Well it’s still relevant if it is going to be cleared.
I’d like to see an international agreement that protects (and offers an allowance) to the world’s natural areas like rainforests and jungles, to keep them natural and untouched, free of people apart from indigenous people and free of habitat destruction. This would contribute to international biodiversity and helping climate change and help the world retain those areas. I’m pretty sure there is only 4% jungles left for example in the world and they house a significant proportion of biodiversity in the world.
I’d also like to see another measure for forests and international agreements for retaining them.
Sad that the antarctic fishing marine reserves have been stopped by some greedy countries.
Not sure if this is true (from 2005) but I was surprised what countries had the most forests. At that time the world had approx 30% still in forests although that was 13 years ago. (Not sure if this is a measure of the quality of the forests though, aka are they monocultures like pines?)
Forest-rich and forest-poor countries. The five most forest-rich countries (the Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, the United States and China) account for more than half of total forest area (2 097 million hectares or 53 percent). The Russian Federation alone accounts for 20 percent of the world total. Seven countries have more than 100 million hectares of forest each. The ten most forest-rich countries account for 66 percent of total forest area (Figure 2.3). The remaining 34 percent is spread among 212 countries and areas. Seven countries and areas (the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, the Holy See, Monaco, Nauru, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and Tokelau) reported having no areas that qualify as forests using the FRA 2005 definition.
High and low forest cover countries. Forty-five countries and areas have more than half their total land area covered by forests (Figure 2.4), and 11 of these have more than 75 percent of their total land area covered. Most of these are small island states or territories, but the list also includes three low-lying coastal states in South America and one country in the Congo Basin (Table 2.2).
Sixty-four countries and areas have less than 10 percent of their total land area covered by forests. These include many SIDS and dependent territories, as well as 17 larger countries with relatively substantial forest areas (more than 1 million hectares each). Three of these (Chad, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Mongolia) have more than 10 million hectares of forest, but still qualify as LFCCs.
At the regional level, South America is the region with the highest percentage of forest cover, followed by Europe and North and Central America. Asia is the region with the lowest percentage of forest cover (Table 2.3).”
“The Amazon Rainforest has been described as the “Lungs of our Planet” because it provides the essential environmental world service of continuously recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen. More than 20 percent of the world oxygen is produced in the Amazon Rainforest.
More than half of the world’s estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in the tropical rainforests. One-fifth of the world’s fresh water is in the Amazon Basin.
One hectare (2.47 acres) may contain over 750 types of trees and 1500 species of higher plants.
At least 80% of the developed world’s diet originated in the tropical rainforest. Its bountiful gifts to the world include fruits like avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos and tomatoes; vegetables including corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, tumeric, coffee and vanilla and nuts including Brazil nuts and cashews.”
The left cuddles up to Fascism? How did you get to that conclusion?
Hi Sanctuary,
Maybe you need to address that question to the biggest, (remaining), Left Assad apologist on this site.
But since you asked:
Cuddling up to fascism
New Zealand’s biggest Centre Left blogsite gives TS author Bill, free reign to censor comment that provides factual evidence of the fascist nature of the Assad regime.
In refusing to address the evidence I presented here and earlier, Bill continually and repeatedly made accusations that I am liar. Bill has never tried to refute what I have written. Neither has Bill ever pointed out where I am have supposed to have lied about him or any other author. NOT ONCE! NOT EVER!
In this way we see the convergence between fascists and some on the Left, not just in ideas but in tactics. Having no moral defence for his position on Syria, Bill and others like him have to resort to these sorts of methods.
Maybe Bill hopes that by continually repeating the accusation without evidence that I am a liar often enough, people will believe him. ie the big lie tactic,
Bill uses this blanket accusation of lying (without giving any evidence of it), along with bans, as a way to avoid addressing the Issues I raise.
Bill is not bothered with lies, but with truth.
Bill is a conscious genocide ignorer. To suit his argument Bill actively ignores the evidence of the huge crimes against humanity committed by the Assad regime. Bill has repeatedly refused to address the evidence of this genocide that I have put before him. And rather than defend his position with rational debate, or refute this evidence, Bill chooses to deliberately ignore it. Rather than attempting to refute my position, Bill chooses outright censorship, or comment suppression. (ie shunting my refutation of his claims, to the bottom of open mike where he hopes no one will see them), above discussion.
This behaviour is allowed, or at the least tolerated by the other Standard authors.
Sanctuary, You may not agree with me that this is the Left cuddling up to fascism, but in my opinion it indicates a certain level of comfort with it.
Another symptom of this political malaise was the promotion of Colonial Viper to Author status not that long after CV had openly called for the gunning down of, at that time, peaceful protesters in the most bloodthirstiest of terms.
I remember writing to CV at the time, trying to gently as I could, chide him for his use of extreme calls for bloodshed, saying that I thought it had no place in family friendly website like The Standard.
However my cautions went unheeded.
And the elevation of this openly pro-fascist supporter of mass murder to authorship had its inevitable dismal conclusion.
And this softness towards Syrian fascism continues.
The Standard may not have an actual editorial line on Syria. But as far as I know The Standard has never allowed one single post defending the Syrian revolution.
In the light of this glaring omission…..
“….It came to me as a shock, actually, that most of them have sided with Bashar al-Assad. I don’t expect much out of the international left, but I thought they would understand our situation and see us as a people who were struggling against a very despotic, very corrupt, and very sectarian regime. I thought they would see us and side with us. What I found, unfortunately, is that most people on the left know absolutely nothing about Syria. They know nothing of its history, political economy, or contemporary circumstances, and they don’t see us.
In America, the leftists are against the establishment in their own country. In a way, they thought that the U.S. establishment was siding with the Syrian revolution — something that is completely false and an utter lie — and for this reason they have stood against us. And this applies to leftists almost everywhere in the world. They are obsessed with the White House and the establishment powers of their own countries. The majority are also still obsessed with the old Cold War-era struggles against imperialism and capitalism.
Recently, an event in Rome that displayed images of those tortured and killed by Assad was attacked by fascists. Just days before, it had also been attacked in a local communist newspaper for promoting “imperialism.” There is a growing convergence between the views of fascists and the far-left about Syria and other issues….”
Yassin Al-Haj Saleh* – .The Intercept, October 27,2016
The film Nae Pasaran is a timely antidote to this moral malaise and spiritual sickness afflicting the modern Left that allows us to ignore genocide, and support dictatorship. The film Nae Pasaran is a window looking into a past and showing us the Left’s once disgust at dictatorship. This is the sort of courageous, uncompromising and uplifting message that we sorely need today.
There was a phrase that jumped out at me from the promo of this film;
Recounting the solidarity shown to the Chilean people by the Left in Scotland in the ’70s, Is the phrase attributed to a Chilean activist. “We often thought the world had forgotten us”
So often I have heard almost the exact same quote from those suffering under the Assad fascist style genocide.
Unfortunately for Syria, it is true.
*Yassin Al-Haj Saleh Wikipedia:
Yassin al-Haj Saleh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Born 1961 (age 56–57)
Raqqa,Syria
Residence Berlin,Germany
Alma mater University of Aleppo
Occupation writer, political dissident
Spouse(s) Samira Khalil
Website http://www.yassinhs.com
Yassin al-Haj Saleh(born inRaqqain 1961)[1]is aSyrianwriter and political dissident. He writes on political, social and cultural subjects relating to Syria and the Arab world.[1]
From 1980 until 1996 he spent time in prison in Syria for his membership in the left-wing opposition groupSyrian Communist Party (Political Bureau),[2]which he calls a “communist pro-democracy group”.[3][4]However, he has also stated that his time in prison allowed him to break out of the “internal prisons [of] narrow political affiliation [and] rigid ideology”, and has called theSyrian revolutionan “open-ended and multi-leveled struggle”, while remaining supportive of aspects ofMarxism.[2]He was arrested while he was studying medicine inAleppoand spent sixteen years in prison, the last inTadmur Prison. He took his final examination as a general medical practitioner in 2000, but never practiced.[1]
He has been granted aPrince Claus Awardfor 2012 as “actually a tribute to the Syrian people and theSyrian revolution. He was not able to collect the award as he is living hiding in the underground in Syria.[5]He was awarded Swedish Tucholsky Prize in 2017.[6]He was one of the talkers in a two-day anti-capitalist forum, which was held in Ankara, Turkey, on Nov 23rd-24th, 2013. Additionally, he was speaking at the event ‘Reporting Change – Stories from the Arab region’ in Amsterdam on 15 June 2014, an event jointly organized byHuman Rights WatchandWorld Press Photo.[7]
Al-Haj Saleh is married toSamira Khalil, a communist dissident, former political detainee and a revolutionary activist abducted in Douma in December 2013.[8]After 21 months of hiding inDamascusand wholeSyria, for being wanted by both the government and radical Islamist militants, he fled toTurkeyand lived inIstanbuluntil 2017. Al-Haj Saleh is now a fellow atBerlin Institute for Advanced Study(Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).[9]
Works[edit]
One of the most influential Arab writers and dissidents as well as a prominent intellectual voice of theSyrian revolution, Yassin Al-Haj Saleh writes on political, social and cultural subjects relating to Syria and the Arab world for several Arab newspapers and journals outside of Syria, and regularly contributes to the London-basedAl-Hayat newspaper, the Egyptian leftist magazine Al-Bosla, and the Syrian online periodical The Republic.
Among his books (the majority in Arabic):
Syria in the Shadow: Glimpses Inside the Black Box(2009, Dar Jidar);
Walking on One Foot(2011, Dar al-Adab, Beirut), a collection of 52 essays about Syrian affairs, written between 2006 and 2010;
Salvation O Boys: 16 Years in Syrian Prisons(2012, Dar al-Saqi, Beirut);
The Myths of the Latters: A Critique of Contemporary Islam and a Critique of its Critique(2012, Dar al-Saqi, Beirut);
Deliverance or Destruction? Syria at a Crossroads(2014, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies);
The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy(2017, Hurst Publishers, London). [In English]
Jenny, I value what you have to add here and I’m sorry to see you go after stoushes like this one looks likely to turn into.
In the meantime, I’d like to suggest an alternative way of interpreting Bill’s contributions. It seems to me that Bill has a streak of compulsive contrarianism, particularly with respect to msm reporting. This contrarianism leads him to take positions that appear to support some really ugly regimes, but are much more the result of contrarianism rather than holding sympathies towards those regimes. And when defending those contrarian positions in the heat of the moment, things can be said which can easily be misinterpreted to reinforce an impression of regime sympathies.
Kia ora, Jenny. I think you are going way to far in concluding that because some TS authors are less critical of the Assad regime than others, that means that we are cuddling up to fascism. Eddie, Michael Valley, MS and myself posts all wrote posts early in the Syrian civil war that were far from complimentary about the Syrian Government.
Later on, TS clearly was swamped with trolly pro-Putin, pro Assad posts, but that was mainly from an author who you correctly identify as being from the far right and who is here no more.
Additionally, the complexity of this war and the ongoing fight against religious fascism in the regime makes it incredibly hard to work out where support should go at any given time. Kinda like the Falklands/Malvinas blue, where two nasty regimes came to blows, I see Syria as two (or more) strains of fascism fighting amongst themselves. And, as always in war, the real losers are the civilians.
There are a couple of authors at TS who remain deeply cynical about the ‘truth’ in the Syrian conflict, but so what? You, and anybody else, are free to post alternatives. Just don’t personalise your responses and you should be fine.
Kim Hill is casually toying with Seymour on Morning Report. “A listener has suggested that the seat of Epsom might qualify as a taxpayer funded junket.” Great to listen to.
Btw @ ScottGN, how do you think we should measure the success of the jaunt to Japan by the two that Mr Rimmer is trying to ‘hold to account’.
Should it be statisically on the basis of a weight to benefit ratio?
or
Should it be statistically on the basis of a ‘heft’ to benefit ratio? (going forward)
A graphic that is both terrible and awesome. So many died – so many of us.
“More than 18,000 New Zealanders lost their lives in World War One. You can find out more about them in this interactive graphic, which shows every person who died.”
