I am picking the the turn out this election will collapse, I think we'll be lucky to get two thirds of voters to the polls on election day. I am worried the 20% undecided vote will simply not bother.
Certainly the obvious impact of violent burglary (ram raids etc) in local communities is very evident – and has a huge impact on the public perception of the crime rate.
The new Labour policies to address this, are seen as 'too little, too late' (as in, why didn't you introduce them 2 years ago).
I just got very meh, about hipkins when he went and dud the stupid gst off food policy, no one rates it it made me wonder if he's bright enough for the job tbh
No that GST policy is in Aus and does make a difference.
Chris Hipkins is clever and practical. He has degrees in politics and criminology, and has worked in the private and public spheres. He believes in social justice.
His 5 point plan for NZ is far more cohesive than anything offered by National Act so far.
20% say they have not decided. We are still in this fight in spite of their money
In 2017 I said "It is not over 'till the fat lady sings" That is still true.
Agreed- not only is the GST off F&V not targetted it will overwhelmingly accrue to the rich at the expense of the poor. Rich buy a lot of fruit and veges, poor do not. Worst panic policy ever.
If he slips to 4.9 (which is roughly his average anyway) and let's face it anybody from the Left shouldn't be going near NZF given they have refused to work with Labour, then it is still all to play for.
it's not like the Greens would be running the show either. Time to give them some more power and see what they do. Labour will still have the PM*, appoint ministers, and run caucus.
*although why not do a Winston and have Shaw as PM
I like what he does a lot, and this year I'm really starting to see him as PM material. Pity we have the kind of system that we do that means this is unlikely. Maybe we're better off with him as Climate Minister.
Given the lack of people engaging on the Standard . Labour supporters have given up.usually around election time the posts are in the hundreds now in the 10's. Is their another forum ?
Usually around election time, posts will still just have 10s of comments per post. However this year we are short of people writing posts. There are only one every day at best outside of OpenMike/Daily Review.
This is pretty obvious when you look at the archives around previous election times. If you have 10 Posts in a day, then you’ll get a one that heads to or over 100 comments. Most get less than 20-30 comments.
Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m far too busy working on projects I’m employed to produce on. Plus I kind of ran out of new things to say on politics over the last 15 years on the site, and I hate repeating myself.
Bear in mind trickledown a lot of those comments in the past came from right wing trolls who used to disrupt the discourse until the mods decided to do something about it. They have all disappeared now. Ten years ago the blogosphere was still a novelty. I think it has worn off since then.
I’m fully retired and am physically limited due to osteo-arthritis so have the time to dilly dally around The Standard.
Some one is doing OK – I just caught up with the news that Indian airlines have announced orders for a record 500(!) airliners at the June Paris Airshow.
I am puzzled about all this fits into any sort of climate change plan, but then everyone I know seems to have gone overseas this year so I guess no one is really that worried.
Talk about hydrogen Air NZ planes and being a provider on the Radio. I missed the rest as the lawn man arrived. lol I rushed round to shut out the fumes and missed the actual item.
Might be the last mass exit for a while, we went this year and shit Europe is expensive. Which tallies with Womens Footy WC visitors here who said they loved how much cheaper it was than where they came from. Dont believe the bullshit, yes things are dearer here than they were 4 years ago but nowhere near over there.
An addendum to above, we visited Europe in 2018, to visit children and older rellies about to slip off the perch, so we have a good comparison, and a rough guess would be almost twice the price as 5 years ago.
I was recently in France and England and agree it's very expensive, way more than NZ. The National art gallery and British Museum are both excellent and free. Also the flying is an emissions nightmare.
Central Asia (Uzbekistan and the other stans) were great , closer and more affordable.
Last time I went I heeded the advice of my Dr who said when you are in the UK just think of the GBP as NZ$ and don't do any conversions and so you don't get taken aback by the prices.
I have spent some time in Europe I have family there .It can be dear especially in tourist hotshots but else where very cheap clothing shoes and food except in winter.
Humans are exceptional – we can cook an entire planet! BAU (growth) simply must continue, including travel around spaceship Earth – how else to pump up profits?
So far there have been 1,264 order and options commitents announced during the show, more than a 1,000 of which are from two airlines; Air India and IndiGo Airlines.
IndiGo opened the show with a deal for 500 Airbus A320neo family jets, all firm aircraft. The following day Air India firmed its February commitment for 470 aircraft – a mix of narrowbodies and widebodies from Airbus and Boeing — together with options on 70 more units.
I'd attribute this to the increasing size of the middle class in India – with the consequent demand for overseas tourism.
I think you are right Belladonna, Just got back from Vietnam and Thailand, and lots of Russian tourists, but especially noticeable was the large numbers of Indian visitors and Indigo planes.
I am puzzled about all this fits into any sort of climate change plan, but then everyone I know seems to have gone overseas this year so I guess no one is really that worried.
Na it's the cows, it certainly isn't pointless tourism causing problems
The most 'Greenie' family I know (daily cycle commuters, don't own a car, compost and vege garden, keep chickens, flexitarian, staunch GP voters) – have just come back from an extended-family (3 generations) – round-the-world trip to see family and friends in multiple countries.
And are planning for overseas family to visit them this summer.
Yep. Personal air travel will be just as resistant as farming to any move that tries to limit it. Perhaps more so. Just got my passport (that expired 7 years ago) renewed. Not being able to afford something (or only rarely afford it) is a good deterrent – but the deterrence is not equally distributed.
I've noticed the same trend; most of our English friends have flown back to the UK to see relatives (perfectly understandable, in view of their parents being elderly) but it doesn't do much for the climate.
Then there are the two others who are on a jaunt to Spain and Portugal to see the sights.
They'll be in for an interesting time as Spain's water reservoirs are said to be running dry, and much of Europe has been under drought for months. To add to the fun, Greece and Turkey have recently copped massive floods.
I won’t be booking a riverboat cruise on the Danube for the foreseeable future.
I've been thinking and thinking about this over the last few days.
Posie Parker/KJK Minshull comes to NZ to attend/participate in the trial of the tomato sauce thrower.
As we know the last time she came here the response from the Labour politicans was less than stellar with several, Woods/Hipkins, seemingly making comments off the cuff or without the benefit of a briefing that set out the issues (as opposed to a partisan view of the issues)
This was followed up by Hipkins stumbling and bumbling when asked the question 'What is a woman?' by Sean Plunket. He was not aware of the issues and even had to be prompted about what was happening in the UK and Keir Starmer's inane response.
Some women I know are tentatively making their way to Labour.
This is not about the issues.
My worry is that Hipkins will be as poorly briefed as he was last time, make himself and the party look silly and in doing so make light of the women's rights issues around participation in sport etc etc.
Without a grip on the issues including that it cannot/should not be mocked by referring to toilets when you are talking about the votes of women, I fear he may turn around the tentative steps by many women back to the left. Many would not vote for The Greens because of their stance on Gender politics/issue and what may happen is that they may not vote at all.
…..And then the ideas in this column by Verity Johnson come true and the pleas are ignored.
Now is not the time to cut off democracy’s nose to spite Labour’s face.
