence will partner with our Pacific Island neighbours and invest in Pacific regional security architecture. The Plan aligns with the Coalition ...
A new Provincial Growth Fund investment could create about 80 new jobs in Gisborne over the next two years, turning a local small business into a “beacon of employment” in the process. Regional Economic Development Parliamentary Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau said the PGF’s Te Ara Mahi funding stream would provide $1.6m ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters will travel to the Republic of Korea and Japan next week. “The Republic of Korea and Japan are two of New Zealand’s closest partners in the region with whom we share common values and ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced today that New Zealand is leading a police support mission in Bougainville as the region prepares to vote in a non-binding referendum on its political future. “New Zealand has accepted an invitation ...
New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is defending Immigration New Zealand (INZ) after it instructed officials to stop granting visas as an exception to instructions. He has also lashed out at immigrant leaders upset with the tightening of the rules, saying they had an “elevated sense of entitlement”. Members of ...
A change to the End of Life Choice Bill was passed in Parliament, meaning if politicians decide to vote for the law it must be approved by the public first. A binding referendum was a condition insisted on by New Zealand First, and Jenny Marcroft’s supplementary order paper (SOP) successfully ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), through its skills and employment programme,Te Ara Mahi, is investing a further $1.6m into Tairāwhiti’s workforce development, said Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. “This PGF funding follows on from significant PGF investment earlier this ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says the Government’s steps to reduce farm livestock emissions are necessary and timely. Today the Government and farming leaders announced a plan to measure and price emissions at the farm level by 2025. “Many farmers ...
New Zealand First MP Shane Jones has hit back at those who are upset over a change in approach to partnership visas. There has been a specific government directive to stop waiving requirements such as couples needing to have lived together for 12 months - a test Indian couples who have ...
The North Auckland Line rejuvenation kicks off with teams surveying the rail corridor and Northland construction contractors are showing interest in the project.KiwiRail provided an industry briefing for Northland contracting and construction companies about future work opportunities on rejuvenating Northland’s rail lines. The briefing session in Whangarei was held to ...
More frontline support for schools through a new education agency, as part of a redesigned Ministry of Education More support for principals and school boards including through a new centre of leadership and local leadership advisor roles New independent disputes panels for parents and students Management of school property ...
The Government’s reform of the Tomorrow’s Schools system is a watershed moment in education and an opportunity to create meaningful change for ākonga Māori and their whānau, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis said today. “Last year through Kōrero Mātauranga | Education Conversation, Māori teachers, parents, ākonga, whānau, hapū and iwi ...
Infrastructure Minister is welcoming the first of many updated project pipelines from the newly established New Zealand Infrastructure Commission today. The New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga, has released an expanded pipeline of major capital projects – another crucial step towards delivering better infrastructure outcomes. “The first iteration of the ...
Tougher gun laws designed to improve public safety through firearms prohibition orders are proposed in a new document released for public input. Police Minister Stuart Nash says firearms prohibition orders (FPOs) would give new powers to Police to ensure high-risk individuals come nowhere near firearms. “We have already prohibited the ...
Andy Coupe has been confirmed as TVNZ’s new Board Chair. “Mr Coupe has strong commercial and capital markets experience and TVNZ has benefited from his technical knowledge of business and finance, as well as his extensive governance experience,” the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Kris Faafoi said. Andy ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today officially opened a separated pathway, following the completion of the Kaiwharawhara Stream bridge, which will improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians along Hutt Road. The $6.8m Hutt Road project provides a separated path for cycling and pedestrians, the replacement of informal parking ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of career diplomat Si’alei van Toor as New Zealand’s next Ambassador to Russia. “I’m pleased to appoint Ms van Toor to this position. She brings a wealth of experience to the role having previously served as Senior Trade Adviser to the ...
The Treasury’s 2019 Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) will be released on Wednesday December 11, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Coalition Government will publish the 2020 Budget Policy Statement at the same time, outlining the priorities for Budget 2020. Further details on arrangements for the release will ...
A new initiative to better support small businesses through hands-on mentoring and advice has been launched by the Minister for Small Business. The first event in the Kiwi Business Boost series of regional workshops and online tools has been launched in Wairoa by Stuart Nash. “The Business Boost initiative combines ...
The latest Quarterly Connectivity Report shows that more and more New Zealanders are moving to Ultra-fast Broadband (UFB), with Rolleston having the highest uptake at 74 per cent, as at the end of September. “This means that nearly three quarters of Rolleston’s households and businesses have moved to ultra-fast services. ...
The passing of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill will help ensure a safe planet for our kids and grandkids, the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw said today. The landmark legislation which provides a framework to support New Zealanders to prepare for, and adapt to, the effects ...
The review of Oranga Tamariki practice around the planned uplift of a Hastings baby in May shows significant failings by the Ministry and that the planned and funded changes to shift from a child crisis service to a proper care and protection service need to be accelerated, Children’s Minister Tracey ...
Education Minister Chris Hipkins has wished students the best of luck for this year’s NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exams which start tomorrow. Around 140,000 students will have participated in 119 NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exams by the end of the exam period on 3 December. “I want to ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of Bede Corry as New Zealand’s next High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. “The appointment of a senior diplomat to this important role underlines the significance New Zealand places on our relationship with the United Kingdom,” said Mr Peters. “The United ...
An innovative approach to boosting the number of frontline Police has seen 20 new officers graduate from one of the uncommon training wings in Auckland. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the graduation of 20 constables today means that 1,765 new Police officers have been deployed since the coalition government took ...
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says the 1.2 million hours of community work completed by offenders in the last financial year has helped local communities right across the country. “Community work sentences are a great way for people to pay something positive back to society. There is a massive benefit to ...
"A pathway for Police in leadership with Iwi Māori, to achieve the aspirations of Māori whānau." Police launch of Te Huringa o Te Tai, Pipitea Marae, Thorndon Quay, Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou. Hello everyone, warm greetings to you all. ...
Working New Zealanders are getting more in their back pockets under the Coalition Government’s economic plan. Stats NZ data today shows average weekly ordinary time earnings are up by $83 since the Government took office. This shows that working New Zealanders are getting higher take-home pay, and that employers are ...
The Government is supporting schools to cut down their energy consumption and reduce environmental impacts, with a quarter of all schools having their lights replaced with LEDs, a sustainability contestable fund and a plan to improve the environmental sustainability of all schools in the future. Education Minister Chris Hipkins and ...
Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis heads to China on Friday to lead the New Zealand Government presence at the China-New Zealand Year of Tourism closing ceremony. The ceremony will take place at Canton Tower in Guangzhou on Sunday 10 November. “The Year of Tourism has been mutually beneficial for both New ...
Should we plan for drought or deluge and how is CO2 released from the ocean’s floor? Several climate change projects were given a boost in the latest Marsden Fund investment of $83.6 million, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods said today. “Climate change is long-term challenge that requires out-of-the-box ...
Leaders of 16 countries negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have announced the completion of negotiation on the text as well as agreement on virtually all market access issues between 15 countries. The leaders said they will work with India to resolve its outstanding concerns in a way that ...
Civil Defence Minister Hon Peeni Henare says World Tsunami Awareness Day today (5 November) is a chance for all New Zealanders to learn more about the tsunami risk in our regions and the right actions to take to stay safe. “All of New Zealand’s coastline is at risk of tsunami. ...
New Zealand’s more than 1000 paramedics are to have their role as key frontline health professionals formally recognised and regulated in the same way as doctors and nurses, Health Minister David Clark says. The Government has agreed to regulate paramedics under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003. “Paramedic leaders ...
Changes to insolvency law announced by the Government today will include requirements to honour up to 50 per cent of the value of gift cards or vouchers held by consumers, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi says. “When a business is insolvent, these consumers are often left out of ...
Six New Zealanders tonight received medals for their meritorious work in the frontline public service. The Public Service Medal, established by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, is awarded annually. “For the second year this Government has recognised public servants who have made a real difference to the lives of New ...
Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker heads to Shanghai today for the China International Import Expo and meetings focused on reforming the WTO. Over 90 New Zealand companies will be exhibiting at the second China International Import Expo (CIIE), which runs from 5-10 November. “China is one of New Zealand’s ...
Drivers holding a current five-year learner or restricted car or motorbike licence, expiring between 1 December 2019 and 1 December 2021, will receive an automatic two-year extension, Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter announced today. Over 144,000 drivers’ time-limited licences are due to expire in the next two years; 67,000 ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker have announced the conclusion of negotiations to upgrade New Zealand’s existing free trade agreement with China. “This ensures our upgraded free trade agreement will remain the best that China has with any country,” Jacinda Ardern said. She ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau congratulates the Ten Kiwi organisations who have been recognised for their outstanding contribution to the wellbeing and the prosperity of their communities. Economic Development New Zealand (EDNZ), announced the awards at its annual conference in Blenheim last weekend. “A special congratulations to ...
Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa has welcomed the record high of 13,000 building and construction apprentices in active training with main provider the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation (BCITO). “We are committed to reversing the long-term decline in trades training and it’s excellent to see more people ...
PHARMAC’s decision to fund a new leukaemia treatment means three new cancer medicines have now been funded so far this year, Health Minister David Clark says. From 1 December venetoclax (Venclexta) will be funded for people living with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Just last month funding was also confirmed for alectinib ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today formally gifted a white horse to Toshogu Shrine in Nikko, Japan in front of thousands of attendees at a ceremony conducted by Chief Priest Inaba. The horse named Kōmaru, which means ‘sheltered’ in Maori and ‘shining’ in Japanese, is a white 12-year-old purebred Andalusian ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has named diplomat Martin Harvey as New Zealand’s next High Commissioner to Canada. “Canada is one of New Zealand’s closest and longstanding international partners,” said Mr Peters. “Our close friendship is underpinned by our shared democratic values, history and our parliamentary traditions. As Commonwealth countries and ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi has today announced the appointment of Jane Wrightson as Retirement Commissioner. “Jane has strong leadership, management and governance skills which will help champion improved financial capability for all New Zealanders and provide advice on retirement income policy issues,” Kris Faafoi said. Jane Wrightson ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi announced a plan last night to cooperate more closely in the Pacific, as part of the strong and ambitious relationship between the two countries. “Japan is one of New Zealand’s most important partners and closest friends. My discussions with Minister ...