So true. We are still suffering as a society for this.
“A lot of people lost their lives. Those that didn’t gave up a significant period of their lives, and those who weren’t killed came home often with severe injuries, physically and certainly mentally, and many struggled to fit back into society.
“When I have been to Gallipoli and Passchendaele … you look down and pick out a grave and you think, ‘What would have happened? How would history have changed if that person wasn’t killed?’
I am so over this glorification of WW1 which is a distraction from the real feelings of outrage and grief we might feel about the courageous and/or dogged sacrifices of the dead of other wars since. We are up to our eyes in a wash of sentiment being organised around a significant date, out of all the significant war dates that should be memorialised, and have been excluded from mention. I remember General Eisenhower of the USA* and his reference to the USA industrial-military complex is in this link. More info about him and his Presidential term below.
Now we will remember them, tomorrow we will move on and not think about it. Going through the motions about war, and its continuance and in preparation for more affrays all the time. I have taken the opportunity to buy some books on WW1 and some illustrated ones and these have displayed the reality. When I go to Anzac Day ceremonies they are repetitive memorials about the disastrous event where people were forced to try to kill others and often received the same result. While remembering the past event and the fallen, it shows a resigned, almost inevitable attitude and anti-war and anti-belligerence approach is very slightly mentioned.
Instead of having a compulsory study of our human history, including wars and national economic forces we have these parades that don’t convey the spectrum of losses caused by war. They finish, leaving an open wound in political and national co-operation and trust between humans and examples of how relatively easy it is for nations to throw out respect and human rights for individuals and groups. Post-war, we lack ‘debriefing’ with the nation and particularly its young, and this just puts a scab over that wound; there is no lasting restoration to a state of higher morality and human respect, and declining and demeaning behaviours lurk in the human herd and heads, always ready to appear from our dark corners.
This 1982 video is from the USA archives and shows how there is a constant campaign to create unrest so that countries are destabilised from foreign interference.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeFgd6gGTWk
No glorification just remberance. Not many families here unaffected. In today’s world few want to front up to the hard questions and hard conclusions around war. Too many put their head in the sand and then wonder why it all happens again.
Pardon me! It is indeed glorification when John Key and the RSA spend $120 million? on the project to provide a new WW1 memorial because a certain date is reached.
After the actual WW1 people who cared paid for memorials themselves all around the country. There are plenty of memorials already; people since 1915 have not forgotten. The memorials were funded by local communities without government assistance. Those who had raised patriotic funds during the war, especially women, often did the hard work. https://teara.govt.nz/en/memorials-and-monuments/page-4
The construction of the park and Arras tunnel needed for the project started in October 2012 at the cost of $120-million.
Curator of the National War Memorial Paul Riley said it was a much-needed addition.
“A few years ago we had a mobile petrol station, a vehicle testing station, tire shop and hire pool right opposite where we are standing now,” Mr Riley said.
“We have a complete contrast now. This is far more appropriate opposite a national shrine.”
The park has a new Australian memorial, featuring fifteen columns of rugged red sandstone blocks.
It is a reciprocal gesture to the “basket handles” of the New Zealand Memorial in Canberra.
A sculpture of a Hinerangi figure, symbolising the daughter of the heavens, by Maori sculptor Darcy Nicholas was also unveiled.
The park will be officially opened on 18 April, a week before Anzac Day.
We have been remembering WW1 for ever on Anzac Day and in other ways and with more people going to view the early morning gathering of veterans marching to the memorials that are in every city.
It is hard for me to find information about the total cost of the Wellington memorial, it does not come up in a discussion about it at stats or in the factual detail from other sources, but I believe that the actual memorial cost $16 million, plus the acquisition of the land for Pukeahu Park.
It was glorification to put up another memorial. That money should have gone to help veterans with treatment needed, to enable peace meetings, to pay for stories about brave forces people, and brave resistance people, and brave civilians, and brave anti-war people on both sides. We should remember these people for sure, and not just at parades and photo-ops for politicians. because they are us and we should be spending on projects preventing more wars arising from clashes between political cultures; a peace museum? That could be used for holding conferences, talks, displays about war and about development to help the people of the world. The subjects discussed would include ending inhumanity in our own country, assisting that in other countries, what is important. Because we are all one entity, one animal, though in many forms different only in our looks.
Okay you just started me off on a line of thought that has been in mind for a while so it’s good to put that up.
Sorry if it wasn’t just on your thought.
I am right with you, Greywarshark. I fear that remembrance is constantly being turned into glorification. Celebrating the brilliant feats pulled off by our Kiwi guys in France using their No 8 Fencing Wire mentality, blah blah. WW1 was an utter bloody tragedy that should have been curtailed. Our media are not promoting the true lessons of history, and are thereby propelling us towards a foolish repetition.
Why not have a look at every person killed in that war and consider the question raised about what the world would have been if those individuals were not slaughtered.
They died in the mud and shit and stink – for what? So that you can say, “Celebrating the brilliant feats pulled off by our Kiwi guys in France using their No 8 Fencing Wire mentality, blah blah.”
Yes what a waste of good people marty mars. Do you think we don’t care about them. If they had cared so much the government wouldn’t be so quick to send troops off to the badlands of WW1.
That is why it is a travesty to pretend to care by building an extra monument; tidying up the old one and setting up a fund to help our youth so they have trades and jobs and going to war isn’t the only thing for them. The gummint could have set up WW1 Memorial Apprenticeships to aim for. Getting ‘on their feet’ would be something the dead guys and women would have liked for their grandchildren.
No I don’t think you care. But that’s okay. I’m not glorifying war or death – I’m not arguing about the utter waste of people or the callous disregard for them by generals and politicians then or now. I simply acknowledging that they died horribly. That there is a new interactive site where every dead person is named and described. And I put another link up to an article talking about the loss of these people and the loss for us all when the survivors and maimed returned home.
Marty – are you one of those who has to have ‘sarc’ signalled after every example that seemed obvious to the writer? Or do you just rush and not think about what you read?
I take people as they write and respect that they say what they mean and put the tags they want on anything they write. I spose i do sometimes get surprised by some of the comments i read. For instance the jamileeross stuff filled me with great sadness when i read the stupid comments from people i normally admire comment wise. Sometimes also i agree with something someone says and then really disagree with what they write. Such is life. I’m sure others would have harsher thoughts on me but mostly I try not to give a fuck too much on what others think and stick to my kaupapa.
Appears the attack line from the Hosk, HDPA et al is to call for immediate sacking of any minister that appears to have a challenge in the carrying out of their job. According to the Hosk today the immigration minister has made a “catastrophic” error and must lose his job. If Hosk, let alone that HDPA twit, were subject to the same view, by all accounts they would have been gone long ago.
Just don’t “click” on them it has become bizarre and the Herald had a major announcement this morning that Hosking is going to be made to work a whole ½ longer today – all that means to me is another ½ spent avoiding that radio feed.
The trouble is ignoring the Herald won’t make this nonsense disapear. The likes of the Herald hold sway over a fair chunk of the electorate’s opinions and for that reason they must be held to account. My response is to throw the nonsense back at them and make them qualify what they print. This mornings effort is a classic example of pure headline grabbing beat up.
Just a shame they didn’t see fit to hold the previous Minister to the same standard, who when it comes down to it all, is responsible for the mess I L-G is in today.
Oh don’t be so bloody mean @Psyche nurse.
She’s not brown or black or yellow (maybe a bit orange), is reasonably wealthy, married to a bastion of the 4th Estate, has her own ‘show’, has never been surveilled by Thompson and Clark, and would probably figure quite low on a non-racist demographic risk management spreadsheet
… and you forgot to add is as shallow as they come, which is a prerequisite for a successful career as a populist political commentator where taking money for nothing of substance is the primary motivation.
I kinda recall something about the duke getting told to take a break until next year, but now I can’t find where that happened. If solkta copped a whack from the ban hammer, I missed it.
It’s an interesting phenomenon – sometimes folks who care passionately seem to recognise that they’re getting too worked up and picking fights with a moderator (often an author moderating their own post, but also often just a mod who’s doing their community maintenance volunteer work). But maybe they can’t draw themselves away and decide they need to get banned for their own good.
Last sightings of solkta seem to be OM 3 Nov and Labour Conference Notes 3 Nov, but am assuming he/she has other priorities or has decided of their own volition to take a break. Actually comment numbers seem to be down the last few days overall – perhaps the weather, spring, start of build up to the end of year celebrations etc.
Last sightings of duke on 5 Nov, OM and JLR Tapes – some things to be worked out re postings the previous day.
If people can prove to whoever that they are rehabilitated then they should get the chance to live their lives. I wouldn’t extend that to sex offenders on registered sex offender lists.
Being vindictive to those that have made mistakes, learned from it, and want to move on is childish and ineffective.
Totally depends. Anonymity is not useful when repeat offender violent and predatory types exist, and there’s a fair few of them.
‘Victim-less’ crime might be wiped after a pattern of good living for x years. The sociopaths and evil dirt bags should be monitored for life. Gang members zero reprieve till they leave their gang, and then a pattern of good living for x years.
Not everyone is a misunderstood youth in need of a hug, some are complete assholes. That counts especially for white collar crims.
Why let a fraudster back in business. They can be employees but not bosses imo. Likewise embezzlement etc. These crims have myriad victims, a lot worse than a poor kid who pinches stuff. No record wiping for these premeditating deliberately callous self obsessed criminals.
People make mistakes and learn. But some plot for themselves 24/7. Screw those people make the penalties harsher.
You raise a valid point. Why let a fraudster back in business. They can be employees but not bosses imo. Likewise embezzlement etc. These crims have myriad victims, a lot worse than a poor kid who pinches stuff. No record wiping for these premeditating deliberately callous self obsessed criminals.
About criminals. The word sounds really bad but mothers trying to bring up kids, trying to run a household and have a life on an inadequate income get put in jail because they coudn’t manage with what they had. Just give them more money, more training, more child care, less oppressive claw-back as soon as they earn something. The hatred and meanness of the government ‘welfare’ system is a bloody disgrace. And succeeding governments seem powerless to adopt reasonable approaches and ensure that reason and kindness are ingrained into the system, and all that work within it.
Yet private people prey on others and manage to weave their way round the legal system leaving ordinary people who try to be good citizens impoverished in their wake.
Of course NZ is second in the world for being easy to get into business, can’t put limits on the crooks or we might spoil our well-known record, which brings investment money into NZ for some purpose and gives the effect of having a booming economy. Yeah right.
Part of the problem is the way that Ministries contract out their work and take no responsibility for the way it is carried out. ‘Oh’ says the National Minister ‘I can’t do anything about (whatever disgraceful matter). That’s an operational matter’. It was shown up this morning on Radionz when a Transport agency man was being questioned about faulty checks on imported cars. They get away with sloppiness that wouldn’t be acceptable by a part-time low paid casual worker. Yet they can ponce around on high salaries. They aren’t doing their work lawfully, as in being suitable for their purpose, or in not meeting the standards of service that they hold themselves out to deliver.
We are run by she’ll-be-rights who pay themselves too much, deliver too little, fudge too much, pull the wool over our eyes too much, and punish the little people struggling with difficulties overwhelming them too much.
Yep, that whole “I can’t comment because it’s ‘an operational’ matter” croc is used all too often. And the definition of what is ‘operational’ and what is not seems pretty flexible.
I’m not sure why elected representatives can’t comment on ‘operational matters’ – especially when the operatives are not living up to what is expected of them.
I might be wrong, but it seems to have become a convenience since the last round of public service/corporatisation reforms.
Oh, and btw, that NZTA thing was a shocker, even if you’re forgiving yourself for thinking Kim Hill is driving a second hand Japanese import and is worrying about the integrity of its airbags whilst rolling down a Brooklyn hill on her way to an RNZ studio.
(Don’t mention the trucking industry towbars! Shhhhhh! Wet Wellington bus tickets at the ready – and ‘moreover’ this is a ‘technical issue’ that you just wouldn’t understand – because WE are the professionals and we’re ‘officials’ not to be challenged, not never!)