My view is that if PM Hipkins gives a fair go to the concerns of women, if asked, is briefed on the entirety of the issues, then the tentative steps of many women back to Labour may mean they find themselves in the polling booths on Election day voting Labour or a party from the left, rather than abstaining.
As I said my biggest fear, and this is really so, is that Hipkins makes a hash of this, is not properly briefed and denies women the verity, to coin a phrase, of their concerns. This then turns off many, who then don't vote at all.
I don't want to debate the issues, this plea is solely about being on top of the issues ie properly briefed and doing justice to the valid concerns that exist.
Labour cannot afford to lose one single vote this election especially if this was a vote within its grasp.
My immediate response to Hipkins in reply to Plinkett was that he had been over briefed. Only from one side of the issues.
So fully aware of the metaphorical political land mine in answering that question. If only he had the courage to give an authentic answer, even with a caveat including those who weren't born female.
Authenticity shines when we come across it nowadays. From art, music (witness Anthony Oliver's Rich men north of Richmond and the reactions to it) through to politics. My reckons have it that the instagramm/tik tok influence of posting the highlights or best bits of life reeks of insincerity.
I'm not seeing anything that suggests to me Labour are prepared for this. Given that, what else can we do? I think talking, a lot, about the damage that a Nact or Nact/NZF would do to women compared to a L/G/TPM government, is important.
Yes, there are serious issues around women's sexed based rights. Those will be easier to solve under a centre left government, because activism is easier then. We also need to convince the liberals making policy to adopt progressive approaches. Nact/NZF will bring in regressive, reactionary ones, that won't be good for women.
Do we want gender conformity enforced? Because that's what the right will do. Also, punitive welfare will hit low income women hard as will the increased housing crisis. Expect cuts to lots of services that women rely on, and I would guess cuts to funding too.
I'm not seeing anything that suggests to me Labour are prepared for this. Given that, what else can we do? I think talking, a lot, about the damage that a Nact or Nact/NZF would do to women compared to a L/G/TPM government, is important.
Yes I am talking and raising the spectre of the right but it will be made much more difficult if we have Hipkins, overly or inadequately briefed, giving a poor answer or a 'toilet' answer. If so all the nose holding, tentative steps back and possible voting for the Left won't work if once again he misses the point.
I now have no links to Labour and I guess my hope is that someone on here with links can get the message through to be careful, be properly briefed when/if asked for comment when Posie Parker/KJ Minshull arrives for the court case.
I think you're repeating yourself there. My point was that at this stage of the electoral cycle, the kind of philosophical and real politik shift we would prefer is unlikely to happen. I agree it would be great if Labour insiders worked on this, and I assume they in fact are but are met with too much resistance.
That change will happen over time, just like it did in the UK. From persistence and progressive framing. The big risk right now is that KJK's visit will be used by the likes of Peters, ACT, and the fringe parties to nobble the election. Peters and KJK are two peas from the same pod, both opportunistic populists who are playing dangerous power games. Irrespective of the useful things that both do, they are hugely problematic at this point because populist, reactionary politics undermines democracy.
NZF don't even have any policies. Just a list of talking points. If they get in again, expect the damage to NZ to be significant. It will be the worst of NACT plus Peters' active fomenting of Trumpian pol in NZ.
The only solution to that that I can see in the next five weeks is to 1) campaign hard in whatever way we can for a L/G/TPM government and 2) be prepared for the shit that might eventuate with KJK's visit (we might get really lucky and it's a damp squib).
Yep. The question is designed to be problematic. But all "what is a …" questions are inherently problematic. How do you decide what the essential versus the accidental characteristics of a thing actually are? What rules should govern the making of this distinction? And why?
Wearing a dress is pretty clearly an accidental property of being a woman – and so on. It gets trickier as you keep going. If you can't decide what is essential and what is accidental, is the thing really a 'thing', or just a notional thing, a convenient name for an abstract idea? But that doesn't feel right either – our day to day understanding dislikes such a dissolving of things into just names. It's a murky area best left to incomprehensibly clever people working in philosophy departments. I have no clue.
I think your answer is an excellent one if the questioner is a young, male, right-wing culture warrior.
What is a woman? is a very easy question to answer. Adult human female.
Hipkins' problem is that he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. The hard place is the gender identity ideologists who actively harm people and politics who don't adhere to their world view absolutely. The rock is the fact that most people don't believe that humans can change sex, and they think males in women's sports is unfair and males in women's spaces is unsafe.
Fortunately most people also want trans people to be ok. Which means there is an open door to talking both/and in terms of trans people and women's sex based rights. Labour will get there, but this election is so close that Labour not being prepared for the question puts the left winning the election at risk.
I think Labour lost their chance of re-election with the last half-arsed budget. They have lost control of the narrative. The average voter is hurting and all Labour is offering is band-aid fixes. Hipkins either doesn't have the balls to rein in the price gouging monopolists and tax dodgers, or he is just a useless neoliberal who doesn't wanna do shit.
Labour needed to demonstrate to the public that they were serious about the cost of living, housing, and crime. And somehow turn the page from the painful Covid lockdowns. But they haven't had a real circuit breaker and the people want change.
I don't particularly disagree with what you are saying about Hipkins' Labour, but it's an own goal to give up at this point.
Talbot Mills has NZF at 5.4%, that's close the threshold. We should be fighting with everything we've got, because that's not that many votes to swing back to Labour to put the left back in the game.
The Greens have been known to pick up an extra seat on the Specials, it's why they have campaigned overseas (don't know what they're doing this year, but I'm sure they've love some help in Aus).
I don't have a good 'feel' for whether NZF will get over the threshold or not. (I'd prefer 'not', I don't have a lot of time for Winston First). Historically, NZF have been more likely to under-poll and deliver a slightly higher result on election day.
But, I seriously doubt whether there are many, if any, 'soft' votes there that Labour can claw back. He's been deliberately targeting the anti-mandate-mob, cleverly tapping into the pain that many people experienced during the lockdowns. To those people, Labour is the demonic party which caused the pain – they may sit the election out, but it will be a cold day in hell before they vote Labour in 2023.
Labour has a better chance of targeting soft-National votes (the maligned 'centre' voter).
It looks like he is just in a down market, rat infested ( but trendy ) fleapit of an Auckland cafe. Getting down with the street, yoh.
PS. Want to solve the productivity problem in NZ ? Close down 2/3rds of the cafes like they intend to do with toxic vape shops and send everybody in them, bored arsesitters and so called cafe "professionals, give me a fucking break !, out into the real world to do some proper work producing something or curing and caring for those who need it. Hell we could turn the balance of payments around just with the lack of coffee imported.
"In 2021, New Zealand imported $84.8M in Coffee, mainly from Switzerland ($15.6M), Brazil ($10.6M), Colombia ($8.16M), Australia ($6.86M), and Papua New Guinea ($5.49M)."
That's at about $8 a kg. So, say 10 million kg. at 120-140 cups per kg. That's 1,300,000,000 cups. NZ has 3 million coffee drinkers? They would drink 433 cups each. At $5 a cup, that's $2165 each coffee drinker on average. Gross expenditure on coffee in a cup- up to $6,500,000,000.
Adrian, you have grounds for #5. You deserve a coffee break.
'He also talked about fixing the rental market, getting capital to good community housing providers, and looking at a different way of managing infrastructure development.