The Government’s plan to help older New Zealanders live well, Better Later Life – He Oranga Kaumātua 2019 to 2034, was launched by Seniors Minister Tracey Martin today. “Better Later Life takes a fresh look at what is required to ensure everyone gets the chance to live well as they ...
Trees can play a lead role in New Zealand’s transition to a low emissions economy, and this is reflected in a new request for research into innovative ways to use wood fibre, announced by Forestry Minister Shane Jones at the blessing of the new government forestry hub site in Rotorua ...
The Government has committed to a strong regional presence for Te Uru Rākau (Forestry New Zealand), with the construction of a new Forestry Hub in Rotorua announced by Forestry Minister Shane Jones today. Speaking at a blessing ceremony at the site of the new building, Scion’s Rotorua campus, Minister Jones ...
A unique project enhancing the mana and wellbeing of the environment and the people of the Hokianga is to receive $300000 over three years from the Ministry for the Environment’s Community Environment Fund. Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage made the announcement at a kiwi protection workshop at Ōpara ...
Large and small scale and Māori foresters say the 50 Shades of Green march on parliament on Thursday (eds 14 November) highlights deliberately created confusion about the true nature and recent scope of forestry expansion. ...
Where do we watch content, what do we want from it, and how do we view New Zealand news? Here’s what we learned from NZ On Air’s latest survey on identity, culture and the media. We still like to watch free-to-view TVDespite the lingering doom and gloom around linear television, almost ...
The candidates to tackle Donald Trump are very keen on the New Zealand prime minister.It could be because Vogue called her “the anti-Trump”. It could be the desperate shortage of tolerable left-leaning leaders in the Anglosphere. Or it could be because everyone knows it’s illegal to be mean about people ...
Responding to the launch of Massey University's new policy and code regarding free speech and external speaker, Free Speech Coalition spokesman Dr David Cumin says: ...
The Government is creating a new division of the Education Ministry in an overhaul that will strip schools of the right to manage their enrolment zones and their property. ...
Making Northport Auckland’s main port will require massive investment in rail and road and will increase carbon emissions and the cost of goods says National Road Carriers Association CEO David Aitken. ...
Tuesday, November 12: After months of mounting pressure, the Environmental Protection Authority has now publicly released oil giant OMV’s application to drill a high risk oil well off the Otago Coast. ...
Simon Day eats a burger and considers becoming a vegetarian (again). For two years in my 20s, I was vegetarian. It was a choice based on the idea that it’s a much more efficient and much less environmentally invasive way to feed the world. I used to habitually roll out a ...
Ahead of TVNZ1’s new wildlife documentary Serengeti, Tara Ward presents the best animals that make up the juiciest drama on the plains.If you love nature docos filled with argy-bargy and love triangles, jealous siblings and power struggles, then TVNZ’s new wildlife documentary series Serengeti is a dream come true. The ...
The Panama Papers exposed a world in which the uber-rich and powerful were able to hide unimaginable wealth. The reporters who broke the story describe how they did it.“When it takes a whistleblower to sound the alarm… it signals that democracy’s checks and balances have all failed.”The final words in ...
Family First New Zealand has proposed a number of bills to the government regarding the access to pornography in both public places, including schools and the work place. “There has been an important national conversation around consent and ‘rape culture’. ...
Vernon Tava, the leader of the Sustainable NZ party, used to be part of the Greens. So how did he fit in there? Former MP Catherine Delahunty shares her impressions of him from then, and analyses where his new party will fit in.I first met Vernon Tava when he joined ...
A Parliamentary Petition has been issued, calling for the regulation of sunscreens in New Zealand as well as funding of effective sunscreens for low income and high risk populations. ...
It’s been a rough year for unit-holders in Fonterra Shareholders Fund, with the unit price slumping from $5.12 to its lowest point ever at $3.15. Chairman John Shewan didn’t mince words when he told the Fund’s annual meeting this week Fonterra’s financial performance had been “very poor” in 2019. Not ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Zero Carbon Bill, climate change Henry Cooke (Stuff): NZ First kept methane target from exiting ...
At 5:00pm on 22 November 2019, the period closes for public submissions regarding the changes BSA is proposing to the Election Programmes Code of Broadcasting Practice (Election Programmes Code). ...
Rachel Boyack was confirmed as the Labour Party candidate for Nelson for the 2020 General Election at a meeting of Party members held in Nelson tonight ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is bland and ineffective. Don’t fall for the spin, argues Steve Abel of Greenpeace. It was hard to not be buoyed by our House of Representatives, seemingly aligned in their commitment to climate action, at last week’s passing of the Zero Carbon Act. Bold expositions of pride ...
A new nationwide Curia Market Research poll shows the vast majority of New Zealanders are confused about what the End of Life Choice Bill aims to legalise. ...
The Prime Minster is defending her proposed firearms protection orders which has received mixed reactions in parliament; and attempted suicide in police custody has risen by almost 400 percent in four years. ...
A Helen Clark Foundation project to reduce online harm will be presented today in competition at the Paris Peace Forum. 'The Christchurch Principles' full report is available for download here . The Forum is a prestigious international event, initiated ...
Construction of more than 500 houses for New Zealand’s most needy families has been put on hold during a housing crisis because of a controversial policy change. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Sinclair, Research Fellow, NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University Endometriosis is a chronic, inflammatory condition where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus is found outside of the womb. It affects around one in ten women of reproductive age, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Fisher, Professor of Cattle & Sheep Production Medicine, University of Melbourne The plight of Australia’s dairy farmers is on the political agenda this week, after One Nation leader Pauline Hanson narrowly failed in her Senate bid for a minimum milk price. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katina Zammit, Deputy Dean, School of Education, Western Sydney University When I was younger I decided to learn Greek. I learnt the letter-sound correspondences and could say the words – the sounds, that is. But although I could and still can decode ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pamela Snow, Professor and Head, Rural Health School, La Trobe University Being able to read means being able to make meaning from printed words. At a functional level, we read to get the message – such as how many times per day ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thijs Dhollander, Post-doctoral neuroscientist, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health While looking at the MRI brain scan of a 29-year-old woman that had been taken for a different study, researchers in Israel recently stumbled upon a scientific mystery. The woman appears ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Holland, Senior Lecturer in Australian History, Macquarie University When the minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, recently announced a co-design process for creating an Indigenous “voice to government”, it was characterised as a shift in rhetoric. Yet, on closer inspection, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Zadro, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Sydney Patients might not be getting the best advice about which treatments do or don’t work, according to our study published today. We found professional societies are more likely to call out other health professionals ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Abou-Nemeh, Lecturer in Early Modern History, Victoria University of Wellington This week New Zealand’s parliamentarians will vote on the third reading of the End of Life Choice Bill. Much public discussion on the merits of euthanasia has centred around the role ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cris Brack, Associate Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University Trees die. You don’t have to like it, but they do. And this comes as a surprise to some. A senior public servant once told one of us (Brack): ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elaine Stratford, Professor, University of Tasmania In this series, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages. We are all touched by relationships with animals — as domestic and working companions, wild inspirations, threats, or pests. Some of us may know about ...
The government's firearms prohibition order proposal - to keep high-risk individuals away from firearms - is being met with both approval and alarm bells. ...
The government's firearms prohibition order proposal - to keep high-risk individuals away from firearms - is being met with both approval and alarm bells. ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Armed police arrest raises alarm, report makes strong call for Auckland port to go north, and a battle is going on among Fonterra shareholders.Serious concerns have been raised about the trial of armed police officers, after a team arrested an ...
Some observers have been thinking that the forthcoming British election on 12 December would be about a lot more than just Brexit. Some of the issues polling supports this view. And the party leaders have certainly been leading off with their plans for the radiant future. And yet – new ...
Dr Samantha Marsh explains why we need to be wary of drawing definitive conclusions from single studies on social media that appear to ‘let us off the hook’. ...
A little-known hormone-related condition affecting up to 8 percent of people with periods is sometimes mistaken for bipolar disorder and incorrectly treated. ...
The unusual case of Winston Peters vs the Crown took a new twist yesterday with revelations the deputy PM and head of the civil service have not talked since the Government was formed. ...
Tech sector giants have a vested interest in prioritising freedom of expression, often at the expense of other rights. A new project to reduce harmful online content, presented yesterday to the Paris Peace Forum, aims to change that. One of the architects of the Christchurch Principles, Dr David Hall, explains. What ...
As parliament voted all but unanimously to pass the Zero Carbon Bill into law last week, climate change minister James Shaw credited Generation Zero for its very existence. Here, Jenny Coatham explains how the youth-led climate action group pulled off such a monumental task. Our generation has been described as having ...
The State Services Commissioner has told the High Court claims he acted politically when he briefed his minister about Winston Peters' superannuation payment are "untrue and unfounded". ...
White Ribbon Manager Rob McCann says Firearms Prohibition Orders could make a real difference if guns are kept out of the hands of people with a history of family harm. ...