Yes it was good to hear that NZTA boss explain it all to Kim Hill who couldn’t seem to see why she shouldn’t keep asking some direct questions and get a direct answer of explanation. Sweet fudging.
Rising levels of ‘black carbon’ in Queen St heighten health risk for Aucklanders
“Pedestrians and workers in Auckland’s Queen St are being exposed to high levels of “black carbon”, or ultra-fine carbon particles associated with a number of health problems.
Black carbon emissions are more than three times higher than Canadian cities and twice as high for concentrations in major European, UK and American cities, according to an article published by Auckland Council’s research and evaluation unit.”
“The article said high buildings in Queen St reduce airflow and allow air pollutant concentrations to increase close to ground level. High numbers of diesel buses in the central city and emissions from the port and ferry terminal contributed to air pollution levels.”
Time to put the stadium and all the other polluting enterprises like Cruise ships and actually concentrate on safety of all the people and develop the wharf area and the city into open spaces free of pollution that workers and residents living in central Auckland can escape to! Not be polluted further by!
NZ is not going to have people living in Auckland city (and other cities) in those apartments or working there if the air quality they breathe is harming them!
As for the diesel fuelling public transport and trucks, again, NZ councils and government have clearly got their head’s up their arses on this one as they continually introduce more and more polluting elements into our city and our RMA laws and interpretation of them is dysfunctional.
There’s reason to be cautious about some testing regimes, notably TOEFL, in which the relatively high variation serves the business model (by encouraging multiple resits).
IELTS is more robust, and the convention that working at an academic level requires a basic standard less arbitrary.
I’d be interested to know where the story came from: government seeking to lower the bar to ease recruitment, non-state employers looking for cheap labour, or extant teachers trying to prevent creeping erosion of standards.
I think that some of our laws need to be more tightly focussed. I am thinking it is too general to have a law forbidding ‘sexual harassment’ which doesn’t convey well the extent of the fault.
Geoffrey Rush’s defamation case a ‘roll-call’ of actors
From Morning Report, 8:56 am today
Listen duration 4′ :26″ A defamation case brought by the Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush against the Daily Telegraph newspaper in Sydney is nearing a close.
Rush is suing the newspaper over articles it published last year, which claimed he behaved inappropriately with a co-star during a King Lear production in 2015.
Eryn-Jean Norvill, who played Cordelia in the Shakespeare play, has given evidence in the federal court in Sydney that Rush sexually harassed her.
He denies the allegations.
It may come that men will start suing women about the way they dress, showing body parts that have strong sexual connotations and attraction to men such as breasts, and saying that they are deliberately displaying themselves which introduces thoughts of sexuality which otherwise would not have arisen, and that is a form of sexual harassment!
Ocean Cloud Water owns an existing 33-metre deep bore in the northern suburb of Belfast, from which it is extracting and bottling 4.3 million litres of water a day.
It has now applied to the Environment Canterbury for permission to extract water from a 186-metre deep bore at the plant so it can sell it abroad.
Vicki Buck the former mayor of Christchurch and chair of the Council’s Innovation and Sustainability Committee, says this could compromise Christchurch’s water supply.
Kathryn also talks with Steve Lowndes, Chair of Environment Canterbury.
Kathryn Ryan and Vicki Buck Christchurch Councillor, had a very interesting conversation in this interview about water bottling demands being made on Christchurch city pure water aquifer.
“Unemployment has dropped to 3.9 per cent, the lowest level since the global financial crisis, causing the New Zealand dollar to surge.
On Tuesday Statistics New Zealand revealed that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.9 per cent in the three months to September 30, down from 4.4 per cent at the end of June.
It is the lowest unemployment rate since June 2008, when unemployment was 3.8 per cent.”
Well now partner the ways I sees it is I reckon that if’n Nationals going to be blamed for all the negative stuff then it seems only fair to my ways of thinking that they need to be praised for all of the good stuff to
no numbers of new jobs created
how many people of benefit into studies
how many people of unemployment benefit to other benefits
how many unemployed people retiring
how many unemployed people going still unemployed but not listed as unemployed
this article is actually really lazy and leaves more questions then answers. as to business confidence, who was asked? Bankers?
Yes that dropping out of the system could be the answer. Going along to register and getting treated like a dropout, and being forced to apply for useless jobs where the hours are shit and the transport is not available to suit the hours, or the cost uses all your wages up. And you try and have a life but can’t carry out your duties to family and wor at all odd hours when the fingers get snapped. And you have to notify the Dept each week probably about your earnings so you get a cut in your benefit immediately but they probably take a while to bring it up to a normal level when the hours are cut. It could make you feel like suicide.
And don’t forget how they keep changing the way unemployment is measured – to make Govt. look good by not counting people who used to be counted. I don’t trust this rubbish at all. It is not lowest…
I’m going to make enquiries as to how they get the employment figures. Looking up google all the detail is about measuring the unemployed HxLxW. Stats advise who constitutes an unemployed person but I would like it spelled out as to who is employed – it must be paid work for a start, and how many hours, and it will probably say a minimum of one but I want to know for sure. I guess it will be phrased like ‘Did you do any paid work in the last week and how many hours? The last month and how many hours?
Do they count travelling time? If you have to travel an hour there and another back to work two hours, then that should be counted in a separate column which would also be interesting to see.
StatsNZ are pretty good at putting everything online, but the volume of what they publish means that getting the vibe of what search terms to use (or avoid) can take a while.
Well if we’re reading between the lines as (Jacinda) likes to say then I’m guessing ILG is not going to be feeling too comfortable for the next wee while (nor should he)
Well much like National wanted Little to stay I’m guessing Labour want Bridges to stay and since I’m advising Jude I’ll let you in on what I’ve advised her
Let Bridges stay on untill after the next election and then take over in a very seamless, orderly transition a couple of months after
Of course whether she takes my advice is another story…
Saint Jude the Saviour lol certainly a lot needs saved that’s for sure but based on her track record she may as well be called St Jude the Saveloy cos she ain’t got it – never had it and never will imo.
For those of us who watch Question Time in Parliament, we won’t see either the PM or Simon Bridges there today. Seems they are in Ratana to celebrate the centenary “since prophet Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana is said to have received a divine revelation from which the Ratana Church was born.”
Marama Davidson is also there as is Shane Jones, according to the Herald.
Considering the discussions here in the last few days or so re Kiwibuild etc, people may be interested in this little snippet in the last paragraph of the Herald article, which is easy to miss lost due to its stupid placement between “Related Articles” and “Herald Recommends”:
“The Government is expected to make an announcement on housing at Ratana. Previous governments have also used Ratana celebrations to make similar announcements.”
Meanwhile, it looks like Winston Peters and Paula Bennett have been left to mind the shop. Winston is not at Ratana according to the above article, and Bennett has Question 2 this afternoon to the PM -“the usual “Does she stand by all of her Government’s statements and actions?”
Presumably Peters and Bennett will still be minding the shop tomorrow, Thursday, as the PM and Leader of the Opposition do not attend Question Time on Thursdays.
So the next time we can hope to see the “Clash of the Titans” between Ardern and Bridges* is not until 27 November for the final three weeks of the House sitting for 2018, as the House is in recess for the next two weeks. The final sitting session will only be three weeks as opposed to the usual four weeks as the House is due to rise for the Summer Recess on Thursday, 13 December.
* Assuming Bridges is still Leader of the National Party …
I don’t disagree that such questions are a problem and have become too much a case of game playing, rather than the Govt being properly being held to account, etc in Question Time.
Their purpose is so that the Govt Minister answering the primary question (or rather, their advisers, Ministry etc) cannot prepare detailed answers as they do for more specific primary questions on specific topics – thus leaving the Minister in the firing line unsure what is going to follow in the supplementary questions.
Thus, behind the scenes it becomes a guessing game as to what is going to follow and advisers etc end up rushing around trying to cover all possibilities in terms of providing briefing notes to the Minister.
From Robin Westenra.
This needs to be a thread.
The second most important story in New Zealand.
This is quite simply the best item mainstream media has come out on this story.
It illustrates why John Campbell had to leave Radio NZ – it is far too politically-correct to have given him to follow this robust line of enquiry.
Campbell makes the essential point that trying to gain influence is natural for any superpower and that, while the US, through the 5 Eyes can simply come through the front door with their spy equipment the Chinese are forced to come through the back door.
While I remain on leave on medical advice, it is important my constituents in the Botany Electorate continue to have a vote cast on their behalf in Parliament. I appreciate NZ First supporting Botany by accepting my request to cast a proxy vote. pic.twitter.com/712dZQjMTY
Kia ora The Am Show The American midterm election has thrown a spanner in trump’s ——– this is a win for the Wahine and minority cultures with the House won by the Democrats that give’s America a humane voice with gerrymandering what has happened there they change the electoral lines that give the go oil party a huge advantage in the House election’s because of gerrymandering so in many of those seats the Democrats won the mojority but republicans still get the seat shonky would have pulled tactics like that if national won .
.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/04/america-minority-rule-voter-suppression-gerrymandering-supreme-court
Fuel tax is all good seenothing at least that revenue serves the Majority unlike big business were there profits only serve your rich m8’s % 00.1 no .
Of coarse one of the % 00.1 the ceo of walmart is going to say that about trump .
Its the middle and poor classes and minority groups that are getting ripped off buy the go oil party .
Its cool that the ban smoking in cars is getting big support as it should.
Kaiapo school being burnt is a stupid act who burns down a school for te mokopuna’s is a fool.
I agree with Amada we need those corporate fight’s need more laws to protect the fighters . Ka kite ano .
To all the good people who got up and voted for the left Ladies and Minority cultures .
Eco Maori THANKS YOU ALL KIA KAHA this is a big win for the LEFT.
This is just a distraction taxing red meat they say the big picture is we need a world carbon TAX lets stay focused on the real threat to OUR future it is not cow farts it is the petrol we put in our car trucks buses boat’s .
Get a good working world tax on carbon and use the money to pay for renewable energy a oil baron’s investment on the propagandize machine link below ka kite ano.
I agree with George on this story I read it on another site we need OUR voices heard on protecting the innocent wild life and our children Ka pai.David Attenborough has betrayed the living world he loves
Ka kite ano link below.
Geothermal renewable base load energy is a technology the oil barons have suppresed
we have a couple running in Aotearoa NZ
A trailblazing energy project has started drilling the UK’s deepest ever borehole in Cornwall in a bid to use heat from hot rocks as a zero-carbon source of electricity.
The team behind the £18m scheme hopes to create the UK’s first deep geothermal power station and ignite a renewed interest in the technology’s wider potential.
The project near Redruth involves two deep holes being drilled over a course of around six months. Drilling began on Tuesday, with one hole expected to be 1.6 miles (2.5km) deep and the other as far as 2.8 miles (4.5km) down, which would be a UK record for a borehole.
Water will then be pumped into the shallower well, where it should be heated by naturally fractured hot rocks deep underground, hitting temperatures of up to 195C.
Ka kite ano link below P.S let hope this project is successful.
The Man accused of blackmailing DOC over 1080 programme named you will see what type of person is making these foolish threats to state employees ka kite ano link below
Kia ora Tekaea I say its cool that NZFirst is doing to helping Ross and his el
30.000 Ratana people in Australia that’s heaps its a shame that they have to go there to get a better life there was no reason but suppression why te tangata whenua moved from te whenua .
The Ngapuhi settlements should settle and use the money to lift te tangata wairua.
The sport training Awhata is a good thing its cool to teach the tamariki about fitness and control.
Ka kite ano
Kia ora Newshub I still say Galloway was set up when I take on new management roles I have most time’s clean out the rat’s the one time I did not do this it bit me on the——-.
IPCA washing there image typical tactic the car chase 200 klm 3 dead.
Jeff Sessions is a honorable person Kia Kaha Jeff.
Is that global warming the West coats of Aotearoa getting hammered by tawhirimatea well that will fill some of the hydro power lakes .
Yes I say all the taps and pluming parts that are used in out water supply should be looked at and tested for lead content .