"In a country the size of New Zealand, to have a housing crisis like we have is really not acceptable," Luxon said.-Stuff.
As if his roll backs of Lab policy that have dampened the ludicrous flipping market,and given FHB better opportunities and his other announced policies are in anyway going to alleviate this…crisis.
But, but, but when you speak with forked tongue you can say different and contradictory things – first to wave a snow job over the concept of housing so it sounds real, while the other fork speaks meaningfully to the 'entrepreneurs' and speculators.
The Act Party says it saw no need to disclose that one of its candidates was censured by the Real Estate Authority. When I called him, he acknowledged he'd been the subject of four formal complaints, one resulting in a censure. My article at @NewsroomNZ($)
Act MP-in-waiting did not publicly disclose censure over real estate deal: ‘As a real estate agent, Zane Cozens faced complaints of pressuring elderly home-owners to sell their homes for less than they wanted to.’
Why doesn't Fisiani have the brain cells to realise that a link to their Stats showing the volume of volunteers is needed to back up their claim. Could it be they're just trolling and begging for a ban. Just asking questions?
Fishiani/Fizziani is back, what may I ask old chap is your basis for saying “Why is is it that there are are so few Labour volunteers this time?” it may be illuminating for other readers…
don't do polling. I just spoke to them and confirmed they have nothing to do with it. Work on our bullshit nerves people, when they go off, believe them
The development of the code is in recognition of the fact that reporting of polls can have an impact on how people vote.
Inaccurate polls or polls that are reported inaccurately can impact on voting attitudes and behaviours and thus influence the democratic process.
All members of the polling and media communities must treat polling responsibly. Reliable polls, rather than informal surveys, require a high degree of rigour. These guidelines are designed to ensure that rigour is understood and applied.
Here's their membership directory but honestly these people could be anyone and we have zero idea what tests RANZ do to ensure their members comply with their guideline code. If indeed any test exists at all.
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This is a Guest Post by Transport Planner Bevan Woodward from the charitable trust Movement, which has lodged an application for a judicial review of the Governments Setting of Speed Limits Rule 2024 Auckland is at grave risk of having its safer speed limits on approx. 1,500 local streets ...
We're just talkin' 'bout the futureForget about the pastIt'll always be with usIt's never gonna die, never gonna dieSongwriters: Brian Johnson / Angus Young / Malcolm YoungMorena, all you lovely people, it’s good to be back, and I have news from the heartland. Now brace yourself for this: depending on ...
Today is the last day in office for the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Adrian Orr. Of course, he hasn’t been in the office since 5 March when, on the eve of his major international conference, his resignation was announced and he stormed off with no (effective) notice and no ...
Treasury and Cabinet have finally agreed to a Crown guarantee for a non-Government lending agency for Community Housing Providers (CHPs), which could unlock billions worth of loans and investments by pension funds and banks to build thousands of more affordable social homes. Photo: Lynn GrievesonMōrena. Long stories shortest:Chris Bishop ...
Australia has plenty of room to spend more on defence. History shows that 2.9 percent of GDP is no great burden in ordinary times, so pushing spending to 3.0 percent in dangerous times is very ...
In short this morning in our political economy:Winston Peters will announce later today whether two new ferries are rail ‘compatible’, requiring time-consuming container shuffling, or the more efficient and expensive rail ‘enabled,’ where wagons can roll straight on and off.Nicola Willisthreatened yesterday to break up the supermarket duopoly with ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 23, 2025 thru Sat, March 29, 2025. This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. The formatting is a ...
For prospective writers out there, Inspired Quill, the publisher of my novel(s) is putting together a short story anthology (pieces up to 10,000 words). The open submission window is 29th March to 29th April. https://www.inspired-quill.com/anthology-submissions/ The theme?This anthology will bring together diverse voices exploring themes of hope, resistance, and human ...
Prime minister Kevin Rudd released the 2009 defence white paper in May of that year. It is today remembered mostly for what it said about the strategic implications of China’s rise; its plan to double ...
In short this morning in our political economy:Voters want the Government to retain the living wage for cleaners, a poll shows.The Government’s move to provide a Crown guarantee to banks and the private sector for social housing is described a watershed moment and welcomed by Community Housing Providers.Nicola Willis is ...
The recent attacks in the Congo by Rwandan backed militias has led to worldwide condemnation of the Rwandan regime of Paul Kagame. Following up on the recent Fabian Zoom with Mikela Wrong and Maria Amoudian, Dr Rudaswinga will give a complete picture of Kagame’s regime and discuss the potential ...
New Zealand’s economic development has always been a partnership between the public and private sectors.Public-Private-Partnerships (PPPs) have become fashionable again, partly because of the government’s ambitions to accelerate infrastructural development. There is, of course, an ideological element too, while some of the opposition to them is also ideological.PPPs come in ...
How Australia funds development and defence was front of mind before Tuesday’s federal budget. US President Donald Trump’s demands for a dramatic lift in allied military spending and brutal cuts to US foreign assistance meant ...
Questions 1. Where and what is this protest?a. Hamilton, angry crowd yelling What kind of food do you call this Seymour?b.Dunedin, angry crowd yelling Still waiting, Simeon, still waitingc. Wellington, angry crowd yelling You’re trashing everything you idiotsd. Istanbul, angry crowd yelling Give us our democracy back, give it ...
Two blueprints that could redefine the Northern Territory’s economic future were launched last week. The first was a government-led economic strategy and the other an industry-driven economic roadmap. Both highlight that supporting the Northern Territory ...
In December 2021, then-Climate Change Minister James Shaw finally ended Tiwai Point's excessive pollution subsidies, cutting their "Electricity Allocation Factor" (basically compensation for the cost of carbon in their electricity price) to zero on the basis that their sweetheart deal meant they weren't paying it. In the process, he effectively ...
Green MP Tamatha Paul has received quite the beat down in the last two days.Her original comments were part of a panel discussion where she said:“Wellington people do not want to see police officers everywhere, and, for a lot of people, it makes them feel less safe. It’s that constant ...
US President Donald Trump has raised the spectre of economic and geopolitical turmoil in Asia. While individual countries have few options for pushing back against Trump’s transactional diplomacy, protectionist trade policies and erratic decision-making, a ...
Abortion care at Whakatāne Hospital has been quietly shelved, with patients told they will likely have to travel more than an hour to Tauranga to get the treatment they need. ...
Thousands of New Zealanders’ submissions are missing from the official parliamentary record because the National-dominated Justice Select Committee has rushed work on the Treaty Principles Bill. ...
Today’s announcement of 10 percent tariffs for New Zealand goods entering the United States is disappointing for exporters and consumers alike, with the long-lasting impact on prices and inflation still unknown. ...
The National Government’s choices have contributed to a slow-down in the building sector, as thousands of people have lost their jobs in construction. ...
Willie Apiata’s decision to hand over his Victoria Cross to the Minister for Veterans is a powerful and selfless act, made on behalf of all those who have served our country. ...
The Privileges Committee has denied fundamental rights to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Rawiri Waititi and Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, breaching their own standing orders, breaching principles of natural justice, and highlighting systemic prejudice and discrimination within our parliamentary processes. The three MPs were summoned to the privileges committee following their performance of a haka ...