Hundreds of dead animals, birds and sea life washed up on a West Coast beach will also be leaving a legacy of thousands of poison laden time bombs for 140 kilometres on the way downriver from the mountains to the Sea according to Alan Simmons, leader ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Lecturer in Digital Journalism & Professional Communication, Queensland University of Technology We can’t all be at city council meetings or down at parliament house directly engaging with the issues that affect us. But through photography and video, we’re able to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ross Bradstock, Professor, Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, University of Wollongong Last week saw an unprecedented outbreak of large, intense fires stretching from the mid-north coast of New South Wales into central Queensland. The most tragic losses are concentrated in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Thorburn, co-Group Leader, Brain & Mitochondrial Research, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Mitochondrial donation is an assisted reproductive technology sometimes described as “three-parent IVF”. It’s designed for women at high risk of passing on faulty mitochondrial DNA and having a child with ...
The Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO) has asked the High Court to review the new regulation banning several classes of firearms ammunition. ...
Taco Bell is here. Alex Casey, Madeleine Chapman and Alice Webb-Liddall give the first review.There’s nothing more American than drinking a frozen margarita out of a plastic cup with a comically large straw. And that means America has come to West Auckland.New Zealand’s first-ever Taco Bell opens tomorrow at New ...
The strong whiff of “treaty” politicking has accompanied the intense scrutiny of Oranga Tamaraki in recent months, including the Waitangi Tribunal’s announcing an urgent inquiry into the child protection agency’s practices towards Māori children. No-one, curiously, seems much bothered about the agency’s practices towards other children. Oranga Tamariki staffers certainly ...
Acclaimed Wellington poet Amy Brown on how the first months of motherhood blasted her writing life – and, eventually, inspired her radically honest new verse journal. The night after birth, when the milk came in, a midwife gave me her pen. I was supposed to use it to write the times ...
The government is floating the idea of firearms prohibition orders, to give police powers to keep people deemed to be high-risk away from firearms. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin University Media companies around the world are in an existential funk. The tech giants – Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon – have built a better mousetrap for profiting from consumers’ attention than the traditional media can ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Forsyth, Professor of Workplace Law, RMIT University Is Australia’s award system so complex major corporations capable of handling millions of customers and billions of dollars can’t manage to pay employees properly? That’s the spin flowing freely in the wake of Australian ...
Open Mike 07/05/2018 
The Referendums Framework Bill was due back from select committee today. But there's no report on it. Instead, the bill has been bounced back to the House under Standing order 29593) because the Committee didn't bother to produce one. They probably tried. But given the membership of the committee (which ...22 mins ago
Two years into New Zealand’s Labour-led government, the long-delayed Zero Carbon Bill became law on 7 November. Passed essentially unanimously, the lengthy public debates and political manoeuvring faded away until the final passage was even anticlimactic: Flipping through the @nzstuff @DomPost I was starting to wonder if I’d dreamt ...34 mins ago
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...6 hours ago
8 hours ago
Since becoming the world’s first openly transexual mayor and member of parliament, Georgina Beyer has been recognised as a trailblazer for trans rights. Daphna Whitmore talks with her about where she sees the current trans movement We start out talking about legislation the government put on hold that would have ...2 days ago
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ... 2 days ago
by Phil Duncan Here’s just a few of the kind of threats issued day in and day out against gender-critical women – feminists, marxists, etc – overwhelmingly by MEN (albeit men identifying as women). “Kill all Terfs”. “Shoot a Terf today”. “All terfs deserve to be shot in the head”. ...6 days ago
And to think he gave all the potential goodwill away with that moronic, cult-like statement (repeated ad nauseam by many National hardliners) that Key is quite simply “the greatest PM we ever had”…
Installation complete: this was nothing ... 1 week ago
Today, a worker contacted me asking if she could go to the police over her employer stealing thousands of dollars from her in unpaid wages. The employer also did not pay this worker’s taxes or student loan which amounts to tax fraud. As a workers rights activist, who founded the ...1 week ago
Image Credit: Increase Social Media Traffic & Website Traffic I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your ... 2 weeks ago
. . NZ First’s success in putting the euthenasia bill to a public referenda may not be the victory they believe it to be. They may even have sounded the death-knell for a second Labour-NZ First-Green coalition. On 23 July this year, NZ First MP, Jenny Marcroft, submitted a Supplementary ...2 weeks ago
Finding reality needs more than wishful thinking. The problem is that statistical arguments often provide a jargon to confirm biases. Image credit: Accurate Thinking Versus Wishful Thinking in Gambling I worry at the way some ... 2 weeks ago
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...4 days ago
Darroch Ball, New Zealand First List MP A Member’s bill has been proposed that would provide income tax exemptions for all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel while on operational deployment overseas. The Income Tax (Exemption for Salary or Wages of NZDF Members on Active Deployment) Amendment Bill proposed by New Zealand First ...4 days ago
More frontline support for schools through a new education agency, as part of a redesigned Ministry of Education More support for principals and school boards including through a new centre of leadership and local leadership advisor roles New independent disputes panels for parents and students Management of school property ...3 hours ago
Large and small scale and Māori foresters say the 50 Shades of Green march on parliament on Thursday (eds 14 November) highlights deliberately created confusion about the true nature and recent scope of forestry expansion. ...23 mins ago
The finalised outcomes of the Tomorrow's Schools review look suspiciously like the first round of proposals. ...41 mins ago
Cabinet ministers now have a copy of a report urging the government to move the Auckland port up north, but say no final decisions have been made. ...43 mins ago
Where do we watch content, what do we want from it, and how do we view New Zealand news? Here’s what we learned from NZ On Air’s latest survey on identity, culture and the media. We still like to watch free-to-view TVDespite the lingering doom and gloom around linear television, almost ...1 hour ago
The Government is creating a new division of the Education Ministry in an overhaul that will strip schools of the right to manage their enrolment zones and their property. ...2 hours ago
Hoiho is Bird of the Year, but what are the most important things that need to happen to give the species a better chance of surviving? ...3 hours ago
A currency trader who lost $70,000 in a sharp, short-lived downturn, thinks the currency market is not properly regulated. ...3 hours ago
It’s been a rough year for unit-holders in Fonterra Shareholders Fund, with the unit price slumping from $5.12 to its lowest point ever at $3.15. Chairman John Shewan didn’t mince words when he told the Fund’s annual meeting this week Fonterra’s financial performance had been “very poor” in 2019. Not ...5 hours ago
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.
How Justin Lester lost the Wellington mayoralty; and NZ First kept methane target from exiting Zero Carbon Bill. ...6 hours ago
The Prime Minster is defending her proposed firearms protection orders which has received mixed reactions in parliament; and attempted suicide in police custody has risen by almost 400 percent in four years. ...6 hours ago
Construction of more than 500 houses for New Zealand’s most needy families has been put on hold during a housing crisis because of a controversial policy change. ...6 hours ago
Performance poet Ben Fagan continues his investigations into being Pākehā in 2019. Watch the video. ...9 hours ago
Some observers have been thinking that the forthcoming British election on 12 December would be about a lot more than just Brexit. Some of the issues polling supports this view. And the party leaders have certainly been leading off with their plans for the radiant future. And yet – new ...9 hours ago
DoC's IT section was torn apart by a culture so poor that some staffers felt unsafe to speak up. David Williams reports. ...9 hours ago
Dr Samantha Marsh explains why we need to be wary of drawing definitive conclusions from single studies on social media that appear to ‘let us off the hook’. ...9 hours ago
A little-known hormone-related condition affecting up to 8 percent of people with periods is sometimes mistaken for bipolar disorder and incorrectly treated. ...9 hours ago
Bernard Hickey unravels and explains the technologies, the acronyms and the power of 5G. ...9 hours ago
The unusual case of Winston Peters vs the Crown took a new twist yesterday with revelations the deputy PM and head of the civil service have not talked since the Government was formed. ...9 hours ago
Through the initiative of one trailblazing woman, a low-decile school in east Auckland is striving to ensure any kid who wants to play sport can. ...9 hours ago
How realistic is NZ's goal of being pest-free by 2050? ...10 hours ago
The Government has a credibility gap to bridge as well as an infrastructure gap to plug. ...19 hours ago
A Kiwi think tank has set out ten principles for governments and social media companies to use when tackling extremist content online. ...20 hours ago
The Government is asking for public input in its third round of tricky gun law reform. ...22 hours ago
The Government has a lot to weigh up as it tries to decide whether to 'do a John Key' and save Rio Tinto's struggling aluminium plant. ...22 hours ago
The strong whiff of “treaty” politicking has accompanied the intense scrutiny of Oranga Tamaraki in recent months, including the Waitangi Tribunal’s announcing an urgent inquiry into the child protection agency’s practices towards Māori children. No-one, curiously, seems much bothered about the agency’s practices towards other children. Oranga Tamariki staffers certainly ...23 hours ago
We live in 1984.
“As I write, with over 75% of all yesterday’s English local election results in, Labour has a net gain of 55 councillors compared to the high water mark of the 2014 result in these wards, while the Tories have a net gain of one seat against a 2014 result which was regarded at the time as disastrous for them, and led the Daily Telegraph to editoralise “David Cameron Must Now Assuage the Voters’ Rage”.
Yet both the BBC and Sky News, have all night and this morning, treated these results, in which the Labour Party has increased by 3% an already record number of councillors in this election cycle, as a disaster. What is more, they have used that false analysis to plug again and again the “anti-Semitism in the Labour Party” witch-hunt. It was of course the continuous exacerbation of this mostly false accusation by Blairite MP’s which – deliberately on their part – stopped the Labour Party doing still better. The Blairites are all over the airwaves plugging this meme again today.”
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/37463/
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2018/05/05/people-are-showing-they-will-not-be-fooled-by-the-bbcs-anti-corbyn-bias/
We do and we also note that you haven’t done your morning exercises…
Chris73 – “Big Brother is watching you!”