Our power prices are one of the highest in the OECD and what they use hydro to provide most of our power supplies.???? A lot of lies have been told about why our power prices are so high.
The new phones are advancing fast and with them battery technology I say battery power storage is going to revolutionize the renewable energy sector .
Ka kite ano .
Kia ora James & Strrom from The Crowd Goes Wild That’s awesome Trent bolt got a hatrick in the Pakistan first one day over test game and won that;s the way Ross Taylor let em know that you can see what they are up to good game.
That reff let the player know who’s boss by yellow card both front rows in Rugby .
Good on Sulu the netball player for getting a tattoos to show her culture and she is having a good run Mana Wahine .
Ka kite ano P.S good luck to the Black Ferns game in France
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Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Responsibility for processing the small number of Southern Response claims still to be settled will be transferred to EQC by the end of the year. “As claim numbers reduce, it no longer makes sense for the Crown to have two organisations processing the remaining Canterbury claims,” Grant Robertson says. “Since ...
Health Minister David Clark is encouraging Whanganui residents to take up the opportunity for free bowel screening, which can detect cancer early when it’s easier to treat. Over the next two years 12,000 Whanganui locals, aged 60 to 74 will be invited to participate in the National Bowel Screening ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio, heads to Oslo today to represent New Zealand at the sixth Our Ocean Conference, which is being hosted by the Norwegian Government from the 23-24 October. “The Our Ocean Conference mobilises real action on issues like marine plastic pollution and the impacts of ...
Two secondary-school initiatives are being expanded as part of the Government’s plan to see more young New Zealanders take up a trade to help close the skills gap. This includes the largest single increase in Trades Academy places in recent years. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Education Minister Chris ...
The Government today announced its support for a project that could substantially reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from cattle. The announcement was made as part of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor’s visit to Nelson’s Cawthron Aquaculture Park. The Cawthron Institute will receive $100,000 from the Government’s ...
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni has welcomed the first reading of the New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension Legislation Amendment Bill. “Every New Zealander has a stake in New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension,” says Carmel Sepuloni. “They are our most common form of social assistance – nearly 800,000 New ...
Babies in Auckland aged six months and over can receive a free vaccination and children will all have access to vaccines, Associate Minister of Health Julie Anne Genter announced today at Papatoetoe High School. The move comes as part of Government efforts to step up the fight against measles. ...
***Check against delivery*** Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here, and to have the honour of opening this important conference on behalf of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. Let us take the opportunity to acknowledge all the people who have helped make today possible, including our special ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash says the safety of frontline officers and members of the public will be the focus of a new trial of specialist Police response teams in three of our largest urban centres. Police have this morning released details of an initiative to be trialled in Counties Manukau, ...
The Minister of Fisheries is calling for entries for a new public award to celebrate innovation in our seafood sector. “I have established the Seafood Sustainability Awards to recognise and celebrate those throughout industry, tangata whenua and communities who demonstrate outstanding dedication and innovation towards the sustainability of New Zealand’s ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter welcomes leaders in the private sector taking action on closing their gender pay gaps to ensure a fairer workplace for all New Zealanders. Ms Genter today launched a new report, Addressing the gender pay gap and driving women’s representation in senior leadership, from the Champions for ...
Government Ministers today welcomed the release of a marine environment report highlighting the four key issues affecting our oceans, estuaries and coastlines. The release underlines the importance of government proposals to combat climate pollution, ensure clean freshwater, protect biodiversity, make land use more sustainable, and reduce waste and plastic. Environment ...
The Government has approved funding for a new acute mental health facility for Waikato which will provide better care and support to people with mental health and addiction issues. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Dr David Clark announced the $100 million project to replace the aging Henry Rongomau ...
The Government is making progress on its goal to integrate te reo Māori into education by 2025, with over 500 teachers and support staff already graduating from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis made the announcement at an awards ceremony in Waikanae today, for ...
Statistics Minister James Shaw has welcomed the first release of 2018 Census data. The first release of data today, 23 September, includes key data on population, regional growth, the number of homes and the size of different ethnic groups in New Zealand. Data from the 2018 Census will support the ...
Minister for Statistics James Shaw today announced a public consultation on a proposed algorithm charter for government agencies. The charter has been developed by the Government Chief Data Steward in response to growing calls for more transparency in government use of data. Computer algorithms – procedures or formulas for solving ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor, Climate Change Minister James Shaw and visiting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte co-hosted a business roundtable in Auckland this morning focused on working together to address climate change. “The Netherlands is an important partner for New Zealand. We share a strong agricultural history. Sustainable agribusiness and ...
The Government is taking action to build an inclusive economy where more of us receive our fair share at work and businesses can compete on great products and services, not undercutting wages and conditions, Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. Two consultations launched today seek feedback ...
The future for New Zealand’s threatened indigenous freshwater fish looks brighter with the passing of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in Parliament today said Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “Until now, our freshwater fish legislation has been 20 years out of date. We have lacked effective tools to ...
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...
Kiwis are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the Coalition Government. Stats NZ data out today shows the rise in the cost of living remains low, as annual Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 1.5% in September from 1.7% in June. “The low inflation comes as ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Feedback sought– Lyttelton commercial zone parking The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to remove on-site car parking requirements for new developments in the Lyttelton commercial zone. The proposal, by Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section 71 of the Greater ...
Hon Minister Poto Williams Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration MEDIA STATEMENT Tuesday 15 October 2019 Feedback sought – Hagley Oval The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal about Hagley Oval. The proposal was developed by Regenerate Christchurch ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Criminologist Antje Deckert has just completed a two-year study of how women offenders are portrayed in New Zealand newspapers. The results show that journalists are telling very different stories abut Māori and Pākehā. That our criminal justice system is in desperate need of reform and that we need to reduce the ...
China continues its march into the Pacific with a China-Pacific Island Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum in Samoa this week. Ahead of the forum, Beijing has signed seven new agreements with Samoa covering education, trade, e-commerce, investment, infrastructure and agriculture. China’s Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua heads his delegation in Apia ...
It might be tempting to yell, but there are more effective ways to talk to doubters about the value of vaccines, write Julie Leask and Maryke Steffens.Your neighbour is telling you about his new baby. He feels nervous about vaccinating, and says he’s considering delaying Lucy’s vaccines.Your mother’s group is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debra Wain, Academic in Professional and Creaive Writing, Deakin University Why do we tell stories, and how are they crafted? In this series, we unpick the work of the writer on both page and screen. Anna Spargo-Ryan’s debut novel, The Paper House ...
The Movies, a documentary series that celebrates movies and their impact on culture, is available on TVNZ OnDemand today. Sam Brooks pulls some of the best quotes from its galaxy of stars.Ever wanted to get a snapshot of cinematic history without leaving the comfort of your couch, or even your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ronald F Pol, Senior researcher NZ, La Trobe University Money laundering rarely gets as literal as the case in Thailand last week, where police raided homes of a ring suspected of laundering a billion baht (about A$48 million) of drug proceeds and ...
The NZTA chair has acknowledged the agency dropped the ball in its early handling of Auckland's light rail project, as the NZ Infra proposal grips ministers. ...
On Friday it was announced that Armed Offenders Squad patrols will be trialled in Counties Manukau, Waikato and Canterbury over the next six months. The data suggests this will increase police violence and unfairly target Māori, writes Emilie Rākete.Police Commissioner Mike Bush announced on Friday that cars of Armed Offender ...
This summary is provided to assist in the understanding of the Court’s judgment. It does not comprise part of the reasons for that judgment. The full judgment with reasons is the only authoritative document. The full text of the judgment and reasons ...
There’s something about the feeling of wind whipping my face that brings me out of my head and into the moment. Once a month we pedal as a group: recreating the feeling of childlike glee riding our bikes together, writes Helen King.The first bike I learned to ride belonged to ...
More than 10,000 school support staff around the country have begun two weeks of paid union meetings to discuss progress on pay equity, and next steps following the Ministry of Education's failure to present a collective agreement offer. ...
Government ministers are adamant New Zealand’s economic fundamentals are solid, unemployment is at a record low, growth is faster than in Australia, and the surplus in the government accounts and low debt present further opportunities to strengthen the economy. Yet, across the road from the Beehive, the view from the ...
Wellington's mayor-elect Andy Foster says talk about a recount is causing a "distraction" for the council at the start of their term, but the incumbent Justin Lester says it's essential for a democratic process. ...
Police Commissioner Mike Bush has today announced an independent review of the systems and processes NZ Police has in place to address complaints of bullying. ...
The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry has formalised an integrated pathway for survivors to seek justice for the abuse they suffered in State care or in the care of faith-based institutions. ...
The small-claims mediation process is meant to give real people a voice, but the financial and emotional sacrifice just isn’t worth it, writes Jai BreitnauerWhen we moved to the semi-rural dreamland of Te Henga (Bethell’s Beach) in 2017, we couldn’t imagine that anything would be able to tarnish the beautiful ...
The New Zealand Bar Association welcomes a Court of Appeal decision which gives detailed guidance on sentencing people convicted of offences related to the importation, manufacture and supply of methamphetamine. ...
Methamphetamine (meth) dealers who can prove their own addiction caused their drug offending could have their sentences cut by 30 per cent, according to a landmark judgement released by the Court of Appeal. The role of an offender in a drug network ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Ananian-Welsh, Senior Lecturer, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland Australians picked up their morning papers yesterday to find heavily blacked-out text instead of front-page headlines. This bold statement was instigated by the “Your Right to Know” campaign, an ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul McGreevy, Professor of Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare Science, University of Sydney The slaughter of horses bred for racing in Australia, as revealed in the ABC’s investigation, highlights the challenge of what to do with racehorses when their careers are over. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carlina Black, PhD candidate, La Trobe University It’s a year since the national apology to victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. While national apologies can acknowledge survivors, sorry is just the beginning. Access to healing is needed. Our research shows ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Hepburn, Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University Right now, two projects have been proposed to import gas from overseas to supply eastern Australia. This is an absurd prospect. Australia is a resource-rich ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Pitman, Senior Research Fellow, Curtin University In a recent nation-wide survey by online tutoring company Cluey Learning, 75% of Australian senior students said their ATAR score would impact on the rest of their life. And more than 80% said a score ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shih-Wen Sue Chen, Senior Lecturer in Writing and Literature, Deakin University There is a new challenger to Disney’s hold on the global animation industry, and he is a Chinese demon child. [embedded content]Ne Zha: Birth of the Demon Child, from Chengdu Coco ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Wellington’s new mayor faces difficult three years, Zero Carbon bill select committee report comes back, and extremist preacher barred from NZPartly because it was a widely unexpected result, the opening days of Wellington mayor Andy Foster’s tenure have been gripping. He ...
A string of failures over the past 25 years has drawn attention to the quality of regulatory practice in NZ. Jeroen van der Heijden looks at what we can do differently. ...
After her own troubled teenage years, Fran McEwen doesn't want to see other girls going through the same challenges. So she's running a race across a Middle Eastern desert to help them. ...
Laurence Fearnley, author of a best-selling novel about perfumes, proposes a radical new scheme in which people of refined noses set out together and establish a sniffing group. ...
Last night, the two titans of the cannabis referendum came together for their first televised debate on the issue – Paula Bennett and Chlöe Swarbrick.From a distance, Paula Bennett and Chlöe Swarbrick don’t feel like the most likely opponents. What with Paula Bennett recently-ish stating she would not seek re-election ...
Andrew Little’s terrorism suppression bill is facing two very different forms of resistance, from National and from the Greens. What is the legislation, and why is it controversial?What this then? The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill, introduced to parliament by the justice minister, Andrew Little, last Wednesday, seeks to introduce “a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Given her status as holding two vital Senate crossbench votes Pauline Hanson is at times, in the eyes of senior government figures, She Who Must Be Obeyed. And so it was last week, when Hanson ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says he'll be watching out for potential cost blow-outs for Auckland's light rail project, after warnings from a source within the transport industry. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University Fully Sikh, directed by Matt Edgerton, Perth’s Studio Underground The foyer is adorned with colourful fabric and bunting. We’re welcomed by the sounds of Indian music while members of the Sikh community offer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University Fully Sikh, directed by Matt Edgerton, Perth’s Studio Underground The foyer is adorned with colourful fabric and bunting. We’re welcomed by the sounds of Indian music while members of the Sikh community offer ...