April 1 used to be a day when workers could count on a pay rise with stronger support for those doing it tough, but that’s not the case under this Government. ...
Winston Peters is shopping for smaller ferries after Nicola Willis torpedoed the original deal, which would have delivered new rail enabled ferries next year. ...
The Government should work with other countries to press the Myanmar military regime to stop its bombing campaign especially while the country recovers from the devastating earthquake. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to scrap proposed changes to Early Childhood Care, after attending a petition calling for the Government to ‘Put tamariki at the heart of decisions about ECE’. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill today that will remove the power of MPs conscience votes and ensure mandatory national referendums are held before any conscience issues are passed into law. “We are giving democracy and power back to the people”, says New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters. ...
Welcome to members of the diplomatic corp, fellow members of parliament, the fourth estate, foreign affairs experts, trade tragics, ladies and gentlemen. ...
In recent weeks, disturbing instances of state-sanctioned violence against Māori have shed light on the systemic racism permeating our institutions. An 11-year-old autistic Māori child was forcibly medicated at the Henry Bennett Centre, a 15-year-old had his jaw broken by police in Napier, kaumātua Dean Wickliffe went on a hunger ...
Confidence in the job market has continued to drop to its lowest level in five years as more New Zealanders feel uncertain about finding work, keeping their jobs, and getting decent pay, according to the latest Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index. ...
The Greens are calling on the Government to follow through on their vague promises of environmental protection in their Resource Management Act (RMA) reform. ...
“Make New Zealand First Again” Ladies and gentlemen, First of all, thank you for being here today. We know your lives are busy and you are working harder and longer than you ever have, and there are many calls on your time, so thank you for the chance to speak ...
Hundreds more Palestinians have died in recent days as Israel’s assault on Gaza continues and humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, is blocked. ...
National is looking to cut hundreds of jobs at New Zealand’s Defence Force, while at the same time it talks up plans to increase focus and spending in Defence. ...
It’s been revealed that the Government is secretly trying to bring back a ‘one-size fits all’ standardised test – a decision that has shocked school principals. ...
The Green Party is calling for the compassionate release of Dean Wickliffe, a 77-year-old kaumātua on hunger strike at the Spring Hill Corrections Facility, after visiting him at the prison. ...
The Green Party is calling on Government MPs to support Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence and illegal actions in Palestine, following another day of appalling violence against civilians in Gaza. ...
The Green Party stands in support of volunteer firefighters petitioning the Government to step up and change legislation to provide volunteers the same ACC coverage and benefits as their paid counterparts. ...
At 2.30am local time, Israel launched a treacherous attack on Gaza killing more than 300 defenceless civilians while they slept. Many of them were children. This followed a more than 2 week-long blockade by Israel on the entry of all goods and aid into Gaza. Israel deliberately targeted densely populated ...
Living Strong, Aging Well There is much discussion around the health of our older New Zealanders and how we can age well. In reality, the delivery of health services accounts for only a relatively small percentage of health outcomes as we age. Significantly, dry warm housing, nutrition, exercise, social connection, ...
Shane Jones’ display on Q&A showed how out of touch he and this Government are with our communities and how in sync they are with companies with little concern for people and planet. ...
The Government’s new planning legislation to replace the Resource Management Act will make it easier to get things done while protecting the environment, say Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop and Under-Secretary Simon Court. “The RMA is broken and everyone knows it. It makes it too hard to build ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay has today launched a public consultation on New Zealand and India’s negotiations of a formal comprehensive Free Trade Agreement. “Negotiations are getting underway, and the Public’s views will better inform us in the early parts of this important negotiation,” Mr McClay says. We are ...
More than 900 thousand superannuitants and almost five thousand veterans are among the New Zealanders set to receive a significant financial boost from next week, an uplift Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says will help support them through cost-of-living challenges. “I am pleased to confirm that from 1 ...
Progressing a holistic strategy to unlock the potential of New Zealand’s geothermal resources, possibly in applications beyond energy generation, is at the centre of discussions with mana whenua at a hui in Rotorua today, Resources and Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is in the early stages ...
New annual data has exposed the staggering cost of delays previously hidden in the building consent system, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I directed Building Consent Authorities to begin providing quarterly data last year to improve transparency, following repeated complaints from tradespeople waiting far longer than the statutory ...
Increases in water charges for Auckland consumers this year will be halved under the Watercare Charter which has now been passed into law, Local Government Minister Simon Watts and Auckland Minister Simeon Brown say. The charter is part of the financial arrangement for Watercare developed last year by Auckland Council ...
There is wide public support for the Government’s work to strengthen New Zealand’s biosecurity protections, says Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard. “The Ministry for Primary Industries recently completed public consultation on proposed amendments to the Biosecurity Act and the submissions show that people understand the importance of having a strong biosecurity ...
A new independent review function will enable individuals and organisations to seek an expert independent review of specified civil aviation regulatory decisions made by, or on behalf of, the Director of Civil Aviation, Acting Transport Minister James Meager has announced today. “Today we are making it easier and more affordable ...
The Government will invest in an enhanced overnight urgent care service for the Napier community as part of our focus on ensuring access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown has today confirmed. “I am delighted that a solution has been found to ensure Napier residents will continue to ...
Health Minister Simeon Brown and Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey attended a sod turning today to officially mark the start of construction on a new mental health facility at Hillmorton Campus. “This represents a significant step in modernising mental health services in Canterbury,” Mr Brown says. “Improving health infrastructure is ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has welcomed confirmation the economy has turned the corner. Stats NZ reported today that gross domestic product grew 0.7 per cent in the three months to December following falls in the June and September quarters. “We know many families and businesses are still suffering the after-effects ...
The sealing of a 12-kilometre stretch of State Highway 43 (SH43) through the Tangarakau Gorge – one of the last remaining sections of unsealed state highway in the country – has been completed this week as part of a wider programme of work aimed at improving the safety and resilience ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters says relations between New Zealand and the United States are on a strong footing, as he concludes a week-long visit to New York and Washington DC today. “We came to the United States to ask the new Administration what it wants from ...
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee has welcomed changes to international anti-money laundering standards which closely align with the Government’s reforms. “The Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) last month adopted revised standards for tackling money laundering and the financing of terrorism to allow for simplified regulatory measures for businesses, organisations and sectors ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour says he welcomes Medsafe’s decision to approve an electronic controlled drug register for use in New Zealand pharmacies, allowing pharmacies to replace their physical paper-based register. “The register, developed by Kiwi brand Toniq Limited, is the first of its kind to be approved in New ...
The Coalition Government’s drive for regional economic growth through the $1.2 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund is on track with more than $550 million in funding so far committed to key infrastructure projects, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. “To date, the Regional Infrastructure Fund (RIF) has received more than 250 ...
[Comments following the bilateral meeting with United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio; United States State Department, Washington D.C.] * We’re very pleased with our meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio this afternoon. * We came here to listen to the new Administration and to be clear about what ...
The intersection of State Highway 2 (SH2) and Wainui Road in the Eastern Bay of Plenty will be made safer and more efficient for vehicles and freight with the construction of a new and long-awaited roundabout, says Transport Minister Chris Bishop. “The current intersection of SH2 and Wainui Road is ...