That shirts a good look on you, you should wear it more often
@Ed +1, The establishment ‘western left’ ie the neo liberal Blairites, DNC, and most of our own Labour Party etc, including all their associated ‘liberal’ media arms would rather see the right win than see a real Left Progressive project gain any ground at all, that much is plain for all to see.
How the New York Times and Israel coordinate propaganda
By the way, has our media darling Jacinda uttered a word of support for the peaceful protestors being murdered every Friday?
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2018/05/06/how-the-ny-times-and-israel-coordinate-propaganda/
May I ask
.
What is Morrissey ? Is he /she proposing a reopening of Auschwitz ?. Buchenwald perhaps. Clearly, he is yet another misogynist misfit bully, kicking the ass off Jacinda.
The sissy Morressy
Whatever, he/she is, he/she is rather spiteful. Smacking women around has become a major national party trait. Sickening.
I think you might have the wrong guy OT. Morrissey is a mild mannered feminist leftie and not obviously a Neo Nazi…
A.
From your comment – Im guessing the “Observer” in your handle is being ironic.
/agreed
lol that makes three of us in agreement – one for the pool room, that…
????
Moron alert! Moron alert!
+1 Morrissey, the lack of pretty much any ongoing MSM coverage of the massacres taking place in Gaza right now is shameful, but also unfortunately unsurprising.
I don’t think Jacinda would never put herself on the line for an issue of morality if it would hurt her politically, remember she is of course only another third way neoliberal, just enabling in softening the multiple blows of a debunked economic ideology.
I have come to the conclusion Corbyn will never be the PM of the UK. Which isn’t to say I don’t think he can – and probably will – win the next general election over there. It is just he will never be allowed to form a government.
Here is what will happen. Labour will win the next election under Corbyn and the Blairite Torys in Labour, having coat tailed back into parliament under a Labour banner, will declare that they “cannot in good conscience” allow Corbyn to rule and implement his “disasterous policies” and that for the “good of the UK” they’ll form a rump centrist party and prop up the Tories for five more years.
That doing so might fatally damage UK democracy and even trigger violent rioting and a semi-coup will be ignored; The Blairites have demonstrated no powers of reflection or introspection. They’ll absolve themselves of all blame, and smear their opponents and pass ever harsher laws to repress dissent until such time as they get their tunr to ascend to the house of Lords and the boards of various financial institutions.
The solution is mandatory deselection.
“I have come to the conclusion Corbyn will never be the PM of the UK”
On that part we agree.
“I have come to the conclusion Corbyn will never be … allowed to form a government.”
Quite possibly – and I have to confess that I’m impatient to see how such a prospect would play out. Your scenario is certainly imaginable – and there are darker alternatives in the background.
What lengths will a corrupt and anti-democratic UK establishment go to in order to prevent it happening? Is there a chance that they will over-reach themselves so disgracefully that they lose control of the narrative? I hope we get the opportunity to see.
Is Marx still relevant?
Philosopher Peter Singer says that he fundamentally misconstrued human nature.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/karl-marx-200th-birthday-by-peter-singer-2018-05?utm_source=Project+Syndicate+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e151c95e72-sunday_newsletter_6_5_2018&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_73bad5b7d8-e151c95e72-105758597
I am pretty sure we’ll be still talking about Marx long after Peter Singer’s ghost disappears from the land of the dead.
Sorry…Peter who?
🙂
He’s a utilitarian ethicist.
One of the biggest recent data-driven analyses of Marx is Piketty.
Personally I prefer the Frankfurt variations, plus David Harvey and Freddy Jamieson.
good on you Ad for seeing the comic irony in my comment, but you have piqued my interest.
Hey I am absolutely with you on Habermas and David Harvey
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/04/30/karl-marx-200-years-on-exclusive-interview/
You do realise that is not the real Karl Marx Draco? 😉
Peter ‘we are all marxists now’, that’s who.
And not only ‘Marxists’ Gabby;
Sadly we also have ‘tyrants’ still terrorising us all; – destroying our world as this one is;
Fact;
The historic curse of John Key has now finally been visited on every other country he has chosen to curse and live.
It is a fact that during the last decade, the US mainland, Hawaii, and NZ have all been at the centre of either earthquakes, volcanic activity, adverse weather events, or unstable governance.
It just dawned on me that everywhere John Key has resided in has been severely affected by either earthquakes, floods, eruptions and unstable governments.
I just hope that John key just resides elsewhere permanently now so NZ can find a way to recover from the earthquakes, floods, and all the other terrible effects this man has caused us all during his cured rein over us.
I don’t recognise key as morally ‘fit’ for a knighthood.
My goodness.
Your leader must be Brian Tamaki.
Your ridiculous rant about John Key is exactly the same thing as Tamaki was postulating.
According to Brian gays, sinners and murderers were responsible for earthquakes. You pin it on John Key.
Do you really believe this stuff, as Tamaki seems to, or is it simply the hangover from excessive consumption of mind-altering substances?
For your Prophet’s views on the same events see
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11749215
Well maybe Ruth Richardson (Limited) then, as her website used to proudly tell us – as adviser to various Sth American ‘jurisdictions’ (on their policies – going forward).
I’m not too sure she’d be too keen on visiting some of those places now (going forward).
Bloody interesting btw, how you appear to be so protective of JK – that poor wee boy who struggled with a solo-mum having to do her best to put food on the table in a State House, and who rose to fame and fortune (‘on the back of’) his own efforts. Notwithstanding most others were doing loikwoise in those poorer suburbs of ChCH – some even faintly remembering the ‘night cart’.
God how he must have felt SO bloody indequate having to attend BoiseHi rather than Christs.
What rotters we all are to be so cynical of JK’s rise to fame because we happen to disagree with the morals and ethics with which he did so.
JK should probably be shouting Nick Leeson a lunch somewhere in the Middle East where they can both have a replay of throwing the dice – winner takes all
You really have very little connection with the real world.
Protective of JK? Really? Can you demonstrate that or is it like so many of your statements, merely a product of your fetid imagination?
“he must have felt SO bloody indequate having to attend BoiseHi “. I suppose you have access to his deepest thoughts. He doesn’t seem to have ever expressed the thoughts publicly. The only senior politician I have ever seen who expressed such views was Michael Cullen. He of course seems to blame all his bitterness on the fact that he went to Christs, not that he was excluded.
Surely you aren’t as irrational as cleangreen. You do seem to be supporting this little epistle of his so it seems only reasonable to assume that you also think the Key can cause earthquakes.
Can you explain the actual mechanism? Just what does he do to cause the faults to move? How does he cause the volcanoes to erupt?
Please tell us. I am sure there are Geologists and Geophysicists who are dying to know. Of course if you did try and explain they would probably die from laughing about your views.
Maybe you’ve forgotten the spin and bullshit when JK first came to be PM.
There were so many sad sack stories circulating about his rags to riches shit going round that it reminded me that a good many had bogs in the back yard and that for them it was Norman Normal.
I’m not suggesting Key can cause Earthquakes, I am suggesting there are a good many who still think the sun shines brightly from an anus supported by a couple of knock-knees, and that there is a persona of someone that you appear to still idolise that’s about as genuine as a Chinese made Rolex.
You started this comment so well.
Yes I do remember the rather over the top reaction to Key at the beginning. It happens with all of them and you are quite entitled to talk about it.
The problem is that in the second paragraph you went from the general, “there were so many …..” to the particular “you appear to still idolise ….”.
If you are going to make claims about me then I suggest you provide some evidence. Otherwise you are no different, in principle, to the rat-bags making up the stories about Gayford.
That’s different Alwyn. The made up stories about Gayford are false whereas the made up stories about you are quite obviously true 😉
I defer to your spectacular superiority. i’M TRULY IN AWE
You can’t be all bad. Anyone who appreciates Joe Cocker has some redeeming features.
I have had a soft spot for McFlock’s opinions ever since I found that he was a cigar enthusiast. Nobody who can understand the appeal of a good cigar can really be other than a gentleman underneath.
Now there’s a point Cleangreen (5.1) … Old Nick himself do you think walking amongst us?
Agree with your last comment. Key is morally bankrupt in just about every respect. A traitor of the highest degree!
With the Budget fast approaching perhaps our government should when selling us a vision not be too quick in over promising. (Included is the broken promise of the “deferred” $10 doctor visit that was to commence 1st July 2018)
Re 1 Billion trees, to give some idea as to the scale of this
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/funding-and-programmes/forestry/planting-one-billion-trees/
During the depression in the USA the CCC planted over 3 billion trees, that involved 3 million people over 10 years !!!
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/funding-and-programmes/forestry/planting-one-billion-trees/
http://www.ccclegacy.org/CCC_Brief_History.html
NZ has had enough of empty visions we had 9 years of it, and for the current govt to continue the trend …. Really doesn’t help NZ.
“With the Budget fast approaching perhaps our government should when selling us a vision not be too quick in over promising. (Included is the broken promise of the “deferred” $10 doctor visit that was to commence 1st July 2018)”
Its too late – they have already done the over selling – now they are in the letting people down phase.
James I lot of people will understand being “let down” but labour having to phase in their policies such as cheaper GP visits given the disgusting underspending and deliberate move to cover up the state of Middlemore Hospital.
Did you read the bit in the link that says we will plant half a billion trees at current rates anyway.. With a bit of creative accounting they could probably get to a billion without lifting a finger 🙂
Maybe declare wilding pines a protected species.
In the 1930s USA half a million coal miners mined 600million tons.
Today a hundred thousand miners mine a billion tons.
Be careful judging today’s potential by 1930s outputs.
as mauī points out, we’re halfway there already.