New Zealand First leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters with Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.Trying to make sense of the New Zealand First party can be difficult at the best of times. Political journalists and commentators attempt to work out where the party ...
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.TV3 sale Tim Batt (Metro): What if THREE’s problem isn’t TVNZ but… MediaWorks? Alex Braae ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Miller, Professor of Violence Prevention and Addiction Studies, Deakin University Over recent weeks, the alcohol industry has been drumming up mediadiscussion around Australia’s new drinking guidelines. Australia’s guidelines on alcohol consumption are under ongoing review by the National Health and ...
Extremist Baptist pastor Steven Anderson has just been blocked from entering New Zealand, making us the 34th country to reject his hate speech-filled sermons. American pastor Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church has been denied entry to New Zealand on character grounds, putting a stop to his plans to ...
Twenty years ago Stephen Chbosky had a massive hit with coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Now the director/producer/scriptwriter is back with an epic, kid-centric horror. Early on in Stephen Chbosky’s frustrating new horror novel, Imaginary Friend, its seven-year-old protagonist Christopher is sitting down to watch his favourite cartoon, ...
Hold on to your sponge nubbins, New Zealand’s loveliest reality show Great Kiwi Bake Off is back for a second serving. Before the show’s return on November 3, Tara Ward takes a sneak peek at 2019’s contestants. Lay me down on a soft bed of whipped cream and swab my forehead with a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ronald F Pol, Senior researcher NZ, La Trobe University Money laundering rarely gets as literal as the case in Thailand last week, where police raided homes of a ring suspected of laundering a billion baht (about A$48 million) of drug proceeds and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wilfred Wang, Lecturer, Communications & Media Studies, Monash University The Australian society has changed significantly since cemeteries in Victoria were planned and designed 150 years ago. But there haven’t been any major redevelopment or review of the community’s changing requirements for what ...
NZ Post’s failure to maintain an adequate postal voting infrastructure has been the subject of two submissions to Parliamentary Select Committees by the Postal Workers Union since the last Local Authority postal vote in 2016. The union maintained that ...
New Zealand honey growers appear to have so far avoided the heavy hand of the Australian government in their dispute with apiarists across the Tasman. ...
A downturn in Tourism Holdings' (THL) vehicle sales business in the United States is likely to have a material negative affect on its full year results, the company warns. ...
The troubled Auckland Light Rail project is back in the news again, and not for good reasons. So what does it all mean for transport and traffic congestion in New Zealand’s biggest city?What’s all this then?It seemed like such a good plan at the time. Over the course of 10 ...
Since taking office in this Govt, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has applied heft to NZ’s role in the Pacific. Now, 18 months on, he reflects on what has been achieved. Speaking to the NZ Institute of International Affairs, he said NZ is moving away from the donor-recipient dynamics of the ...
A white police officer who shot and killed an African American woman in her home in Fort Worth, Texas, in the presence of her eight-year-old nephew has been charged with murder after resigning from the force. The Fort Worth Police Department said its officers had been responding to a call from a neighbour, ...
Madeleine Chapman took her piano-playing nephew Harper to see the orchestra for the first time. Madeleine: When I was very small, I used to sit in the hallway at home with my closest siblings and we would ask our brother Bernard, a teenager at the time, to play songs on the ...
Otago-grown agricultural technology company Techion has cornered an international market. Its founder, Greg Mirams, explained how the internet of things and fast fibre broadband has transformed the way he does business.In a Dunedin bedroom in 1992, Greg Mirams invented Techion’s founding product: FEKPAKG2. It was developed to help local farmers ...
Botany is an electorate that deserves a representative who is committed to their community which is the reason New Conservative has confirmed Elliot Ikilei as the candidate for the 2020 election. ...
Anyone who would like to submit an account of their experience of state care to the Māori Inquiry into Oranga Tamariki has 10 days left before submissions close. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justine Shaw, Conservation Biologist, The University of Queensland This year, five of the seven Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science were awarded to women. While this is a welcome development, the great majority of awards and prizes for science, technology, engineering and mathematics ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison seized the opportunity of his Jakarta weekend visit for Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s inauguration to obtain a meeting with Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan. Morrison told a news conference he had come out ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon O’Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney During the 2016 US presidential campaign, people around the world were regularly reassured by election experts that Donald Trump was too outrageous to be elected president. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Leask, Professor, University of Sydney Your neighbour is telling you about his new baby. He feels nervous about vaccinating, and says he’s considering delaying Lucy’s vaccines. Your mother’s group is chatting about vaccines. One mother tells the group Jimmy isn’t vaccinated, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hal Pawson, Associate Director – City Futures – Urban Policy and Strategy, City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice, UNSW Low-income tenants in Australia are increasingly likely to be trapped in rental stress for years. New evidence from the Productivity Commission ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland In line with his usual practice, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has backed Donald Trump over the World Trade Organisation, criticising of China’s status in it as a “developing country”. Critics of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristal Spreadborough, Casual Academic, University of New England As the Australian premier season of The Masked Singer draws to a close, fans are listening hard to guess which celebrities remain behind the weird and wonderful costumes. Although the celebrities throw listeners a ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: NZ First holds crucial party conference, roving AOS trial sparks concerns, and Mediaworks facing dramatic days ahead.The most pivotal political party in the country right now has held their annual conference, a year out from what will be a make ...
Open Mike 07/11/2018 
Just a month ago we saw the biggest protest in a generation as people marched to demand stronger action on climate change. A core demand of the protesters was to strengthen the Zero Carbon Bill's target to net-zero by 2040. So what is the government's response? Judging by the ...3 hours ago
Back in 2010, I wrote about the strange tale of the zombie ants, which do the bidding of their fungal overlords. (They’re not an isolated example; a range of parasites change their hosts’ behaviour. See here and here for example – though as you’ll find, the toxoplasmosis story may be ...5 hours ago
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by the Council of Disobedient Women We call on the Council of Trade Unions to show some fortitude and take a stand with your sisters. Unionists know that there is a material world, otherwise workers could simply identify out of poverty. They could declare themselves Well Paid. Why stop ...20 hours ago
Keir Starmer has hinted that Labour might vote in favour of the Johnson government's shoddy deal, with the proviso that a second referendum is attached:Speaking to BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show, he said: “We will see what that looks like but it makes sense to say that by whatever ...1 day ago
In 1994, I was the editor for an issue of Planet magazine focused on cannabis, its culture and the prospects for the end of its prohibition. Part of that issue was an interview with 'Ringo', an experienced cannabis dealer.I recently posted my essay from that issue, and I figured it ...3 days ago
Dr Helen Waite, sports sociologist and former elite athlete, on the invasion of women’s sport by men and the anti-scientific and misogynist ideology used to rationalise it. ...3 days ago
Media Statement for Immediate Release 16th October 2019 “Fake News” from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers Despite comments from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers—Herald Newspaper Tuesday Oct 15th–there is very little evidence ...5 days ago
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.nz There is a lot of discussion on the benefits of ...6 days ago
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...7 days ago
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Ecuador planning to sell large tracts of its rainforest to China.
What could possibly go wrong?
A quick Google search reveals that this was reported about 4-5 years ago.
Well it’s still relevant if it is going to be cleared.
I’d like to see an international agreement that protects (and offers an allowance) to the world’s natural areas like rainforests and jungles, to keep them natural and untouched, free of people apart from indigenous people and free of habitat destruction. This would contribute to international biodiversity and helping climate change and help the world retain those areas. I’m pretty sure there is only 4% jungles left for example in the world and they house a significant proportion of biodiversity in the world.
I’d also like to see another measure for forests and international agreements for retaining them.
Sad that the antarctic fishing marine reserves have been stopped by some greedy countries.
Not sure if this is true (from 2005) but I was surprised what countries had the most forests. At that time the world had approx 30% still in forests although that was 13 years ago. (Not sure if this is a measure of the quality of the forests though, aka are they monocultures like pines?)
Forest-rich and forest-poor countries. The five most forest-rich countries (the Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, the United States and China) account for more than half of total forest area (2 097 million hectares or 53 percent). The Russian Federation alone accounts for 20 percent of the world total. Seven countries have more than 100 million hectares of forest each. The ten most forest-rich countries account for 66 percent of total forest area (Figure 2.3). The remaining 34 percent is spread among 212 countries and areas. Seven countries and areas (the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, the Holy See, Monaco, Nauru, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and Tokelau) reported having no areas that qualify as forests using the FRA 2005 definition.
High and low forest cover countries. Forty-five countries and areas have more than half their total land area covered by forests (Figure 2.4), and 11 of these have more than 75 percent of their total land area covered. Most of these are small island states or territories, but the list also includes three low-lying coastal states in South America and one country in the Congo Basin (Table 2.2).
Sixty-four countries and areas have less than 10 percent of their total land area covered by forests. These include many SIDS and dependent territories, as well as 17 larger countries with relatively substantial forest areas (more than 1 million hectares each). Three of these (Chad, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Mongolia) have more than 10 million hectares of forest, but still qualify as LFCCs.
At the regional level, South America is the region with the highest percentage of forest cover, followed by Europe and North and Central America. Asia is the region with the lowest percentage of forest cover (Table 2.3).”
https://www.greenfacts.org/en/forests/l-3/2-extent-deforestation.htm#1p0
Maybe a very good strategic move by China?
“The Amazon Rainforest has been described as the “Lungs of our Planet” because it provides the essential environmental world service of continuously recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen. More than 20 percent of the world oxygen is produced in the Amazon Rainforest.
More than half of the world’s estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in the tropical rainforests. One-fifth of the world’s fresh water is in the Amazon Basin.
One hectare (2.47 acres) may contain over 750 types of trees and 1500 species of higher plants.
At least 80% of the developed world’s diet originated in the tropical rainforest. Its bountiful gifts to the world include fruits like avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos and tomatoes; vegetables including corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, tumeric, coffee and vanilla and nuts including Brazil nuts and cashews.”
http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm
Yeah they could transport the clean air over to China.
Extinction rebellion.
“We refuse to bequeath a dying planet to future generations by failing to act now.”
https://twitter.com/ExtinctionR?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
A movie about a time when the Left condemned fascism, instead of cuddling up to it.
The left cuddles up to Fascism? How did you get to that conclusion?
Idiot post not worth responding to.
Hi Sanctuary,
Maybe you need to address that question to the biggest, (remaining), Left Assad apologist on this site.
But since you asked:
Cuddling up to fascism
New Zealand’s biggest Centre Left blogsite gives TS author Bill, free reign to censor comment that provides factual evidence of the fascist nature of the Assad regime.
[For ignoring moderation and lying about authors…continuing with the same old tiresome pattern of bullshit – 1 year ban] – Bill
In refusing to address the evidence I presented here and earlier, Bill continually and repeatedly made accusations that I am liar. Bill has never tried to refute what I have written. Neither has Bill ever pointed out where I am have supposed to have lied about him or any other author. NOT ONCE! NOT EVER!
In this way we see the convergence between fascists and some on the Left, not just in ideas but in tactics. Having no moral defence for his position on Syria, Bill and others like him have to resort to these sorts of methods.
Maybe Bill hopes that by continually repeating the accusation without evidence that I am a liar often enough, people will believe him. ie the big lie tactic,
Bill uses this blanket accusation of lying (without giving any evidence of it), along with bans, as a way to avoid addressing the Issues I raise.
Bill is not bothered with lies, but with truth.
Bill is a conscious genocide ignorer. To suit his argument Bill actively ignores the evidence of the huge crimes against humanity committed by the Assad regime. Bill has repeatedly refused to address the evidence of this genocide that I have put before him. And rather than defend his position with rational debate, or refute this evidence, Bill chooses to deliberately ignore it. Rather than attempting to refute my position, Bill chooses outright censorship, or comment suppression. (ie shunting my refutation of his claims, to the bottom of open mike where he hopes no one will see them), above discussion.