The Ocean Race will return to the City of Sails in 2027 following the Government’s decision to invest up to $4 million from the Major Events Fund into the international event, Auckland Minister Simeon Brown says. “New Zealand is a proud sailing nation, and Auckland is well-known internationally as the ...
Improving access to mental health and addiction support took a significant step forward today with Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey announcing that the University of Canterbury have been the first to be selected to develop the Government’s new associate psychologist training programme. “I am thrilled that the University of Canterbury ...
Health Minister Simeon Brown has today officially opened the new East Building expansion at Manukau Health Park. “This is a significant milestone and the first stage of the Grow Manukau programme, which will double the footprint of the Manukau Health Park to around 30,000m2 once complete,” Mr Brown says. “Home ...
The Government will boost anti-crime measures across central Auckland with $1.3 million of funding as a result of the Proceeds of Crime Fund, Auckland Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee say. “In recent years there has been increased antisocial and criminal behaviour in our CBD. The Government ...
The Government is moving to strengthen rules for feeding food waste to pigs to protect New Zealand from exotic animal diseases like foot and mouth disease (FMD), says Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard. ‘Feeding untreated meat waste, often known as "swill", to pigs could introduce serious animal diseases like FMD and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held productive talks in New Delhi today. Fresh off announcing that New Zealand and India would commence negotiations towards a Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, the two Prime Ministers released a joint statement detailing plans for further cooperation between the two countries across ...
Agriculture and Trade Minister Todd McClay signed a new Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) today during the Prime Minister’s Indian Trade Mission, reinforcing New Zealand’s commitment to enhancing collaboration with India in the forestry sector. “Our relationship with India is a key priority for New Zealand, and this agreement reflects our ...
Agriculture and Trade Minister Todd McClay signed a new Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) today during the Prime Minister’s Indian Trade Mission, reinforcing New Zealand’s commitment to enhancing collaboration with India in the horticulture sector. “Our relationship with India is a key priority for New Zealand, and this agreement reflects our ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of two new Family Court Judges. The new Judges will take up their roles in April and May and fill Family Court vacancies at the Auckland and Manukau courts. Annette Gray Ms Gray completed her law degree at Victoria University before joining Phillips ...
Health Minister Simeon Brown has today officially opened Wellington Regional Hospital’s first High Dependency Unit (HDU). “This unit will boost critical care services in the lower North Island, providing extra capacity and relieving pressure on the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and emergency department. “Wellington Regional Hospital has previously relied ...
Namaskar, Sat Sri Akal, kia ora and good afternoon everyone. What an honour it is to stand on this stage - to inaugurate this august Dialogue - with none other than the Honourable Narendra Modi. My good friend, thank you for so generously welcoming me to India and for our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sebastian Maslow, Associate Professor, International Relations, University of Tokyo Two months into US President Donald Trump’s second term, the liberal international order is on life support. Alliances and multilateral institutions are now seen by the United States as burdens. Europe and ...
Starving public services of resources, gutting the workforce and then proposing private market solutions has been a key strategy of this government, says Vanessa Cole, spokesperson for Public Housing Futures. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hayley Geyle, Ecologist, Charles Darwin University Sarah Maclagan/Author provided The greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is one of Australia’s most iconic yet at-risk animals — and the last surviving bilby species. Once found across 70% of Australia, its range has contracted by ...
The government’s own Regulatory Impact Statement acknowledges that organic producers will bear the financial burden of adapting to the risks posed by GMO expansion. ...
The committee has "rammed it through with outrageous haste", with a report now expected tomorrow, but excluding thousands of submissions, Duncan Webb says. ...
The US president’s sweeping programme of global tariffs will hit every country abroad, including New Zealand, and dramatically raise prices at home. This is an excerpt from The World Bulletin, our weekly global current affairs newsletter exclusively for Spinoff Members. Sign up here.In a dramatic, flag-draped address from the White ...
Alex Casey talks to Bariz Shah and Saba Afrasyabi, the couple who launched a project to change 51 lives in honour of those lost in the Christchurch mosque attacks. When Bariz Shah and Saba Afrasyabi walked into Naeem’s house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, they knew immediately that he needed their help. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Deane, Professor of Trade Law, Taxation and Climate Change, Queensland University of Technology US President Donald Trump has imposed a range of tariffs on all products entering the US market, with Australian exports set to face a 10% tariff, effective April ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra US President Donald Trump singled out Australia’s beef trade for special mention in his announcement that the United States would impose a 10% global tariff as well as “reciprocal tariffs” on many countries. In ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hayley Geyle, Ecologist, Charles Darwin University Sarah Maclagan/Author provided The greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is one of Australia’s most iconic yet at-risk animals — and the last surviving bilby species. Once found across 70% of Australia, its range has contracted by ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra US President Donald Trump singled out Australia’s beef trade for special mention in his announcement that the United States would impose a 10% global tariff as well as “reciprocal tariffs” on many countries. In ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Shutterstock Recent media coverage in the Nine newspapers highlights a surge in non-medical ultrasound providers offering “reassurance ultrasounds” to expectant parents. The service has resulted in serious harms, such as misdiagnosed ectopic pregnancies and ...
The three MPs whose rule-breaking haka caught the world’s attention didn’t attend their scheduled hearing yesterday. Constitutional law expert Andrew Geddis has the rundown of what happened, why, and what’s likely to come next. I see Te Pāti Māori and the privileges committee are in some sort of stand-off – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Turner, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University The Eurasian and North American tectonic plates in Thingvellir National Park, Iceland.Nido Huebl/Shutterstock Earth is the only known planet which has plate tectonics today. The constant movement of these giant slabs of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra US President Donald Trump singled out Australia’s beef trade for special mention in his announcement that the United States would impose a 10% global tariff as well as “reciprocal tariffs” on many countries. In ...
Meta has stolen millions of books to train its AI, including books by kaituhi Māori. What does that mean for mātauranga and its status as taonga? New Zealand authors are among the millions whose books have been pirated and scraped by Meta to train its AI. The New Zealand Society of ...
Some hoped the open of the New Zealand markets would open with a bounce as certain tariffs fell short of the worst-case scenario, but investors were met with a deflated thud.The New Zealand market fell immediately as stock market darling Fisher & Paykel Healthcare’s shares were punished, with no update ...
Healthcare dominated the debate in an unusually sober and serious question time. “Hey David!” a group of high school students in the public gallery called out as Act leader David Seymour entered the debating chamber. Standing in the middle of the floor, before any other MPs had arrived, he happily ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Heaslip, Senior Lecturer in Naval History, University of Portsmouth How the Shuqiao barges may be used to ferry troops ashore. X (formerly Twitter) China’s intentions when it comes to Taiwan have been at the centre of intense discussion for years. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kiera Vaclavik, Professor of Children’s Literature & Childhood Culture, Queen Mary University of London This spring, Babe is returning to cinemas to mark the 30th anniversary of its release in 1995. The much-loved family film tells the deceptively simple but emotionally powerful ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sophie King-Hill, Associate Professor at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham Netflix television series Adolescence follows a 13-year-old boy accused of the murder of his female classmate. It touches upon incel online hate groups, toxic influencers and the misogynistic online ...