And the Pantheon was built in in 8-9 years
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/unlocking-mysteries-of-the-parthenon-16621015/
and the Romans built a bridge over the Rhine in 10 days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar%27s_Rhine_bridges
and finally Xerxes bridge built 480 bc reported by ,.. me !! ha ha Quicker than what was achieved last century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes%27_Pontoon_Bridges
Also don’t think that in todays world what we can achieve is always something special
You used the Depression as a benchmark. So I did, too.
I love discussions like these – one ends up in the most interesting (legal) places of the internet.
Gabby’s comment about making wilding pines a protect species wasn’t far off the mark: the industry calls it “control pollinated” (pdf report here).
Which explains how only a few thousand forestry workers can “plant” 50-odd million trees a year. The biggest barrier seems to be finding 50,000 more hectares to put pine on over ten years.
The Great Depression you say?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afsluitdijk
Herodotus, slaves built many great structures, so did armies way back then.
Tell me again why some men joined the army, was it to avoid prison or a harsh sentence back in the day?
Re the bridge the Romans built… “Since he (Caesar) had over 40,000 soldiers at his disposal, they built the first bridge in only 10 days using local lumber”
What was the punishment for abandoning or disobeying the Roman army?
Did you even bother doing the sums on that assertion?
3 billion divided by 3 million = 1000.
1000 divided by 10 = 100
100 divided by 356 = 0.356
Or one tree planted every three and a half days.
Meanwhile, in reality, a three person crew can do 10,000 in an eight hour shift if using a machine. Doing it by hand isn’t as fast but can still do 1000 to 3000 per day.
To plant one billion trees at 1000 per day would be:
1 billion divided by 1000 = 1 million days
1 million days divided by 365 = 2739.72602739726 years
For one person it’s a bit much so it probably pays to hire more than one person to do it. If they hired three thousand they could probably get it done in about a year.
This is why you do at least some basic research before making bollocks assertions.
His figures are supported by a usually reputable source.
https://www.history.com/topics/civilian-conservation-corps
You will of course have noted that he never said that there were 3 million people employed for the whole of the 10 years. He just said 3 million were involved.
These people also did lots of other things you know
Why don’t you read the link and then tell us whether you want to revise your comment after considering the facts.
But it was certainly implied.
Nope. Same reason applies – it’s simply not comparable.
Oh, dear.
Never let a few facts get in the way of a good moan.
Come on. It isn’t a very long article and I’m sure you can face the fact that you may, just occasionally, be wrong.
All a bit moot because they didn’t just plant trees, anyway.
I did in fact point that out.
“These people also did lots of other things you know”
It doesn’t really make it moot of course, in the meaning of the word that is “no longer relevant”.
It just makes DTB’s calculations look rather silly and the definition of moot as “subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty” is certainly applicable.
So you’d agree that 1 billion trees is a reasonable goal and not an “empty vision” as Herodotus put it?
refer to my calcs below, whist the vision is commendable not sure about the ability to achieve this vision, the same about the 100,000 affordable modern houses regarding Kiwibuild over 10 years .
/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/KiwiBuild_Factsheet.pdf
The ability of our govt to achieve anything like there visions is highly questionable.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/10/revealed-shane-jones-minister-for-100-million-trees-1-billion-regional-fund.html
So from this article of 1000 stems/ha. Many will be thinned out so there will not be 1billion tress grown. Even at 1000/ha this will still require 1m ha it still is 10,000km2 or 3.7% of the area on NZ
1billion including the current 500million
IMO it displays the vacuum in the promise of 1b trees when you include existing replenishment replanting to achieve the desired numbers.
https://www.labour.org.nz/speech_from_the_throne
This government is committed to a new planting programme, planting 100 million trees a year to reach a billion more trees in ten years. This New Zealand First initiative also connects directly to this government’s determination to take action on climate change.”
See that reach a billion MORE trees, nothing about adding 500m to the existing 500m current replanting program.
https://www.labour.org.nz/red_letter_day_for_the_east_coast
“At the heart of this wide-ranging policy is the Government’s billion trees programme with enormous opportunities for our Māori people. It has to be remembered that nurseries are going to be needed for the millions of native trees that will have to be planted this year.
IMO our govt has been found out and they are scrambling to find a way of keeping their vision, even if it requires to act as the way Nation would.
When the policy was announced it was perfectly clear. When Jones was made minister it was perfectly clear: “It is understood that about 50 million trees are already planted in New Zealand each year, meaning the new Government’s planting will double that.” From your own link in the previous comment.
And the goal is a billion trees planted. That is not misleading.
“See that reach a billion MORE trees, nothing about adding 500m to the existing 500m current replanting program.” Well, yeah, it’s a billion more trees than we have now.
Seriously, if your problem with the planting policy is that the new government will only double the number of trees rather than triple it, you’re doing pretty well. And if the challenge were so difficult, how did the nats get to 70million in 2012?
Riiiight.
So, can you tell me how to compare a conservation effort doing everything and involving millions of people over a decade can be compared to a single, specific, task that will be done by a couple of thousand people over a year or so?
Can you tell me how, given the maths, it’s not actually possible to plant a billion trees as implied by Herodotus ?
The assertion Herodotus made, and that you objected to was very simple.
“During the depression in the USA the CCC planted over 3 billion trees, that involved 3 million people over 10 years”.
You then tried to claim that these numbers must be false and said
“This is why you do at least some basic research before making bollocks assertions”.
The assertion as stated was not bollocks. There were that many people involved and they did plant that many trees.
I didn’t say that they were false – I said that they were bollocks and they are. He tried to claim that planting lost of trees couldn’t be done because three million couldn’t do it in the 1930s.
That’s what my calculation was about. There’s absolutely no way that even a volunteer program would have people planting one tree per three and a half days each. It’s obvious that they would have had far fewer people planting 1000+ per day each.
No, it was complete bollocks.
There were that many people involved in CCC.
There weren’t that many of them planting trees. There weren’t even that many involved with planting trees.
If there had actually been three million people planting trees it wouldn’t have taken them 10 years. It would have taken them a day.
Just a quick use of google
https://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/average-density-trees-acre-forest-53-trees-peracre–assuming-number-trees-per-
Don’t know of how reliable the source is BUT 1 billion trees by 53, so for ease of my maths ability say 50 trees/acre
so 1 Billion (US of 1,000,000,000 not the UK of 1,000,000,000,000) = 20,000,000 acres is need or 8.09m hectares, or 80,900km2 The area of land that NZ covers is 268,000km2 so 30% of the country. (I think my cals are correct, BUT could be out)
It’s a hypothetical question on a school homework site. You might as well suppose that the average speed of trains from pittsburgh is 30mph.
I linked to last year’s forestry projections from MPI in this comment here (although I boo-bood the pdf link pasting). Try a thousand trees per hectare, not 120. And it’s bringing total production to a billion trees when we’re on 50mil/yr anyway.
But I did tumble the land area math, over ten years a total of 500million trees at 1000/hectare = 500,000 hectares. Assuming none of that is replanting, that’s a little under 2% rather than 30% of NZ’s land area, and our current production forest land area is 1.7million hectares (according to the NEFD report on that MPI link).
This is what Herodotus wrote. “During the depression in the USA the CCC planted over 3 billion trees, that involved 3 million people over 10 years !!!”
That states baldly and plainly that the planting involved 3 million people.
Of course, you then read the article, and it says this. “the CCC planted more than three billion trees and constructed trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationwide during its nine years of existence.”
alwyn, there is a difference between what Herodotus paraphrased and what the cited article said.
What Herodotus wrote was an inaccurate and misleading reporting of that article. And indefensible.
That comment btw used “love of the language and a sense of fair play.”
What he said was, in fact, true.
Did you perchance accept some of the efforts at misleading people that the present Government get up to?
When they promised us $700/year in a heating allowance isn’t that just a tad crooked when they meant about $400 this year?
When they said $10 per visit reduction in GP visits from July 1 did they really get free rein to change it to “But not this year”.
And on and on and on.
Did you complain that people had interpreted it in a different way and they should do what everyone thought they meant?
Thought not. If you had you might have been entitled to your complaint on the grounds that you were being consistent. If you didn’t then you political bias is showing.
What he said was not true. Three million people were involved in a whole heap of work more than planting 3 billion trees for the CCC.
To then claim that just as the planting of three billion trees would require three million workers, so the NZ government target of i billion trees would require presumably one million workers is just plain wrong.
Herodotus said, “to give you some idea of the scale of this” referring to the planting of a billion trees, he cited an article and then said, ” “During the depression in the USA the CCC planted over 3 billion trees, that involved 3 million people over 10 years !!!”
That is totally inaccurate as an example of scale.
Draco T has worked the figures to show this.
Alwyn, you’re just wasting my time.
Land value capture (which allows councils to capture the estimated paper gain increase in the value new infrastructure adds to private property) may be coming to your neighbourhood.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/103631686/wellingtons-mayors-want-a-piece-of-new-transport-funding–and-are-open-to-using-new-taxes-to-get-it
The problems I have with this is it hits low income households the hardest, thus may result in forcing people to sell up and move or become indebted.
Moreover, it will add to the cost of home ownership and potentially add inflationary pressure to rents.
Therefore, if the Government is going to allow this, low income households should be protected by being made exempt.
Additionally, it may backfire as the new tax may deter buyers from purchasing in locations that are targeted, opting to buy in the next street over, resulting in homes just outside of the targeted area increasing in value instead.
Chairman this is definitely a debate to track towards the latter part of this year.
It is going to come to a head with light rail in Auckland, which means it will probably open up the entire Unitary Plan debate. It is certainly building inside government.
Labour has lost elections before just on tax issues – I hope they have the skills for playing ‘capital gain harvest’ taxes.