This behaviour is allowed, or at the least tolerated by the other Standard authors.
Sanctuary, You may not agree with me that this is the Left cuddling up to fascism, but in my opinion it indicates a certain level of comfort with it.
Another symptom of this political malaise was the promotion of Colonial Viper to Author status not that long after CV had openly called for the gunning down of, at that time, peaceful protesters in the most bloodthirstiest of terms.
I remember writing to CV at the time, trying to gently as I could, chide him for his use of extreme calls for bloodshed, saying that I thought it had no place in family friendly website like The Standard.
However my cautions went unheeded.
And the elevation of this openly pro-fascist supporter of mass murder to authorship had its inevitable dismal conclusion.
And this softness towards Syrian fascism continues.
The Standard may not have an actual editorial line on Syria. But as far as I know The Standard has never allowed one single post defending the Syrian revolution.
In the light of this glaring omission…..
The film Nae Pasaran is a timely antidote to this moral malaise and spiritual sickness afflicting the modern Left that allows us to ignore genocide, and support dictatorship. The film Nae Pasaran is a window looking into a past and showing us the Left’s once disgust at dictatorship. This is the sort of courageous, uncompromising and uplifting message that we sorely need today.
There was a phrase that jumped out at me from the promo of this film;
Recounting the solidarity shown to the Chilean people by the Left in Scotland in the ’70s, Is the phrase attributed to a Chilean activist. “We often thought the world had forgotten us”
So often I have heard almost the exact same quote from those suffering under the Assad fascist style genocide.
Unfortunately for Syria, it is true.
*Yassin Al-Haj Saleh Wikipedia:
Self-martyrdom coming up in 3 … 2 … 1 …
Jenny, I value what you have to add here and I’m sorry to see you go after stoushes like this one looks likely to turn into.
In the meantime, I’d like to suggest an alternative way of interpreting Bill’s contributions. It seems to me that Bill has a streak of compulsive contrarianism, particularly with respect to msm reporting. This contrarianism leads him to take positions that appear to support some really ugly regimes, but are much more the result of contrarianism rather than holding sympathies towards those regimes. And when defending those contrarian positions in the heat of the moment, things can be said which can easily be misinterpreted to reinforce an impression of regime sympathies.
Kia ora, Jenny. I think you are going way to far in concluding that because some TS authors are less critical of the Assad regime than others, that means that we are cuddling up to fascism. Eddie, Michael Valley, MS and myself posts all wrote posts early in the Syrian civil war that were far from complimentary about the Syrian Government.
Later on, TS clearly was swamped with trolly pro-Putin, pro Assad posts, but that was mainly from an author who you correctly identify as being from the far right and who is here no more.
Additionally, the complexity of this war and the ongoing fight against religious fascism in the regime makes it incredibly hard to work out where support should go at any given time. Kinda like the Falklands/Malvinas blue, where two nasty regimes came to blows, I see Syria as two (or more) strains of fascism fighting amongst themselves. And, as always in war, the real losers are the civilians.
There are a couple of authors at TS who remain deeply cynical about the ‘truth’ in the Syrian conflict, but so what? You, and anybody else, are free to post alternatives. Just don’t personalise your responses and you should be fine.
Looks awesome. Thanks Jenny.
Kim Hill is casually toying with Seymour on Morning Report. “A listener has suggested that the seat of Epsom might qualify as a taxpayer funded junket.” Great to listen to.
Good eh? A delight to listen to. One or two pregnant inhalations as well by Mr Rimmer
Btw @ ScottGN, how do you think we should measure the success of the jaunt to Japan by the two that Mr Rimmer is trying to ‘hold to account’.
Should it be statisically on the basis of a weight to benefit ratio?
or
Should it be statistically on the basis of a ‘heft’ to benefit ratio? (going forward)
And earlier on MR, there was this:
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018670092/migrant-workers-union-welcomes-exploitation-inquiry
As a pompous Woodhouse would say: “Standby”
More to come
A graphic that is both terrible and awesome. So many died – so many of us.
“More than 18,000 New Zealanders lost their lives in World War One. You can find out more about them in this interactive graphic, which shows every person who died.”
https://insights.nzherald.co.nz/article/world-war-one-roll-of-honour/
So true. We are still suffering as a society for this.
“A lot of people lost their lives. Those that didn’t gave up a significant period of their lives, and those who weren’t killed came home often with severe injuries, physically and certainly mentally, and many struggled to fit back into society.
“When I have been to Gallipoli and Passchendaele … you look down and pick out a grave and you think, ‘What would have happened? How would history have changed if that person wasn’t killed?’
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/last-post-first-light/108380440/lessons-for-today-100-years-on-from-the-armistice
I am so over this glorification of WW1 which is a distraction from the real feelings of outrage and grief we might feel about the courageous and/or dogged sacrifices of the dead of other wars since. We are up to our eyes in a wash of sentiment being organised around a significant date, out of all the significant war dates that should be memorialised, and have been excluded from mention. I remember General Eisenhower of the USA* and his reference to the USA industrial-military complex is in this link. More info about him and his Presidential term below.
Now we will remember them, tomorrow we will move on and not think about it. Going through the motions about war, and its continuance and in preparation for more affrays all the time. I have taken the opportunity to buy some books on WW1 and some illustrated ones and these have displayed the reality. When I go to Anzac Day ceremonies they are repetitive memorials about the disastrous event where people were forced to try to kill others and often received the same result. While remembering the past event and the fallen, it shows a resigned, almost inevitable attitude and anti-war and anti-belligerence approach is very slightly mentioned.
Instead of having a compulsory study of our human history, including wars and national economic forces we have these parades that don’t convey the spectrum of losses caused by war. They finish, leaving an open wound in political and national co-operation and trust between humans and examples of how relatively easy it is for nations to throw out respect and human rights for individuals and groups. Post-war, we lack ‘debriefing’ with the nation and particularly its young, and this just puts a scab over that wound; there is no lasting restoration to a state of higher morality and human respect, and declining and demeaning behaviours lurk in the human herd and heads, always ready to appear from our dark corners.
This 1982 video is from the USA archives and shows how there is a constant campaign to create unrest so that countries are destabilised from foreign interference.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeFgd6gGTWk
*https://millercenter.org/president/eisenhower/impact-and-legacy
No glorification just remberance. Not many families here unaffected. In today’s world few want to front up to the hard questions and hard conclusions around war. Too many put their head in the sand and then wonder why it all happens again.
We will remember them because they are us.
Pardon me! It is indeed glorification when John Key and the RSA spend $120 million? on the project to provide a new WW1 memorial because a certain date is reached.
After the actual WW1 people who cared paid for memorials themselves all around the country. There are plenty of memorials already; people since 1915 have not forgotten.
The memorials were funded by local communities without government assistance. Those who had raised patriotic funds during the war, especially women, often did the hard work.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/memorials-and-monuments/page-4
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/269566/war-memorial-park-blessed
The Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage acquired land on Buckle Street, across from the National War Memorial in 2005, and six years later opened a public space to remember those affected by war.
The construction of the park and Arras tunnel needed for the project started in October 2012 at the cost of $120-million.
Curator of the National War Memorial Paul Riley said it was a much-needed addition.
“A few years ago we had a mobile petrol station, a vehicle testing station, tire shop and hire pool right opposite where we are standing now,” Mr Riley said.
“We have a complete contrast now. This is far more appropriate opposite a national shrine.”
The park has a new Australian memorial, featuring fifteen columns of rugged red sandstone blocks.
It is a reciprocal gesture to the “basket handles” of the New Zealand Memorial in Canberra.
A sculpture of a Hinerangi figure, symbolising the daughter of the heavens, by Maori sculptor Darcy Nicholas was also unveiled.
The park will be officially opened on 18 April, a week before Anzac Day.
We have been remembering WW1 for ever on Anzac Day and in other ways and with more people going to view the early morning gathering of veterans marching to the memorials that are in every city.
More details about the building and landscaping – no mention of the cost because that gets swallowed up by the sentiment for the dead, and their belief that it was to ensure a good world for the living is by-passed.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/last-post-first-light/67854592/Pukeahu-National-War-Memorial-Park-officially-opens
https://mch.govt.nz/what-we-do/our-projects/current/first-world-war-centenary-projects
https://mch.govt.nz/pukeahu/park/redevelopment
It is hard for me to find information about the total cost of the Wellington memorial, it does not come up in a discussion about it at stats or in the factual detail from other sources, but I believe that the actual memorial cost $16 million, plus the acquisition of the land for Pukeahu Park.
It was glorification to put up another memorial. That money should have gone to help veterans with treatment needed, to enable peace meetings, to pay for stories about brave forces people, and brave resistance people, and brave civilians, and brave anti-war people on both sides. We should remember these people for sure, and not just at parades and photo-ops for politicians. because they are us and we should be spending on projects preventing more wars arising from clashes between political cultures; a peace museum? That could be used for holding conferences, talks, displays about war and about development to help the people of the world. The subjects discussed would include ending inhumanity in our own country, assisting that in other countries, what is important. Because we are all one entity, one animal, though in many forms different only in our looks.
I’m talking about what I put up in my two posts. I don’t know or care about what you’re going on about sorry.
Okay you just started me off on a line of thought that has been in mind for a while so it’s good to put that up.
Sorry if it wasn’t just on your thought.
I am right with you, Greywarshark. I fear that remembrance is constantly being turned into glorification. Celebrating the brilliant feats pulled off by our Kiwi guys in France using their No 8 Fencing Wire mentality, blah blah. WW1 was an utter bloody tragedy that should have been curtailed. Our media are not promoting the true lessons of history, and are thereby propelling us towards a foolish repetition.
Why not have a look at every person killed in that war and consider the question raised about what the world would have been if those individuals were not slaughtered.
https://insights.nzherald.co.nz/article/world-war-one-roll-of-honour/
They died in the mud and shit and stink – for what? So that you can say, “Celebrating the brilliant feats pulled off by our Kiwi guys in France using their No 8 Fencing Wire mentality, blah blah.”
Yes what a waste of good people marty mars. Do you think we don’t care about them. If they had cared so much the government wouldn’t be so quick to send troops off to the badlands of WW1.
That is why it is a travesty to pretend to care by building an extra monument; tidying up the old one and setting up a fund to help our youth so they have trades and jobs and going to war isn’t the only thing for them. The gummint could have set up WW1 Memorial Apprenticeships to aim for. Getting ‘on their feet’ would be something the dead guys and women would have liked for their grandchildren.
No I don’t think you care. But that’s okay. I’m not glorifying war or death – I’m not arguing about the utter waste of people or the callous disregard for them by generals and politicians then or now. I simply acknowledging that they died horribly. That there is a new interactive site where every dead person is named and described. And I put another link up to an article talking about the loss of these people and the loss for us all when the survivors and maimed returned home.
Marty – are you one of those who has to have ‘sarc’ signalled after every example that seemed obvious to the writer? Or do you just rush and not think about what you read?
I take people as they write and respect that they say what they mean and put the tags they want on anything they write. I spose i do sometimes get surprised by some of the comments i read. For instance the jamileeross stuff filled me with great sadness when i read the stupid comments from people i normally admire comment wise. Sometimes also i agree with something someone says and then really disagree with what they write. Such is life. I’m sure others would have harsher thoughts on me but mostly I try not to give a fuck too much on what others think and stick to my kaupapa.
Appears the attack line from the Hosk, HDPA et al is to call for immediate sacking of any minister that appears to have a challenge in the carrying out of their job. According to the Hosk today the immigration minister has made a “catastrophic” error and must lose his job. If Hosk, let alone that HDPA twit, were subject to the same view, by all accounts they would have been gone long ago.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12155789
Just don’t “click” on them it has become bizarre and the Herald had a major announcement this morning that Hosking is going to be made to work a whole ½ longer today – all that means to me is another ½ spent avoiding that radio feed.