I don’t want my neuroses about someone being ‘good enough’ to keep me from finding love. But choosing to be with someone who isn’t quite right seems like a death sentence.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,I’m a straight single woman in my late 20s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claudia Reyes, Postdoctoral Fellow, Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Australian National University Pavel Gabzdyl / Shutterstock The “music” of starquakes – enormous vibrations caused by bursting bubbles of gas that ripple throughout the bodies of many stars – can reveal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Clune, Honorary Associate, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney The five-week election campaign is now in full swing throughout the nation. Amid the flurry of photo opportunities and press conferences, candidates campaign in specific areas for a reason: to shore ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Whittle, ANZMUSC Practitioner Fellow, Monash University Marinesea/Shutterstock More than 500 million people around the world live with osteoarthritis. The knee is affected more often than any other joint, with symptoms (such as pain, stiffness and reduced movement) affecting work, sleep, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cornelia Sattler, Research Fellow in Ecology, Macquarie University Samantha Terrell/Shutterstock If you go walking in the wild, you might expect that what you’re seeing is natural. All around you are trees, shrubs and grasses growing in their natural habitat. But there’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeleine Fraser, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Australian Catholic University One of the first things parents want to ask their children after school is “how was your day?” We simply want to know how they are going and what happened at school. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Johnston, Director of Learning and Teaching at Excelsia University College and Research Affiliate, University of Sydney As Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young waved a decapitated salmon dripping with blood in parliament last week, you could feel the election coming. Hanson-Young ...
A grim poll for Labour but "It shows the results aren’t yet baked in: around one-in-five voters are undecided or ‘’soft’’ in their voting intention."
National 36%
Labour 26%
Green 12%
ACT 11%
NZ First 6%
Te Pāti Māori 3%
https://www.thepost.co.nz/a/politics/350068072/labour-slumps-new-poll-low-numbers-offer-some-comfort
I am picking the the turn out this election will collapse, I think we'll be lucky to get two thirds of voters to the polls on election day. I am worried the 20% undecided vote will simply not bother.
A low turnout typically favours the Right. The shift in 50+ voters from L/G to NACT should give some concern (https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-05-09-2023/#comment-1967058).
I think the perception that Labour is soft on crime is a big factor.
Certainly the obvious impact of violent burglary (ram raids etc) in local communities is very evident – and has a huge impact on the public perception of the crime rate.
The new Labour policies to address this, are seen as 'too little, too late' (as in, why didn't you introduce them 2 years ago).
I just got very meh, about hipkins when he went and dud the stupid gst off food policy, no one rates it it made me wonder if he's bright enough for the job tbh
No that GST policy is in Aus and does make a difference.
Chris Hipkins is clever and practical. He has degrees in politics and criminology, and has worked in the private and public spheres. He believes in social justice.
His 5 point plan for NZ is far more cohesive than anything offered by National Act so far.
20% say they have not decided. We are still in this fight in spite of their money
In 2017 I said "It is not over 'till the fat lady sings" That is still true.
So you believe the NZ supermart duopoly will pass the gst reduction on to consumers for longer than 2 weeks?
Yes otherwise they will be in the shit big time ~
Agreed- not only is the GST off F&V not targetted it will overwhelmingly accrue to the rich at the expense of the poor. Rich buy a lot of fruit and veges, poor do not. Worst panic policy ever.
Like us the poor will benefit from the GST off frozen/fresh veg as well as having a Grocery Commissioner.
I think it will be a long time before we benefit from extra EV stations or 13roads or a great walk or an Ombudsman for disasters and floods.
There is a difference between wishes and needs.
Mmmm it's 47-41 without Winston.
If he slips to 4.9 (which is roughly his average anyway) and let's face it anybody from the Left shouldn't be going near NZF given they have refused to work with Labour, then it is still all to play for.
I like it ! Keep up the Positive. and the Fight.
Yes Darien Fenton's list of worker protections implemented under this government is reason enough to protect what we have.
Winston First will be 8-9%
Weirdly the more Labour goes down the more loyal my vote is towards them.
I tend to vote labour when they're weak, the greens when labour is strong.
But most likely it's greens this time, sick of the same, bit scared of the greens but fuckit things gotta change
it's not like the Greens would be running the show either. Time to give them some more power and see what they do. Labour will still have the PM*, appoint ministers, and run caucus.
*although why not do a Winston and have Shaw as PM
Shaw impresses me everytime I see him ,
I like what he does a lot, and this year I'm really starting to see him as PM material. Pity we have the kind of system that we do that means this is unlikely. Maybe we're better off with him as Climate Minister.
That is more like it Ad….keep it up.
Given the lack of people engaging on the Standard . Labour supporters have given up.usually around election time the posts are in the hundreds now in the 10's. Is their another forum ?
Usually around election time, posts will still just have 10s of comments per post. However this year we are short of people writing posts. There are only one every day at best outside of OpenMike/Daily Review.
This is pretty obvious when you look at the archives around previous election times. If you have 10 Posts in a day, then you’ll get a one that heads to or over 100 comments. Most get less than 20-30 comments.
Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m far too busy working on projects I’m employed to produce on. Plus I kind of ran out of new things to say on politics over the last 15 years on the site, and I hate repeating myself.
Lprent Robert Reich has some new post's on how the oligarchs maintan power.
My lack of engagement these days has more to do with tiring of a certain moderator than anything else.
It's like trying to negotiate with a Pyongyang tram conductor.
Lol
Bear in mind trickledown a lot of those comments in the past came from right wing trolls who used to disrupt the discourse until the mods decided to do something about it. They have all disappeared now. Ten years ago the blogosphere was still a novelty. I think it has worn off since then.
I’m fully retired and am physically limited due to osteo-arthritis so have the time to dilly dally around The Standard.
Sorry to hear that and we'll done for posting.
Some one is doing OK – I just caught up with the news that Indian airlines have announced orders for a record 500(!) airliners at the June Paris Airshow.
https://www.flightglobal.com/orders-and-deliveries/paris-air-show-order-tracker-indigo-deal-and-air-india-confirmation-lead-show-business/153806.article
I am puzzled about all this fits into any sort of climate change plan, but then everyone I know seems to have gone overseas this year so I guess no one is really that worried.
I'm waiting for some kind of time travel or sustainable magic carpet, plus some money of course, before I venture abroad again.
I don't know which of these is going to be more unobtainable.
Talk about hydrogen Air NZ planes and being a provider on the Radio. I missed the rest as the lawn man arrived. lol I rushed round to shut out the fumes and missed the actual item.
Green hydrogen is a joke it's green wash the amount of energy to break the H20 is humongous.
Might be the last mass exit for a while, we went this year and shit Europe is expensive. Which tallies with Womens Footy WC visitors here who said they loved how much cheaper it was than where they came from. Dont believe the bullshit, yes things are dearer here than they were 4 years ago but nowhere near over there.
An addendum to above, we visited Europe in 2018, to visit children and older rellies about to slip off the perch, so we have a good comparison, and a rough guess would be almost twice the price as 5 years ago.
I was recently in France and England and agree it's very expensive, way more than NZ. The National art gallery and British Museum are both excellent and free. Also the flying is an emissions nightmare.
