When putting the link for a particular comment: You get it by clicking and copying the date and time of the comment you want, which you will copy from the URL address at the top (I call it the header line). With that you paste it in your comment so that you place it within a sentence. See below.
Thanks for the help we get with wrangling our computers and getting control of the pesky things so we can produce a finished comment without getting wiped out!
Cool, I didn't know that pasting within a line of text avoided the bug.
the other way for TS links, if you want the link below text, is to once you have copied the URL, click on the Link button just above the Comment text box, and the past the URL into the popup
(if you just paste straight into the text box below text) the bug will revert the URL to the post link not the comment link).
annoying for people like me who like to separate out things by line, but I'm guessing that many here just paste the URL after whatever they've just typed.
Please have a look at weka's post from yesterday about what we can do to progress the ideas of dealing with our problems of climate change etc. It is something we could keep adding to, keep at the front of our minds. It is good to be keyboard warriors, how can we transfer the energy of our minds to our own actions, or if unable to assisting others in action in some ways, perhaps getting information for them, arranging venues – doing support work. Below is the link to take you straight there.
I heard some weeks ago the NZ Council of the Labour Party meet this week-end. I don't know for sure if it is true, but assuming it is:
My pick is, they will be examining the findings of the sexual harassment report against a Labour Party staffer. If so, we can expect those findings to be released in the next few days. Whatever they are, we can also expect Simon Bridges and co. to distort, twist and infer negative connotations that don't exist.
Will Labour forcefully respond and call them out for lying and cheating this time?
Simon is a sideshow in this and a hypocrite. I’d focus on the important stuff such us how to prevent similar things from happening in future and improve things that they can (and must) improve. Simon will still be barking at cars so let him bark and throw him a little bone every now and then to keep him happy.
[Please don’t use capitals for your username, as Weka has already asked you. Please read the replies to your comments, the moderation notes addressed to you, and respond to acknowledge these, as Weka has already asked you to do. Failing to do so will result in you getting blacklisted (AKA banned) – Incognito]
" If so, we can expect those findings to be released in the next few days."
If anything at all is released I would say that it will not be until after Parliament rises for the year. Your best bet would be 5pm on 24 December.
On the other hand you may not see anything at all, at least officially. The PM said that "The third-party review into Labour's processes would be made public on the condition that participants wanted that."
Quite right. A competent Comms team should certainly be able to do that.
A good one would make sure that there was nothing in the report to embarrass them. It would be pretty easy to shut the complainants down. Just threaten them with treatment like one of the girls in the youth camp affair got. The defendant's lawyer came out in Court saying that of course it wasn't a sexual assault. After all the lawyer claimed that "she wanted it".
Or threaten them they will get the treatment that Winston is dishing out to the former President of his Party, and one that the Labour and Green Parties are happily going along with. Tell anyone who won't shut up that you will accuse them of having mental health problems.
Then you can get a total whitewash as anyone who knows it is false will be too cowed to speak up.
Strike me down with a feather, Alwyn shows his bias again with a ridiculous comment attacking Labour and his buddy Winston Peters.
If a case goes to Court, it is a whitewash, obviously.
The defendant’s lawyer is not a member of Labour or Labour’s comms team, but he (I assume it is a “he”) might as well be if you take Alwyn’s silly comment at face value.
The context of alleged lawyer’s claims in Court is missing, of course. Context and nuance is for mugs, obviously.
Alwyn knows that the Labour and Green Parties are happily going along with anything Winston Peters says or does. No link required, of course, because Alwyn knows.
Now, I’m sure that Alwyn can produce a link in which Winston Peters tells anyone who won't shut up that he will accuse them of having mental health problems. Alwyn would only be too happy to oblige, wouldn’t he? I can sense his glee already.
The lawyer was actually a "she". With your enormous skills in using a search engine that you talked about here recently I am sure you could have found that out.
If you were the parent of a teenage girl who was the complainant of a sexual assault, would you tell her that she should go ahead with the complaint and get attacked by the defendant's lawyer in Court or would you suggest that she simply forget the matter and pretend that it never happened? It isn't a question of who employed this particular lawyer. It is the fact that it pretty routinely happens and I am told it is one of the reasons that so few complaints actually get to Court. It simply isn't worth it.
As far as Winston's attacks on his former party President is concerned there is a very easily found link here
All the Labour members on the Committee voted against having them appear before it. The would no doubt have embarrassed Winston. The Green Party, although supposedly wanting to clean up the anonymous and undeclared donations to Political Parties in New Zealand have remained very, very quiet. Surely correcting what appear to be very doubtful activities by New Zealand First should be of interest to them?
Perhaps you can produce some evidence whar the Green Party opposed something that Winston has asked for. Did they push for a Kermadec sanctuary perhaps?
Now for a challenge to you. You claim that Winston is my buddy. Perhaps you can produce a skerrick of evidence for your ridiculous claim. I think he is a disgrace to New Zealand politics and every other party in the house should treat him as a pariah. Unfortunately the only party leaders who have ever done so were Jenny Shipley after she took over from Bolger, and, most notably, John Key prior to the 2008 and 2011 elections.