The trouble is ignoring the Herald won’t make this nonsense disapear. The likes of the Herald hold sway over a fair chunk of the electorate’s opinions and for that reason they must be held to account. My response is to throw the nonsense back at them and make them qualify what they print. This mornings effort is a classic example of pure headline grabbing beat up.
Never read them.
Just a shame they didn’t see fit to hold the previous Minister to the same standard, who when it comes down to it all, is responsible for the mess I L-G is in today.
Typical National Party Dirty Politics MO then. The same was happening during the last Labour led term of government as well.
HDPA should be banned it taints shellfish in the can and cause tremors, palpitations and cricopharyngeal spasms in readers.
Announce a review of her immigration status and see how she squeels.
Oh don’t be so bloody mean @Psyche nurse.
She’s not brown or black or yellow (maybe a bit orange), is reasonably wealthy, married to a bastion of the 4th Estate, has her own ‘show’, has never been surveilled by Thompson and Clark, and would probably figure quite low on a non-racist demographic risk management spreadsheet
(/sarc)
… and you forgot to add is as shallow as they come, which is a prerequisite for a successful career as a populist political commentator where taking money for nothing of substance is the primary motivation.
Did the duke and/or solkta get banned?
I kinda recall something about the duke getting told to take a break until next year, but now I can’t find where that happened. If solkta copped a whack from the ban hammer, I missed it.
Dukeofurl is gone till Feb. Solkta is not on the naughty list that I can see.
Fucken sad that. ffs 🙄
Well, Duke was given a reasonable opportunity to respond positively to moderation and chose the opposite tack. We all know how that ends.
Yep. I could see it happening from a mile away and the instructions were clear – no excuses for him. Quite a skill skating around the bolded text 😉
It’s an interesting phenomenon – sometimes folks who care passionately seem to recognise that they’re getting too worked up and picking fights with a moderator (often an author moderating their own post, but also often just a mod who’s doing their community maintenance volunteer work). But maybe they can’t draw themselves away and decide they need to get banned for their own good.
Last sightings of solkta seem to be OM 3 Nov and Labour Conference Notes 3 Nov, but am assuming he/she has other priorities or has decided of their own volition to take a break. Actually comment numbers seem to be down the last few days overall – perhaps the weather, spring, start of build up to the end of year celebrations etc.
Last sightings of duke on 5 Nov, OM and JLR Tapes – some things to be worked out re postings the previous day.
Should the Clean Slate Act be extended to former prisoners?
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018669928/calls-for-clean-slates-for-former-prisoners
Probably. It’s there to give people their second chance.
I agree, unless it’s a pedo wanting to work with children, keep the kids safe.
Agreed
If people can prove to whoever that they are rehabilitated then they should get the chance to live their lives. I wouldn’t extend that to sex offenders on registered sex offender lists.
Being vindictive to those that have made mistakes, learned from it, and want to move on is childish and ineffective.
Totally depends. Anonymity is not useful when repeat offender violent and predatory types exist, and there’s a fair few of them.
‘Victim-less’ crime might be wiped after a pattern of good living for x years. The sociopaths and evil dirt bags should be monitored for life. Gang members zero reprieve till they leave their gang, and then a pattern of good living for x years.
Not everyone is a misunderstood youth in need of a hug, some are complete assholes. That counts especially for white collar crims.
Why let a fraudster back in business. They can be employees but not bosses imo. Likewise embezzlement etc. These crims have myriad victims, a lot worse than a poor kid who pinches stuff. No record wiping for these premeditating deliberately callous self obsessed criminals.
People make mistakes and learn. But some plot for themselves 24/7. Screw those people make the penalties harsher.
You raise a valid point.
Why let a fraudster back in business. They can be employees but not bosses imo. Likewise embezzlement etc. These crims have myriad victims, a lot worse than a poor kid who pinches stuff. No record wiping for these premeditating deliberately callous self obsessed criminals.
About criminals. The word sounds really bad but mothers trying to bring up kids, trying to run a household and have a life on an inadequate income get put in jail because they coudn’t manage with what they had. Just give them more money, more training, more child care, less oppressive claw-back as soon as they earn something. The hatred and meanness of the government ‘welfare’ system is a bloody disgrace. And succeeding governments seem powerless to adopt reasonable approaches and ensure that reason and kindness are ingrained into the system, and all that work within it.
Yet private people prey on others and manage to weave their way round the legal system leaving ordinary people who try to be good citizens impoverished in their wake.
Of course NZ is second in the world for being easy to get into business, can’t put limits on the crooks or we might spoil our well-known record, which brings investment money into NZ for some purpose and gives the effect of having a booming economy. Yeah right.
Part of the problem is the way that Ministries contract out their work and take no responsibility for the way it is carried out. ‘Oh’ says the National Minister ‘I can’t do anything about (whatever disgraceful matter). That’s an operational matter’. It was shown up this morning on Radionz when a Transport agency man was being questioned about faulty checks on imported cars. They get away with sloppiness that wouldn’t be acceptable by a part-time low paid casual worker. Yet they can ponce around on high salaries. They aren’t doing their work lawfully, as in being suitable for their purpose, or in not meeting the standards of service that they hold themselves out to deliver.
We are run by she’ll-be-rights who pay themselves too much, deliver too little, fudge too much, pull the wool over our eyes too much, and punish the little people struggling with difficulties overwhelming them too much.
Yep, that whole “I can’t comment because it’s ‘an operational’ matter” croc is used all too often. And the definition of what is ‘operational’ and what is not seems pretty flexible.
I’m not sure why elected representatives can’t comment on ‘operational matters’ – especially when the operatives are not living up to what is expected of them.
I might be wrong, but it seems to have become a convenience since the last round of public service/corporatisation reforms.
Roll it on Chippie!
This is a good start:
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018670092/migrant-workers-union-welcomes-exploitation-inquiry
(it’d never have happened had there not been some serious ‘operational’ fuckups over the past decade)
Oh, and btw, that NZTA thing was a shocker, even if you’re forgiving yourself for thinking Kim Hill is driving a second hand Japanese import and is worrying about the integrity of its airbags whilst rolling down a Brooklyn hill on her way to an RNZ studio.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018670120/vehicle-importer-tester-conflict-a-serious-issue-nzta-boss
(Don’t mention the trucking industry towbars! Shhhhhh! Wet Wellington bus tickets at the ready – and ‘moreover’ this is a ‘technical issue’ that you just wouldn’t understand – because WE are the professionals and we’re ‘officials’ not to be challenged, not never!)
Yes it was good to hear that NZTA boss explain it all to Kim Hill who couldn’t seem to see why she shouldn’t keep asking some direct questions and get a direct answer of explanation. Sweet fudging.
Rising levels of ‘black carbon’ in Queen St heighten health risk for Aucklanders
“Pedestrians and workers in Auckland’s Queen St are being exposed to high levels of “black carbon”, or ultra-fine carbon particles associated with a number of health problems.
Black carbon emissions are more than three times higher than Canadian cities and twice as high for concentrations in major European, UK and American cities, according to an article published by Auckland Council’s research and evaluation unit.”
“The article said high buildings in Queen St reduce airflow and allow air pollutant concentrations to increase close to ground level. High numbers of diesel buses in the central city and emissions from the port and ferry terminal contributed to air pollution levels.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12155503
Time to put the stadium and all the other polluting enterprises like Cruise ships and actually concentrate on safety of all the people and develop the wharf area and the city into open spaces free of pollution that workers and residents living in central Auckland can escape to! Not be polluted further by!
NZ is not going to have people living in Auckland city (and other cities) in those apartments or working there if the air quality they breathe is harming them!
As for the diesel fuelling public transport and trucks, again, NZ councils and government have clearly got their head’s up their arses on this one as they continually introduce more and more polluting elements into our city and our RMA laws and interpretation of them is dysfunctional.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1806/S00111/public-health-fears-over-wellington-bus-plan.htm
‘Each day a cruise ship emits as much particulate matter as a million cars’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/pollution-cruise-ships-po-oceana-higher-piccadilly-circus-channel-4-dispatches-a7821911.html
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/108358338/English-language-tests-for-foreign-teachers-likely-to-be-scrapped
There’s reason to be cautious about some testing regimes, notably TOEFL, in which the relatively high variation serves the business model (by encouraging multiple resits).
IELTS is more robust, and the convention that working at an academic level requires a basic standard less arbitrary.
I’d be interested to know where the story came from: government seeking to lower the bar to ease recruitment, non-state employers looking for cheap labour, or extant teachers trying to prevent creeping erosion of standards.
I think that some of our laws need to be more tightly focussed. I am thinking it is too general to have a law forbidding ‘sexual harassment’ which doesn’t convey well the extent of the fault.
This morning on the latest to come to the news:
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018670126/geoffrey-rush-s-defamation-case-a-roll-call-of-actors
Geoffrey Rush’s defamation case a ‘roll-call’ of actors
From Morning Report, 8:56 am today
Listen duration 4′ :26″
A defamation case brought by the Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush against the Daily Telegraph newspaper in Sydney is nearing a close.
Rush is suing the newspaper over articles it published last year, which claimed he behaved inappropriately with a co-star during a King Lear production in 2015.
Eryn-Jean Norvill, who played Cordelia in the Shakespeare play, has given evidence in the federal court in Sydney that Rush sexually harassed her.
He denies the allegations.
It may come that men will start suing women about the way they dress, showing body parts that have strong sexual connotations and attraction to men such as breasts, and saying that they are deliberately displaying themselves which introduces thoughts of sexuality which otherwise would not have arisen, and that is a form of sexual harassment!
So I think more definition is needed about what constitutes sexual harassment. Also I would like murder to be cited in degrees as some of the States in USA do.
https://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/violent_crimes/degrees.murder.htm
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018670114/water-bottling-expansion-could-threaten-chch-drinking-supplies-councillor
A Christchurch City Councillor is strongly opposing the application by a Chinese owned bottling company to take 1.5 billion litres of water from a deep aquifer – saying it could threaten the city’s drinking supply.
Ocean Cloud Water owns an existing 33-metre deep bore in the northern suburb of Belfast, from which it is extracting and bottling 4.3 million litres of water a day.
It has now applied to the Environment Canterbury for permission to extract water from a 186-metre deep bore at the plant so it can sell it abroad.
Vicki Buck the former mayor of Christchurch and chair of the Council’s Innovation and Sustainability Committee, says this could compromise Christchurch’s water supply.
Kathryn also talks with Steve Lowndes, Chair of Environment Canterbury.
Kathryn Ryan and Vicki Buck Christchurch Councillor, had a very interesting conversation in this interview about water bottling demands being made on Christchurch city pure water aquifer.
Hey, hey….
More good news for our Coalition Government 🙂
“Unemployment has dropped to 3.9 per cent, the lowest level since the global financial crisis, causing the New Zealand dollar to surge.
On Tuesday Statistics New Zealand revealed that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.9 per cent in the three months to September 30, down from 4.4 per cent at the end of June.
It is the lowest unemployment rate since June 2008, when unemployment was 3.8 per cent.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/108414604/unemployment-drops-sharply-hitting-lowest-level-since-2008
Yes indeed, well done National for gifting the incoming government such a strong base 🙂
Lmao cheeky as ! Yeah, nah.
We’ve had a new government for a year, and would you look at that, with those figures it’s obvious business confidence is also up.
Well now partner the ways I sees it is I reckon that if’n Nationals going to be blamed for all the negative stuff then it seems only fair to my ways of thinking that they need to be praised for all of the good stuff to
I’ll be moseying off now
The problem in our thinking is that national is all the negative stuff .
Aaargh fucking your thinking that’s meant to be . And the edit function is mia on that post ? But not this one
Pretty sure the best thing about national for Pucky, would be….drum roll please….
judith collins.
You’re not wrong 🙂
Well howdy there partner I do believe you got it right
Puckish Rogue, I don’t think I got an impression of ‘gifting’ amongst the cries of “We wuz robbed”.
not to rain on any parade but
no numbers of new jobs created
how many people of benefit into studies
how many people of unemployment benefit to other benefits
how many unemployed people retiring
how many unemployed people going still unemployed but not listed as unemployed
this article is actually really lazy and leaves more questions then answers. as to business confidence, who was asked? Bankers?