Central Asia (Uzbekistan and the other stans) were great , closer and more affordable.
Yes, Adrian I agree.
Last time I went I heeded the advice of my Dr who said when you are in the UK just think of the GBP as NZ$ and don't do any conversions and so you don't get taken aback by the prices.
Cauliflower @ $13 on the Gold Coast.
I have spent some time in Europe I have family there .It can be dear especially in tourist hotshots but else where very cheap clothing shoes and food except in winter.
Humans are exceptional – we can cook an entire planet! BAU (growth) simply must continue, including travel around spaceship Earth – how else to pump up profits?
Constrained growth? No no NO! Growth is the goose that lays golden eggs, and you can never have too much gold – gold is good, and our goose is cooked.
Double that when you add IndiGo.
I'd attribute this to the increasing size of the middle class in India – with the consequent demand for overseas tourism.
I think you are right Belladonna, Just got back from Vietnam and Thailand, and lots of Russian tourists, but especially noticeable was the large numbers of Indian visitors and Indigo planes.
Na it's the cows, it certainly isn't pointless tourism causing problems
The most 'Greenie' family I know (daily cycle commuters, don't own a car, compost and vege garden, keep chickens, flexitarian, staunch GP voters) – have just come back from an extended-family (3 generations) – round-the-world trip to see family and friends in multiple countries.
And are planning for overseas family to visit them this summer.
What climate crisis…..
Oh I'm sure the offset it by destroying a farming community, so it's all gooood
Yep. Personal air travel will be just as resistant as farming to any move that tries to limit it. Perhaps more so. Just got my passport (that expired 7 years ago) renewed. Not being able to afford something (or only rarely afford it) is a good deterrent – but the deterrence is not equally distributed.
One produces nothing useful, one feeds us .
I've noticed the same trend; most of our English friends have flown back to the UK to see relatives (perfectly understandable, in view of their parents being elderly) but it doesn't do much for the climate.
Then there are the two others who are on a jaunt to Spain and Portugal to see the sights.
They'll be in for an interesting time as Spain's water reservoirs are said to be running dry, and much of Europe has been under drought for months. To add to the fun, Greece and Turkey have recently copped massive floods.
I won’t be booking a riverboat cruise on the Danube for the foreseeable future.
I've been thinking and thinking about this over the last few days.
Posie Parker/KJK Minshull comes to NZ to attend/participate in the trial of the tomato sauce thrower.
As we know the last time she came here the response from the Labour politicans was less than stellar with several, Woods/Hipkins, seemingly making comments off the cuff or without the benefit of a briefing that set out the issues (as opposed to a partisan view of the issues)
This was followed up by Hipkins stumbling and bumbling when asked the question 'What is a woman?' by Sean Plunket. He was not aware of the issues and even had to be prompted about what was happening in the UK and Keir Starmer's inane response.
Some women I know are tentatively making their way to Labour.
This is not about the issues.
My worry is that Hipkins will be as poorly briefed as he was last time, make himself and the party look silly and in doing so make light of the women's rights issues around participation in sport etc etc.
Without a grip on the issues including that it cannot/should not be mocked by referring to toilets when you are talking about the votes of women, I fear he may turn around the tentative steps by many women back to the left. Many would not vote for The Greens because of their stance on Gender politics/issue and what may happen is that they may not vote at all.
…..And then the ideas in this column by Verity Johnson come true and the pleas are ignored.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/300963898/please-you-still-have-to-vote
My view is that if PM Hipkins gives a fair go to the concerns of women, if asked, is briefed on the entirety of the issues, then the tentative steps of many women back to Labour may mean they find themselves in the polling booths on Election day voting Labour or a party from the left, rather than abstaining.
As I said my biggest fear, and this is really so, is that Hipkins makes a hash of this, is not properly briefed and denies women the verity, to coin a phrase, of their concerns. This then turns off many, who then don't vote at all.
I don't want to debate the issues, this plea is solely about being on top of the issues ie properly briefed and doing justice to the valid concerns that exist.
Labour cannot afford to lose one single vote this election especially if this was a vote within its grasp.
My immediate response to Hipkins in reply to Plinkett was that he had been over briefed. Only from one side of the issues.
So fully aware of the metaphorical political land mine in answering that question. If only he had the courage to give an authentic answer, even with a caveat including those who weren't born female.
Authenticity shines when we come across it nowadays. From art, music (witness Anthony Oliver's Rich men north of Richmond and the reactions to it) through to politics. My reckons have it that the instagramm/tik tok influence of posting the highlights or best bits of life reeks of insincerity.
I think he was underprepared (not sure about how he was briefed). We all knew the question was coming, so why didn't they?
I'm not seeing anything that suggests to me Labour are prepared for this. Given that, what else can we do? I think talking, a lot, about the damage that a Nact or Nact/NZF would do to women compared to a L/G/TPM government, is important.
Yes, there are serious issues around women's sexed based rights. Those will be easier to solve under a centre left government, because activism is easier then. We also need to convince the liberals making policy to adopt progressive approaches. Nact/NZF will bring in regressive, reactionary ones, that won't be good for women.
Do we want gender conformity enforced? Because that's what the right will do. Also, punitive welfare will hit low income women hard as will the increased housing crisis. Expect cuts to lots of services that women rely on, and I would guess cuts to funding too.
Yes I am talking and raising the spectre of the right but it will be made much more difficult if we have Hipkins, overly or inadequately briefed, giving a poor answer or a 'toilet' answer. If so all the nose holding, tentative steps back and possible voting for the Left won't work if once again he misses the point.
I now have no links to Labour and I guess my hope is that someone on here with links can get the message through to be careful, be properly briefed when/if asked for comment when Posie Parker/KJ Minshull arrives for the court case.
I think you're repeating yourself there. My point was that at this stage of the electoral cycle, the kind of philosophical and real politik shift we would prefer is unlikely to happen. I agree it would be great if Labour insiders worked on this, and I assume they in fact are but are met with too much resistance.
That change will happen over time, just like it did in the UK. From persistence and progressive framing. The big risk right now is that KJK's visit will be used by the likes of Peters, ACT, and the fringe parties to nobble the election. Peters and KJK are two peas from the same pod, both opportunistic populists who are playing dangerous power games. Irrespective of the useful things that both do, they are hugely problematic at this point because populist, reactionary politics undermines democracy.
NZF don't even have any policies. Just a list of talking points. If they get in again, expect the damage to NZ to be significant. It will be the worst of NACT plus Peters' active fomenting of Trumpian pol in NZ.
The only solution to that that I can see in the next five weeks is to 1) campaign hard in whatever way we can for a L/G/TPM government and 2) be prepared for the shit that might eventuate with KJK's visit (we might get really lucky and it's a damp squib).
Hipkins stumbling and bumbling when asked the question 'What is a woman?' and that being a seminal moment in anyone's life is bizarre.
Of course there is no 'right' answer.
Maybe before he went out that day Hipkins' advisers should have furnished him a list of possible answers just in case the question came up.
Such as, if asked "What is a woman": "One day you'll find out, good luck with your research."
Yep. The question is designed to be problematic. But all "what is a …" questions are inherently problematic. How do you decide what the essential versus the accidental characteristics of a thing actually are? What rules should govern the making of this distinction? And why?