I don’t think councils see driving poor people out of home ownership as a problem chairy.
What gives with Simon Bridges and his new naming of the Labour leadership?
He’s getting a hammering on Facebook for these comments, btw.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/05/simon-bridges-says-labour-guys-and-girls-won-t-get-tough-on-gangs.html
He is quoted. “”You can believe Stuart believes this stuff, but the guys and girls above him are going to rumble him. There’s no chance they’re going to have a harder approach to the gangs.”
Not only is there that putdown by age and sex, but the reference to ‘rumble’ connects to a second meaning of the word ‘to have a gang fight’ as well as the primary sense he is using of ‘discover his true intent’.
Maybe Bridges is being clever and using this choice of language relating the issue to gangs? Maybe this language is also carefully meant to associate Labour with being gang associated? The term ‘guys’ is often used as a term for gangsters. Maybe the issue of gangs just triggers word associations.
Certainly, the ‘guy and girls’ is a putdown, and unworthy of the Leader of the Opposition to use.
Why did he not say “the men and women above him” or ‘the people above him” or ‘the leadership”or ” senior Cabinet members’ or ‘the cabinet executive’ or even ‘the party bosses’?
100% mac 1
Yes Simon Bridges is a slippery character alright.
But he will be rolled sooner than later as he is weak and in-decisive.
The ghost of SS Joyce will overtake and consume him as the bloodletting within the diminishing National Party emerges.
Why is it unworthy of the Leader of the Opposition to use? Who determines this – You?
All of us, Gosman, all of us with a shred of decency and a love of the language and a sense of fair play and respect for office.
I would suggest not. I see nooone from the right or centre of politics who has an issue with what he is saying.
That Bridges boy just ain’t sensitive to nuance – and neither are you, so only it slags the Left. But that’s the Right for you – not even intellectual pygmies, much less intellectual giants.
Whatever. At the end of the day the only people concerned over his use of language are lefties like you.
Yup – because my little cabbage you’re an uncritical admirer of all things Right – however inane.
Gone are the days when rightwing trolls aspired to have a shred of intellectual credibility or economic competence – Key and English exhausted that pretention.
Bridges just calls people names. And that’s good enough for you – your expectations are so debased.
I’ve criticised numerous elements of the last National led government so you cannot be meaning myself.
I don’t recall that at all.
What don’t you recall exactly? My criticising the last National led government? I believe I have mentioned my disappointment in them on topics such as tax and regulatory reform on numerous occasions. Their refusal to do anything radical held back the country hugely.
It probably astonishes you to know Gosman, that the Left does not await your every utterance with bated breath. And, as you say, you focus on tax and regulatory reform because you have no interest in people or people’s issues.
Take a large scale political failing like Key’s dishonesty or Carter’s treacherous subversion of ministerial questions however, and you are silent as the grave – if not actually defending the wrongdoers.
It is ethically bereft MF like you that are holding the country back.
So has/does Mathew the Hoot. He’s even been known to criticise JK (probably more in the interests of being fair and balanced)
‘Whatever. At the end of the day the only people concerned over his use of language are lefties like you.’
So are you saying it was not the Right who was up in arms when Julie Anne Genter made mention of certain Old White Men
You silly wee Trolling Hypocrite
What has that got to do with what Bridges said?
if you cannot see the equivalence then you really are as dim witted as i presumed from your history of trolling
Well that leaves you out of it.
Four things listed and you fail all of them.
You know me that well, eh? Sorry, I’m not supposed to have a sense of humour, either.
No, no.
If you had claimed a sense of humour as well as the other things I wouldn’t have used the phrase I did.
I would have said, instead “Five things listed and you fail four of them”.
There, does that make you feel better?
Wasn’t feeling that bad actually., thanks, alwyn.
Slick Britches is disappointed that the work Nastynil did on eradicating gangs (and in no way profiting from the P explosion) is going to be reversed.
Crosby Textor focus groups at work.
A moral issue for our times.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2018/05/30-000-empty-homes-in-auckland-is-it-time-to-tax-the-owners.html
John Minto points out the anti-social nature of land-banking and ghost houses in this article. In my region, ten per cent of dwellings are unoccupied by permanent residents.
Instead we have some 600 Air B&Bs and Rent a Baches.
I hope the government can first do smiting (should have read ‘something’ but I like my spell checker’s (cocker’s) version) about first the issue of empty housing whilst people are homeless, and second that the tax fraudsters amongst the renters are brought to account financially and legally.
How will you check whether a property is being deliberately left unoccupied?
Is it worthwhile to find a solution to this problem?
Not if the compliance cost involved in monitoring this are excessive. It could also involve a massive increase in the coercive power of the State if it involves inspectors going around to private property to see what is happening.
Compliance costs could be lumped onto those that are targeted, strengthening the deterrent.
How would they be lumped on to those being targeted?
Via the new tax.
Straight off the top of my head, no research, how about a ‘vacancy fee’ for absentee home owners which could be incorporated into rates; or better still, a tax on the capital gains earned on ghost housing when sold over and above the usual taxation.
After all, New Zealand had a problem at the turn of the 19th Century under the Liberal government when land was all locked up in the hands of land owners.
My family benefited from John Mckenzie’s land tax when land was freed up for balloting. Taxation was the method of righting that particular problem.
Taxation was the method of righting the issue of poverty amongst our people and the welfare state and earlier the Liberal’s Old Age Pension which addressed the issue of income for older citizens.
Fair taxation, justly applied and large social, with financial and legal sanctions for the betrayers of the social contract. who at the moment remove from social expenditure use anywhere from $1.5 to $7 billion annually.
As much as I would love to see the left try and implement such a dumb tax it isn’t likely to be implemented any time soon for the main reason the Labour party wants to remain electable
So, what would you do, Gosman, to ensure that all our citizens are housed healthily and safely?
Such a ‘dumb’ tax provided enough land for four families within my grandparent’s generation to survive well enough. Those families then produced great rugby players, priests, district councillors, war heroes, teachers, nurses, etc etc.
Who complained? “Ready Money” Robinson might have. The owner of the Kinloch estate on the Banks Peninsula might have.
But the hundreds of families who benefited did not complain.
The Liberal Party policy was easy to implement in contrast to what is being suggested here. You can’t easily hide how big your land is but you can hide the fact it is not being used for something.
It’s no more difficult than operating Winz’s rules on relationships. In fact staff no longer needed to be punitive to the poor could readily transfer to a role monitoring sociopathic speculators.
Don’t you agree the WINZ rules around relationship status are unworkable?
What they are is morally repugnant. They’d be workable were Winz not too ashamed to state them plainly and publicly.
We could use the 1800 new police that Stuart Nash is proposing. After they’ve cleaned up the “P” problem, they can move onto the “H” problem. 🙂
Seriously, though, when society accepts the depth of the problem and the social ills concomitant with homelessness and sub-standard housing, part of which is “P”, then it can find solutions equally in depth that most of us can accept and justify.
No need for “a massive increase in the coercive power of the State”.
Those Search And Surveillance powers enable this already.
How about a camera mounted on every telephone pole/street light to monitor the use of housing?
Smart meter data would paint an accurate picture re: occupancy. Spurts of consumption over weekends and long weekends would indicate air bnb or holiday house usage. Flat lining water/power consumption = empty house. Doesn’t need inspectors, just a robotic drill into the data.
What happens if I go off grid?
I think it’s unlikely you’d be going to that expense just to lock the house up and leave it empty.
Maybe the house is 50 kms from nowhere. It’s not needed as a family rental.
That’s easy. Check water and electricity use. It is already being done.
While I agree that it would be good to discourage leaving houses empty for long periods of time, I can’t see a workable solution as there so many variables for why people may leave a house empty – e.g. working away from home, family commitments, changes in household, house empty for renovations, repair after major damage or sale.
Water meter usage is not monitored across New Zealand and how would the goverment access that information for the places that do? Do we want government to have access to that information (water and power) about individual households?
There were many houses empty for months and years after the earthquakes in Christchurch and in the east of Christchurch there still are – some at least are due to people not being in a position to repair and or sell. Even Housing New Zealand houses have been empty for monthes and monthes even in 2018.
My point is how can government differentiate between those that are landbanking and those whose circumstances mean that their house is empty (or is occupied but doesn’t use much power).
Actually Gos, there are a few ways. You know how your ilk were in favour of water meters and privatising power companies and telcos? There’s also this thing called ‘big data’ you’d be an advocate for.
At the moment though, the only problem is the purpose for which it is used, and you do realise those nanny state authorities actually have supremacy (unless of course some jumped up little army general decides otherwise and is able to persuade his underlings to agree)
Whilst any profiling is in its infancy, it does allow ‘officials’, or those ‘in authority’ to direct their attention to a particular property (going forward).
It’s not too dissimilar to all that demographic profiling thingy that MBIE had heavily invested in – until they were told to pull their heads in. Even though they haven’t YET come to grips with it all ….
Unless someone wants to leave the garden hose on as a drip, and perhaps run a modest hooch operation in the attic, if you provided me with the data, I’d be happy to direct those ‘officials’ in the right direction ….. for a modest fee of course (plus GST). I won’t even charge for any intermediary consultancy – such as finder’s fees or those ‘independent’ people verifying my impartiality (going forward).
I’m bloody sure there are others that’ll do likewise.
Clip go the shears boys clip clip clip
Yes mac 1.
Bloody good points john makes that we should all seriously consider carefully now as the ‘land/house banking system is only used by banks and very rich investors trying to push prices up and will distort the whole economy again like 2007 what Enron did.
Wake up kiwis, we are being rorted here.
Ban these ‘leeches’ as house/land bankers and send them packing.
If the Government is serious about their green credentials, they would equip (and allow) all state houses to have solar panels.