Maybe we will find out more after question time today?
it would be good to know what caused the drop.
If its more jobs, awesome. If its just people dropping out of the system, then no its not good at all.
More info would be very much appreciated, and should have been provided in the article to be honest.
Yes that dropping out of the system could be the answer. Going along to register and getting treated like a dropout, and being forced to apply for useless jobs where the hours are shit and the transport is not available to suit the hours, or the cost uses all your wages up. And you try and have a life but can’t carry out your duties to family and wor at all odd hours when the fingers get snapped. And you have to notify the Dept each week probably about your earnings so you get a cut in your benefit immediately but they probably take a while to bring it up to a normal level when the hours are cut. It could make you feel like suicide.
And don’t forget how they keep changing the way unemployment is measured – to make Govt. look good by not counting people who used to be counted. I don’t trust this rubbish at all. It is not lowest…
I’m going to make enquiries as to how they get the employment figures. Looking up google all the detail is about measuring the unemployed HxLxW. Stats advise who constitutes an unemployed person but I would like it spelled out as to who is employed – it must be paid work for a start, and how many hours, and it will probably say a minimum of one but I want to know for sure. I guess it will be phrased like ‘Did you do any paid work in the last week and how many hours? The last month and how many hours?
Do they count travelling time? If you have to travel an hour there and another back to work two hours, then that should be counted in a separate column which would also be interesting to see.
Is this of any use to you?
StatsNZ are pretty good at putting everything online, but the volume of what they publish means that getting the vibe of what search terms to use (or avoid) can take a while.
Well if we’re reading between the lines as (Jacinda) likes to say then I’m guessing ILG is not going to be feeling too comfortable for the next wee while (nor should he)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/108416607/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-found-out-about-karel-sroubek-decision-through-the-media
“What is unusual is some of the basis of the minister’s decision has been contradicted by other information in the public domain.”
(PR, the PM’s name is Jacinda. There’s more than a hint of misogynist belittling with the alternative you used, which is not OK here. TRP)
Should be good to note the contrast with bridges who has dropped shit grenade after shit grenade into his team’s hooch.
Hes only keeping the seat warm until Saint Jude the Savior chooses to take over
LOL. See my 17 below.
But, but – what gives with the job situation?
Well much like National wanted Little to stay I’m guessing Labour want Bridges to stay and since I’m advising Jude I’ll let you in on what I’ve advised her
Let Bridges stay on untill after the next election and then take over in a very seamless, orderly transition a couple of months after
Of course whether she takes my advice is another story…
LOL – I meant your job situation … Everything sorted?
Coming along nicely but very slowly, who’d thought a government role would take so damn long.
We have a site visit and testing on Friday and then the last thing should be a reference check and, hopefully, a job offer
If it wasn’t for the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 I’d be sooooo bored waiting 🙂
Saint Jude the Saviour lol certainly a lot needs saved that’s for sure but based on her track record she may as well be called St Jude the Saveloy cos she ain’t got it – never had it and never will imo.
I thought St. Jude’s moniker was ‘the obscure’. She certainly squawks like a skua.
Yeah Kate Winslet does look a bit like Jude
hahahahahahahahah
thanks for that, i needed a good belly laugh.
” Hes only keeping the seat warm until Saint Jude the Savior chooses to take over”
I thought her kind sunned themselves on rocks to warm the bloodstream.
No worries
Cheers, PR. George Costanza says it best:
Have a look at BM’s comments yesterday. Disgusting.
Every time you mention thee trolls it gives them a thrill. They thrill and trill when they troll, so roll on past why don’t you. You are feeding them.
For those of us who watch Question Time in Parliament, we won’t see either the PM or Simon Bridges there today. Seems they are in Ratana to celebrate the centenary “since prophet Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana is said to have received a divine revelation from which the Ratana Church was born.”
Marama Davidson is also there as is Shane Jones, according to the Herald.
Considering the discussions here in the last few days or so re Kiwibuild etc, people may be interested in this little snippet in the last paragraph of the Herald article, which is easy to miss lost due to its stupid placement between “Related Articles” and “Herald Recommends”:
“The Government is expected to make an announcement on housing at Ratana. Previous governments have also used Ratana celebrations to make similar announcements.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12154927
Meanwhile, it looks like Winston Peters and Paula Bennett have been left to mind the shop. Winston is not at Ratana according to the above article, and Bennett has Question 2 this afternoon to the PM -“the usual “Does she stand by all of her Government’s statements and actions?”
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/order-paper-questions/list-of-oral-questions/oral-questions-7-november-2018/
Presumably Peters and Bennett will still be minding the shop tomorrow, Thursday, as the PM and Leader of the Opposition do not attend Question Time on Thursdays.
So the next time we can hope to see the “Clash of the Titans” between Ardern and Bridges* is not until 27 November for the final three weeks of the House sitting for 2018, as the House is in recess for the next two weeks. The final sitting session will only be three weeks as opposed to the usual four weeks as the House is due to rise for the Summer Recess on Thursday, 13 December.
* Assuming Bridges is still Leader of the National Party …
“Does she stand by all of her Government’s statements and actions?”
This question and others of its ilk should be banned. It is a complete waste of time. Both sides – Just state your damn case.
I don’t disagree that such questions are a problem and have become too much a case of game playing, rather than the Govt being properly being held to account, etc in Question Time.
Their purpose is so that the Govt Minister answering the primary question (or rather, their advisers, Ministry etc) cannot prepare detailed answers as they do for more specific primary questions on specific topics – thus leaving the Minister in the firing line unsure what is going to follow in the supplementary questions.
Thus, behind the scenes it becomes a guessing game as to what is going to follow and advisers etc end up rushing around trying to cover all possibilities in terms of providing briefing notes to the Minister.
New Zealand now has 3.9% headline unemployment.
Underutilization is at 11.3%.
Best since 2008.
Yes, we’re still one of the most unequal countries in the oecd.
But this is one very good stat.
More from Mother Agnes on Syria. No doubt the lefty fascists will scream, but, but.. Assad!
From Robin Westenra.
This needs to be a thread.
The second most important story in New Zealand.
Winston is going to take jlr’s proxy vote.
Wonder if simon wants to talk about it?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12156119
Winnie will be loving it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it won’t happen but I would love it if the media DID NOT ASK Bridges about it!
ROFL.
And here is Stuff’s article.
So timewise, National refused to exercise Ross’ proxy votes on Friday, 2 Nov and NZF received a letter from Ross on Sat, 3 Nov …
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/108429642/jamilee-ross-switches-his-proxy-vote-to-new-zealand-first
And Ross has tweeted about it here
And more –
Andrew Geddis’ considered legal opinion – “Oh, this is totally messed up … !
https://twitter.com/acgeddis/status/1060001425541935104
Toby Manhire – “What”
And love this one –
@LewSOS
55m55 minutes ago
More
Winston Peters Troll Level: is there a level higher than Grand Master
Some great reactions in all of the above full threads! ROFL
Wonder what tune Winston will put to this? Suggest “These Boots were made for Walking” Any other suggestions.
Nancy Sinatra – These Boots Are Made for Walkin
I reckon this one: Queen – If You Can’t Beat Them
Kia ora The Am Show The American midterm election has thrown a spanner in trump’s ——– this is a win for the Wahine and minority cultures with the House won by the Democrats that give’s America a humane voice with gerrymandering what has happened there they change the electoral lines that give the go oil party a huge advantage in the House election’s because of gerrymandering so in many of those seats the Democrats won the mojority but republicans still get the seat shonky would have pulled tactics like that if national won .
.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/04/america-minority-rule-voter-suppression-gerrymandering-supreme-court
Fuel tax is all good seenothing at least that revenue serves the Majority unlike big business were there profits only serve your rich m8’s % 00.1 no .
Of coarse one of the % 00.1 the ceo of walmart is going to say that about trump .
Its the middle and poor classes and minority groups that are getting ripped off buy the go oil party .
Its cool that the ban smoking in cars is getting big support as it should.
Kaiapo school being burnt is a stupid act who burns down a school for te mokopuna’s is a fool.
I agree with Amada we need those corporate fight’s need more laws to protect the fighters . Ka kite ano .
To all the good people who got up and voted for the left Ladies and Minority cultures .
Eco Maori THANKS YOU ALL KIA KAHA this is a big win for the LEFT.
This is just a distraction taxing red meat they say the big picture is we need a world carbon TAX lets stay focused on the real threat to OUR future it is not cow farts it is the petrol we put in our car trucks buses boat’s .
Get a good working world tax on carbon and use the money to pay for renewable energy a oil baron’s investment on the propagandize machine link below ka kite ano.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/06/taxing-red-meat-would-save-many-lives-research-shows
https://globalnews.ca/news/4291256/carbon-tax-do-they-work/ I say they work one just has to look at the drop in NZ carbon this year 2018
The Democrats’ advances were essential, and will check Donald Trump’s power as well as boosting their morale. link below ka kite ano.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/07/the-guardian-view-on-the-us-midterms-a-welcome-start one has to keep the momentum going to have Equality for all and a clean environment for our decedents.
I agree with George on this story I read it on another site we need OUR voices heard on protecting the innocent wild life and our children Ka pai.David Attenborough has betrayed the living world he loves
Ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/07/david-attenborough-world-environment-bbc-films
Eco Maori Music wake up.
Geothermal renewable base load energy is a technology the oil barons have suppresed
we have a couple running in Aotearoa NZ
A trailblazing energy project has started drilling the UK’s deepest ever borehole in Cornwall in a bid to use heat from hot rocks as a zero-carbon source of electricity.
The team behind the £18m scheme hopes to create the UK’s first deep geothermal power station and ignite a renewed interest in the technology’s wider potential.
The project near Redruth involves two deep holes being drilled over a course of around six months. Drilling began on Tuesday, with one hole expected to be 1.6 miles (2.5km) deep and the other as far as 2.8 miles (4.5km) down, which would be a UK record for a borehole.
Water will then be pumped into the shallower well, where it should be heated by naturally fractured hot rocks deep underground, hitting temperatures of up to 195C.
Ka kite ano link below P.S let hope this project is successful.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/06/drilling-starts-to-tap-geothermal-power-from-cornwalls-hot-rocks
The Man accused of blackmailing DOC over 1080 programme named you will see what type of person is making these foolish threats to state employees ka kite ano link below
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/375460/man-accused-of-blackmailing-doc-over-1080-programme-named
Kia ora Tekaea I say its cool that NZFirst is doing to helping Ross and his el
30.000 Ratana people in Australia that’s heaps its a shame that they have to go there to get a better life there was no reason but suppression why te tangata whenua moved from te whenua .
The Ngapuhi settlements should settle and use the money to lift te tangata wairua.
The sport training Awhata is a good thing its cool to teach the tamariki about fitness and control.
Ka kite ano
Kia ora Newshub I still say Galloway was set up when I take on new management roles I have most time’s clean out the rat’s the one time I did not do this it bit me on the——-.
IPCA washing there image typical tactic the car chase 200 klm 3 dead.
Jeff Sessions is a honorable person Kia Kaha Jeff.
Is that global warming the West coats of Aotearoa getting hammered by tawhirimatea well that will fill some of the hydro power lakes .
Yes I say all the taps and pluming parts that are used in out water supply should be looked at and tested for lead content .
Our power prices are one of the highest in the OECD and what they use hydro to provide most of our power supplies.???? A lot of lies have been told about why our power prices are so high.
The new phones are advancing fast and with them battery technology I say battery power storage is going to revolutionize the renewable energy sector .
Ka kite ano .
Kia ora James & Strrom from The Crowd Goes Wild That’s awesome Trent bolt got a hatrick in the Pakistan first one day over test game and won that;s the way Ross Taylor let em know that you can see what they are up to good game.
That reff let the player know who’s boss by yellow card both front rows in Rugby .
Good on Sulu the netball player for getting a tattoos to show her culture and she is having a good run Mana Wahine .
Ka kite ano P.S good luck to the Black Ferns game in France