Wearing a dress is pretty clearly an accidental property of being a woman – and so on. It gets trickier as you keep going. If you can't decide what is essential and what is accidental, is the thing really a 'thing', or just a notional thing, a convenient name for an abstract idea? But that doesn't feel right either – our day to day understanding dislikes such a dissolving of things into just names. It's a murky area best left to incomprehensibly clever people working in philosophy departments. I have no clue.
I think your answer is an excellent one if the questioner is a young, male, right-wing culture warrior.
What is a woman? is a very easy question to answer. Adult human female.
Hipkins' problem is that he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. The hard place is the gender identity ideologists who actively harm people and politics who don't adhere to their world view absolutely. The rock is the fact that most people don't believe that humans can change sex, and they think males in women's sports is unfair and males in women's spaces is unsafe.
Fortunately most people also want trans people to be ok. Which means there is an open door to talking both/and in terms of trans people and women's sex based rights. Labour will get there, but this election is so close that Labour not being prepared for the question puts the left winning the election at risk.
A woman is a female without a penis.
'You're a very naughty boy…' from the Life of Brian.
I think Labour lost their chance of re-election with the last half-arsed budget. They have lost control of the narrative. The average voter is hurting and all Labour is offering is band-aid fixes. Hipkins either doesn't have the balls to rein in the price gouging monopolists and tax dodgers, or he is just a useless neoliberal who doesn't wanna do shit.
Labour needed to demonstrate to the public that they were serious about the cost of living, housing, and crime. And somehow turn the page from the painful Covid lockdowns. But they haven't had a real circuit breaker and the people want change.
The left coalition is a tough sell from now on.
I don't particularly disagree with what you are saying about Hipkins' Labour, but it's an own goal to give up at this point.
Talbot Mills has NZF at 5.4%, that's close the threshold. We should be fighting with everything we've got, because that's not that many votes to swing back to Labour to put the left back in the game.
Numbers here
https://twitter.com/120Aotearoa/status/1699629382699295004
and
I haven't given up, but not much I can do from here in Australia
The Greens have been known to pick up an extra seat on the Specials, it's why they have campaigned overseas (don't know what they're doing this year, but I'm sure they've love some help in Aus).
I don't have a good 'feel' for whether NZF will get over the threshold or not. (I'd prefer 'not', I don't have a lot of time for Winston First). Historically, NZF have been more likely to under-poll and deliver a slightly higher result on election day.
But, I seriously doubt whether there are many, if any, 'soft' votes there that Labour can claw back. He's been deliberately targeting the anti-mandate-mob, cleverly tapping into the pain that many people experienced during the lockdowns. To those people, Labour is the demonic party which caused the pain – they may sit the election out, but it will be a cold day in hell before they vote Labour in 2023.
Labour has a better chance of targeting soft-National votes (the maligned 'centre' voter).
Pretty good summation there.
Tinkering around with half arsed 'solutions'…written off as election bribes.
Whoever is responsible for Labour's re-election strategy is about as competent as AB coach…'fizzer' Foster.Hopeless!
Baldrick in a hairnet, might baffle even a few Natzo supporters…
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2023/09/07/political-caption-competition-2064/
It looks like he is just in a down market, rat infested ( but trendy ) fleapit of an Auckland cafe. Getting down with the street, yoh.
PS. Want to solve the productivity problem in NZ ? Close down 2/3rds of the cafes like they intend to do with toxic vape shops and send everybody in them, bored arsesitters and so called cafe "professionals, give me a fucking break !, out into the real world to do some proper work producing something or curing and caring for those who need it. Hell we could turn the balance of payments around just with the lack of coffee imported.
Much better to shut down all the pubs with their associated pokie machines.
That too.
How much coffee does NZ import?
"In 2021, New Zealand imported $84.8M in Coffee, mainly from Switzerland ($15.6M), Brazil ($10.6M), Colombia ($8.16M), Australia ($6.86M), and Papua New Guinea ($5.49M)."
That's at about $8 a kg. So, say 10 million kg. at 120-140 cups per kg. That's 1,300,000,000 cups. NZ has 3 million coffee drinkers? They would drink 433 cups each. At $5 a cup, that's $2165 each coffee drinker on average. Gross expenditure on coffee in a cup- up to $6,500,000,000.
Adrian, you have grounds for #5. You deserve a coffee break.
What makes you think that people would stop drinking (and therefore importing) coffee, just because 2/3 of the cafes were closed by the gautleiter?
Luxon…presumeably with a straight …face..
'He also talked about fixing the rental market, getting capital to good community housing providers, and looking at a different way of managing infrastructure development.
"In a country the size of New Zealand, to have a housing crisis like we have is really not acceptable," Luxon said.-Stuff.
As if his roll backs of Lab policy that have dampened the ludicrous flipping market,and given FHB better opportunities and his other announced policies are in anyway going to alleviate this…crisis.
But, but, but when you speak with forked tongue you can say different and contradictory things – first to wave a snow job over the concept of housing so it sounds real, while the other fork speaks meaningfully to the 'entrepreneurs' and speculators.
National – working in the service of evil since forever
Re Photo of Luxon in the hairnet, him indoors says,
"The things I have to do for Publicity, take the 'photo "
I said "Trying too hard to be what he is not".
Paywalled but the lede says it all about ACT, the characters it attracts, and their shitty selection processes.
.
@JonoMilne
The Act Party says it saw no need to disclose that one of its candidates was censured by the Real Estate Authority. When I called him, he acknowledged he'd been the subject of four formal complaints, one resulting in a censure. My article at
@NewsroomNZ($)
https://twitter.com/JonoMilne/status/1699566785857773596
Act MP-in-waiting did not publicly disclose censure over real estate deal: ‘As a real estate agent, Zane Cozens faced complaints of pressuring elderly home-owners to sell their homes for less than they wanted to.’
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/pro/act-mp-in-waiting-did-not-publicly-disclose-censure-over-real-estate-deal
Why is is it that there are are so few Labour volunteers this time?
Why doesn't Fisiani have the brain cells to realise that a link to their Stats showing the volume of volunteers is needed to back up their claim. Could it be they're just trolling and begging for a ban. Just asking questions?
Fishiani/Fizziani is back, what may I ask old chap is your basis for saying “Why is is it that there are are so few Labour volunteers this time?” it may be illuminating for other readers…
Saw this on Twitter today. As true as the Taxpayer Union?:
CTU Poll:
Labour 36
National 28
Act 11
Greens 18
TMP 4.8
NZF 4.6
Preferred PM
Hipkins 40
Luxon 18
Symour 3
Ardern 12.
[it’s fake. Please don’t post like this here again without linking. Here’s the fact check (text below for those that can’t see twitter). https://twitter.com/patbrittenden/status/1699576960907882731 – weka]
Rose-coloured glasses…..
image in tweet
https://twitter.com/patbrittenden/status/1699576960907882731
It's still a good exercise in showing how polling is overly relied upon for those who wish to push a particular narrative.
From the Research Association's Political Polling Code:
Here's their membership directory but honestly these people could be anyone and we have zero idea what tests RANZ do to ensure their members comply with their guideline code. If indeed any test exists at all.