Good to see the Greens speaking up on this.
Must see: (from 19.55 into the clip)
https://www.threenow.co.nz/shows/the-hui/season-3%3A-sunday-6-may-2018/125685/M21250-300
An initiative to provide free solar power setup for the poor is declined by Housing NZ? WTF?
See clip in the link above.
I agree chairman, but why stop at state housing.
Why not make a 3-5 kw array grid tied, compulsory on every new dwelling or building?
Water catchment/tanks too while we are at it.
Solar panels are part of the building code in California.
Because it will increase the cost of housing which is already high.
‘World’ label boss who trumpeted locally-sourced fashion caught out reselling overseas-made goods with ‘Made in NZ’ tags: https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/07-05-2018/t-shirts-from-bangladesh-sequin-patches-from-china-all-sold-by-world-as-made-in-nz/
Said boss responds at length to article: https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/07-05-2018/those-world-t-shirts-dame-denise-lestrange-corbet-responds/
Hahahaha, what a hoot.
Spinoff: “Considering your WORLD clothing tags say “Fabriqué en Nouvelle Zelande”, would customers reasonably assume these t-shirts and more have been made in New Zealand?”
Dame Denise: “As already stated, the WORLD clothing tags that say Made in NZ are Made in NZ, so there is nothing misleading about this. As explained, the t-shirts do not state this”.
Oh dear, that’s a frightfully wobbly defense. The garment swing tags that state ‘Made in NZ’ were die-cut and printed in NZ so they’re not deceptive…..what a load of bollix. I thought she was smarter than trying to float such a leaky boat.
Anyway, why are the tags written in French rather than in either of our 2 official written languages?
So wish I had read that before I grumpily commented here…./a-great-business-opportunity/#comment-1481867
I have no time for these people….
Spinoff asked…
“Considering your WORLD clothing tags say “Fabriqué en Nouvelle Zelande”, would customers reasonably assume these t-shirts and more have been made in New Zealand?”
Dame Whatsherface replies…
“As already stated, the WORLD clothing tags that say Made in NZ are Made in NZ, so there is nothing misleading about this. As explained, the t-shirts do not state this.”
Is it to late to get dame whatserface on dancing with the stars?
Those are a coupla handy pirouettes she is pulling off on that pin.
How embarrassing though.
Particularly as it was this Government that gave her the award entitling her to call herself “Dame”
I hope that Ardern hasn’t been wearing any of these clothes in her numerous woman’s magazine photo ops?
Please tell us she wasn’t wearing anything from this lot in the Vogue article.
alwyn I think you might be wrong. My understanding is the Honours awards are determined around six months in advance of their publication date. Since she received a dame-hood in the 2018 New Year, that means it was the previous National led government who determined her award.
I think you would be right if you said they started the process at that time. That would be immediately after the last lot were announced. In his case of course the last Government would have gone into caretaker mode in about mid-August and stayed there until the coalition took over. The new Government had about two and a half months to change things. I’m afraid they have to carry the, not very massive, can.
After all a whole bunch of them flew off on a jolly to the Chatham Islands to claim credit for something they had opposed in Opposition.
You take it one way you have to wear it the other.
I’m afraid they have to carry the, not very massive, can.
I get the feeling this case (can’t be bothered looking up her fancy name)
is a storm in a tea cup so who cares who gave her the gong anyway. 😐
Yes, given that there is no evidence of Ardern patronising the business. That would have been a little embarrassing but the presentation of a gong doesn’t matter.
A jolly in the Chathams wynny? Livin the dream.
They took lots and lots of their own, tax-payer funded, booze.
Then they dined on crayfish, lots and lots of crayfish.
I could easily be tempted to describe that as a jolly.
Shane may have missed out on his pornographic videos but the others were probably quite happy.
Not as embarrassing as the gong handed out to the last prime minister for services to nest feathering.
Actually gsays… I didn’t like john Key. I didn’t like his MO and I didn’t like is often sneaky ways. But he was PM for eight years and not everything he did was bad. So he was deserving of a gong. And bear in mind not many Kiwis care about who has gongs and who doesn’t anyway.
Are you serious!
PM for 8 years and he deserves a gong!
I would rather acknowledge and celebrate the people who foster children or the volunteers who enrich and strengthen communities.
Put it another way. All prime ministers are offered a knighthood after they cease to be PM. Most but not all accept them. So, it was inevitable John Key would be offered a knighthood and equally inevitable he would be one of those who accept it. It was in that sense I used the term “deserving”.
I see.
Phew.
To be fair I was quite hungry when I read your comment – with a full belly, I am largely unmoved by slippery John’s gong.
😀
Yep, as is usually the case, Dame Denise would of been much better off telling the truth . Said something like: “Thanks for drawing this to our attention Spinoff and I think you’re right, the wording could be taken the wrong way. It should read ‘Designed in NZ’ and that’s what they will say in the future.”
Spinoff would have their scalp, Dame Denise would prove she does the right thing when she can and the story would die.
lol
buy a World tag that was made in NZ, get a free tshirt from Bangladesh.
I wonder if comcom will buy that?
Hahahaha yeah, it’s a situation made for satire.
“You might very well now feel that $99 is an outrageous price to pay for a locally produced swing tag Mr McFlock but you entered into the transaction of your own free will.”
““You might very well now feel that $99 is an outrageous price to pay for a locally produced swing tag Mr McFlock but you entered into the transaction of your own free will.””
Someone, please, check that them there tags are actually fabriqué en Nouvelle Zelande….
This is a wound that deserves extra salt.
When I put ‘Designed in New Zealand’ into Google translate, the French is: Conçu en Nouvelle-Zélande. I think most of Dame Denise’s local customers would read that and still surmise that it says ‘Made in New Zealand’….I think I would…
The new tags will add Ceci n’est pas une tshirt.
I reckon we should leave it to Jim Mora and ‘The Panel’ to sort out.
Hah! The Dame ain’t happy…
“Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet has slammed a report by the Spinoff, calling it “trash” and “gutter journalism”.
In an interview with Newstalk ZB, she said she found the report disgusting and that it has damaged her brand.
“I am furious,” she told Newstalk ZB.
“I will not be torn down by some two-bit writer who thinks she can air her opinions that are not truthful.””
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12046775
or, if that link doesn’t work anymore…
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:M1cuSw7QzuMJ:https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm%3Fc_id%3D3%26objectid%3D12046775
“I will not be torn down”
Ah – this is the problem. Clearly believes she is in a place from which she can be torn down. Hubris is a horrible thing.
Btw, did anyone count the number of “but”s and “I don’t know”s DL’E-C said during her JC interview on Checkpoint?
And Christ! at the end of that interview, she put it all back on the consumer for being ‘stupid’ …… as in “I thought [the consumer] was smarter”.
Gorgeous darling! Almost gorgeous enough to come back for a fling on “The Panel”
And I’m sincerely hoping she’s not related to a former registrar because if he’s not tucked up somewhere with a minimum-waged Filipino wiping his arse, he’s sure as shit busy rolling in discomfort 3 feet below
While doing some follow up googling on empty house taxes, homelessness and the influence of developers I stumbled across this….
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/07/oulton-leeds-prefab-airey-houses-demolition-eviction
Very interesting slice of history, and extremely relevant to today’s discussion.
Politics…
“”Named after Sir Edwin Airey, a construction magnate, around 200 of the houses were built on the estate in the late 50s as homes for miners, and few thought they would see in the millennium.
Made from prefabricated concrete and scrap metal salvaged from military vehicles, they were designed to meet the housing needs of the growing numbers of workers living outside cities.
Barry and Mavis Abbey, both in their early 70s, have lived on the estate since 1970, when the homes were owned by the National Coal Board.
At one stage the Abbeys had been led to believe they would be able to buy their home under the Thatcher government’s right-to-buy scheme. But this option was denied them for reasons that remain opaque. Ex-miners like Barry believe it was in revenge for them going on strike in the mid-1980s.
The estate was sold off by the NCB in 1986, after which the homes passed through a series of owners until they ended up in the hands of the Pemberstone Group, a private investment firm that boasts a diverse portfolio of interests including an Italian tour operator, an indoor ski slope and the Ilford camera-film brand.
Pemberstone’s “scheme” involves replacing the existing 70 Airey houses with 71 new properties, only 11 of which will be reserved for “affordable accommodation”, a number that it says is in line with Leeds city council’s Strategic Homes plan.
Locals have heard that the new homes will be priced at around £300,000 – 10 times what a three-bedroom Airey house on another estate fetched recently. Surrounded by attractive green spaces, close to motorways and 20 minutes from the city centre, they should sell easily.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/103591593/jeanette-fitzsimons-says-greens-could-reject-waka-jumping-bill–and-it-wont-bring-down-the-government
Justice Minister Andrew Little said of the submissions he had read he was surprised by how many were flawed.
“I haven’t seen any convincing arguments to change much.”
Some of those who submitted are here if anyones interested:
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/a-submission-on-the-electoral-integrity-amendment-act
My reply.
And in the important issues of the day:
does anybody else happen to listen to RNZ’s business news (going forward)?
I find it bloody hard whenever I have to listen to Nona Pelletier reporting.
I know I’m living ‘on the back of’ the age of the curmudgeon, but it’s not just that. Just as I need to listen to Soimun 10 Bridges twice before I’m able to decipher his wuzdim words, or avail moisef of a tranny, Nona sounds like she’s singing the descant.
Can she not be promoted to an off-ear pizzishun?
OR maybe I should just fuck off somewhere else where basic things like communicating with other human beings are no longer such an earfit.
Ekshully, I’ll take it all back and count myself lucky I’m not Donny the Don Brash who has to deal with listening to Mary
I have no issue with Nona’s voice … maybe that’s because I watch her on TV rather than just listen – on RNZ on channel 50. Sometimes I find it hard to understand on the phone or radio but if I can see them it’s easier for some reason. Similarly if I know where they are from I find it easier to tune into their accent.
Okay. Now I’m not creating a rumour here or anything, but seems just a tad strange that just a few days after this…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/103586961/uae-foreign-minister-meets-with-jacinda-ardern-in-wellington
“Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan has been meeting with New Zealand ministers and members of the opposition over the past couple of days in Wellington.
Before the Sheikh arrived at Ardern’s 9th floor office for the meeting he sent up a somewhat mysterious gift, in a large box, on a gurney. It was wheeled into Ardern’s office where she was later expected to open it.”
….there’s this,
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/356797/dubai-princess-forcibly-returned-after-attempt-to-flee-reports
“Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on United Arab Emirates authorities to disclose the whereabouts and condition of a daughter of Dubai’s ruler, following reports she was forcibly returned after fleeing the Gulf Arab state”
Are you suggesting that Princess Cindys gift was…an actual princess?
Of course not! Don’t be silly!
I’m just exploring an interesting juxtaposition of articles. That’s all. Honest.
Besides, our friends from UAE would NEVER, EVER treat a woman like some kind of chattel.
I guess there is precedence:
http://www.cracked.com/article_19591_6-most-ridiculous-abuses-diplomatic-immunity.html
Check out number 4 🙂
Today I helped a family member who had to take a Medical Certificate to the Hamilton central WINZ office.
In the past we’ve waited in the cue inside the building. Today we had to wait in a cue of 12 people standing outside on the footpath. One of the three security gaurds said he had been told to only let one person through the door when someone else left. The footpath cue included a very frail elderly lady and a person with one leg using crutches. It took around 40 minuites waiting on the footpath just to get into the building.
The five parking spaces directly outside were blocked with orange cones. I asked why and was told that only WINZ staff could park there.
The fact that any government department can treat people like this is truly shocking and humilating.
Barbarism.
It will be interesting to see if our resident right wing trolls have anything to say on this matter.
I doubt it.
Fireblade….which Hamilton WINZ office exactly?
Street address?
Parking places coned off when elderly /disabled clients might need close parking?
Three security guards? How many with clipboards?
So…this is how they respond to Ardern’s instructions to be kind?
Making clients wait in that cold southerly that blew up in Hamilton today?
Maybe they should be reminded what the Boss’s instructions were?
Rosemary. This WINZ office is 468 Anglesea St, Hamilton.
Thank you Fireblade. I am not familiar with that particular location as being a WINZ office-sorry-“Service Centre”. The only one I could think of around here with 5 parking places outside the building was Dinsdale.
Have you or your family member complained about this? Who you’d complain to I’d be guessing. Complain to a local Nat MP? They’d really get off on blaming this on the current incumbents. Complain to Labour/Green/NZF? Who?
Perhaps someone in the local media? Treating people like this is totally unacceptable.
Actually…I might wander down there with a camera, take a few pictures, post them somewhere….
You should have taken a photo and put it on Facebook. When are they going to try kindness and be “flexible?
Obviously the office didn’t get the “show a little kindness” memo.
It’s quite interesting really – the degree to which some in the public service are pushing back against their political elected masters – probably on the basis that they’re ‘independent’ and immune from matters that are of an ‘operational’ nature.
(not just MSD/WINZ).
It’s going to be the true test of this coalition government – i.e. just how far politicians are prepared to accept obvious obfuscation, lies, spin and bullshit from their ‘officials’ before they react.
As things stand, so many hints have been given re the expectations of the public service and the policies on which they (the government) were elected.
Just as happened in the 80s, public service reform is long overdue, and they’re doing themselves no favours.
We’ll see over the next few months whether the new government is up to the challenge.
Ha WINZ. Where the general public are seen as fraudulent self-entitled scum.
Bonus if you make your client cry.
Anyways…
I’m not one to start rumors but must just ask: Has anyone ever seen David Seymour and Alfred E Neuman in the same room together?
Ummm… David Seymour doesn’t look anything like the character of Alfred E Neuman. It would be like asking has anyone ever seen Chewbacca and David Seymour in the same room together.
There IS a superficial resemblance to the actor Chris Barrie who played/plays Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf and Gordon Brittas from The Brittas Empire. But so what?
There’s a pretty bloody good resemblance when Barrie is actually in character.
The “so what” is that it might partially explain why he’s spending more time on Dancing with the Lols rather than being a caucus leader.
Whether he is electoral cyanide because he does things like that, or whether he has the time to do things like that because he’s electoral cyanide, is a point of passing interest.
Do not try having a laugh around Gosman.
Has anyone ever seen Judith Collins and Pink Floyd The Walls Mother in the same room together?
Concerning the Shameful Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet:
A Message from the Knights and Dames of the British Empire
May 7, 2018
We would like to point out that the rogue Denise L’Estrange-Corbet is an aberration, an abomination, an irritant, a boor, an exploiter, a liar, a racist, and a cad. An asshole, if one were to employ the vernacular. The rest of New Zealand’s, and indeed the Empire’s, knights and dames, however, are men and women of the highest character.
So let’s condemn Denise L’Estrange-Corbet by all means, but let us also praise good men and true (and good women and true), like the following exemplars of moral courage and intellectual excellence…..
Sir Paul Holmes
Sir Robert Jones
Sir John Howard
Sir William Gallagher
Sir Thomas Eichelbaum
Sir James Savile
Dame Margaret Thatcher
Sir Peter Leitch
Sir Jeremiah Mateparae
Sir John Key
Sir Clive Woodward
Easier to just add her to your list Morrisey.
She’d have been better off to have just fessed up and said she had no idea, and that she is disappointed and will make changes.
And IF, as she claims, the problem is a mere 1% of her business enterprise, and IF she has the concerns she claims she has, then I’d have expected her to forgo that 1%.
But then as I said yesterday, we should let Jim Mora’s “The Panel” resolve it all. She might even end up being the new Brian Edwards ‘on the back of’ a Gallery interview and resolution of an industrial dispute.
We could even call in Julie Christie to make a reality TV show of proceedings and she could clip the ticket to compensate for the loss of that 1%.
There ya go see @ Morrisey. Jim and his ‘The Panel’ have dealt with the issue and it’s now resolved.
End of story!
How could we have been so foolish as to have made such a mountain out of a molehill.
And btw ….. there’s no mole a bit of mascara can’t cover – even if it’s to highlight it as a fashion asset (going forward)
What sets apart Gaza from Gandhi and Martin Luther King is not that children participate in the Gaza marches…
…. but that unlike the British in India, and the white racists in the American South, only Israel targets and kills innocent children in demonstrations.
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2018/05/06/w%E2%80%8Bhat-sets-apart-gaza-from-gandhi-and-martin-luther-king-is-not-that-children-%E2%80%8Bparticipate-in-the-gaza-marches-but-that-unlike-the-british-in-india-and-the-white-racists-in-the-ameri/
I believe the Nazi’s killed children with impunity so Israel isn’t the only one here to be fair.
The Armenian genocide and Pol Pot’s genocide weren’t child friendly I believe – The Zionist murderers are hardly in stellar company though are they?
Add to that the famines England caused in Ireland (1840s) and in Bengal (1940s) – and that Russia caused in Ukraine (1930s) – still not good company for Bibi the Butcher to find himself in.
It’s not only Bibi. It’s the entire Israeli political class that’s involved in this, going right back to Ben Gurion.
You still slapping Jacinda around eh! You got other women to bash up too ?
I get the feeling you are full of something sick. Something we don’t need in Aoteoroa.
… This comment does not appear to have any connection to the comment it is replying to…
Well I’m in Auckland at the moment I will be a bit busy Duncan Ka kite ano
New job got pay the bills
Good evening Newshub adventure tourism is a great way to bring vip tourist to Aotearoa.
I had a good escort this morning on the way to Auckland Im working and I get to see my mokos and daughter at the same time the youngest is 4 months old she really chubby.
Football NZ is going to pay the Football Ferns I’m a bit late tonight Ka kite ano P.S sorry about the heat they are just a bunch of intimidating bullies just ignore them there intimidation does not work on ECO MAORI
Good morning Newshub it shows that the last government did not want to help our Pacific Islands slashing the aid we gave the. If we give aid for renewable energy this will solve two problems lower there carbon footprint and save them money. Our other Pacific Islands cousins ad a lot of good thing to OUR country.
The old Maori way was to try and give back better than what was received.
I say this is the way a society should behave. As for Trump and Iran there is always another story behind the seens like the trade sanctions they are being employed to slow China from catching the west Technology domanince.
Many thanks to the Labour government for there new Labour laws the big employers are just screwing the employee with there no minimum hours temporary contracts I no some one who has all the bills one has like rent ect one week she gets 2 days work and the next 5 how can one live on 2 days a week work when rents cost 2 days work to pay for it.
Ka kite ano
Well don brash ECO MAORI is going to change that phenomenon here’s a link.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/103716508/don-brash-joel-maxwells-on-the-wrong-side-of-history Ka kite ano
I thought Winston was a Maori he is stuck in the 1940 when Maori we tricked in to a believing that the crown had OUR wellbeing in there policy truth be told they just want us to disappear so they can have our Whenua heres the link.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/103716538/nanaia-mahuta-compulsory-te-reo-in-schools-not-if-but-when Ana to kai Ka kite ano
I no one can produce more with a few less cows it’s all about working smarter. Link below Ka kite ano
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/103716889/hold-your-heifers-for-all-of-david-parkers-problems-he-has-a-point many thanks to Our coalition government for taking the lead on this issue.