In 2008 he said he would not work with Winston because he said, as I remember it, "I cannot trust him". In 2011 he said that "If Winston Peters holds the balance of power it will be a Phil Goff-led Labour government,".
Unfortunately he didn'r say the same before the 2014 election Neither did any party say it before the 2017 election. Shame on them.
I presume you will be happy to show me your evidence that Winston is my buddy? I'm sure you don't want to try and perpetuate such a foolish, and fallacious, claim.
The lawyer is irrelevant but what he/she said in Court is not. What happened in Court is not under the control of Labour or the Labour comms team. You created a strawman and I don’t need a search engine to notice that.
Your link does not support your assertions that “the Labour and Green Parties are happily going along with [it]” [my italics]. In fact, it states that it was “closed business” and you have no knowledge of what went on behind closed doors. So, you’re making up shit again. FYI, using my famous search skills I found that there are no members of the Green Party on the Justice Committee https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/scl/justice/tab/mp Never mind, Alwyn.
As to Peters telling people about having mental health problems, he has already mentioned it so this is now an empty threat and not what you alleged @ 3.2.1.1. Are you having problems comprehending your own comment?
Oh, the buddy issue 🙂
We all know how much you love to hate Tsar Winston and the Green Party, for example, and you can’t help yourself telling lies about them due to your negative bias towards them. You have just provided the evidence (again) so it is QED for you, Alwyn. If you want more: you have used that silly juvenile term 35 times here on TS. I’m happy to provide all 35 links but then I’ll have to ban you for life. Your call, Alwyn, I’m more than happy to oblige.
You see, Alwyn, it is perfectly ok to criticise but it is not ok to make up shit to ‘prove’ your point, or rather your opinion, and you’re making a bit of habit of it.
I haven't used it on a single occasion in the last four and a half months. I repeat "I haven't used it on a single occasion in the last four and a half months". Why don't you just accept that I did what I said I would? Why are you the person who brings it up again? Why do you feel the need to use the term if you dislike it so much?
You will also see, if you read this carefully that what I said about Peters is that he might threaten OTHER people with the sort of attack that he has mounted on the former President of his own party. He doesn't have to put it into words. People merely have to worry that he might lash out wildly at them, when they have no way to properly respond.
You will also see that I never even hinted that the lawyer was part of the Labour Party "Comms" team. I merely said that people who might be among those with complaints are going to worry about having this sort of accusation hurled at them. It is why many women will not proceed with complaints about sexual harassment. They are the ones who end up in the firing line and it just isn't worth it.
You also tell me that there are no Green members on the Committee. I know that. I never claimed there were. I said only that the four Labour members of the committee wouldn't allow them to testify. I also said that the Green Party never commented on this even though it appears to be something they claim to be interested in.
When Nick Smith moved an amendment to the silly bill Andrew Little pushed though under urgency that would have treated the New Zealand First Foundation donations as being donations to New Zealand First the Green Party voted against the amendment. Hardly following a practice that will provide openness and transparency about donations is it?
Meanwhile I will point out that I don't "lie" about the Green Party. I point out occasions when they don't seem to be following the practices they say the would like to see;.I quite happily confess I don't jump into the fray about the occasional good thing they do but there are plenty of people contributing to this site who will do that ad nauseam. I merely try and provide a little balance.
Finally of course are you willing to state that you are completely unable to find anything that supposedly demonstrates that Winston is my buddy? Then you will have removed a slur you have cast on my character.
… slowly withering in the dark and evil contrivance that invented it, realising it is merely a chiffon-esque drapery invented to conceal the soulless abyss that would use any form of human suffering to gain meaningless pretended advantage in an online debate. Sad, shrivelled, and hollow, it eventually rots into the pool of ichor that that had originally given it a perverted facsimile of life.
You really sound unbearably depressed.I think my view of myself is a much happier one than your self portrait of your own existence. You poor chap. How dreadful must be your life with only misery and darkness to look forward to.
Please don't do anything that you cannot reverse. Things will get better. They certainly can't get any worse for you, can they?
Can I suggest you splurge on a good cigar. That is sure, providing you can forget the obscene taxes that are levied in New Zealand, to cheer you up.
A good cigar, a good night's rest and the world will seem a much more cheerful place in the morning.
At least I hope it will be better tomorrow. I am getting sick and tired of the incessant wind and rain we seem to be getting in Wellington. I think I will move to Hawke's Bay
The sketches are part of a report entitled “How America Tortures,” which was put together by Denbeaux and his students at Seton Hall Law. The sketches are a trip through hell; Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times. He was left in “stress positions” for days at a time, and confined, shackled, in a tiny crate for the same length of time. Americans did this. The American government sanctioned it. And the American people haven’t given enough of a damn about it to hold its monsters accountable.
Mr. Zubaydah, who is not known to have formal art training, drew himself in a hood, shackled in the fetal position and tethered by a chain to a cell bar to constrict his movement. In granting the C.I.A. approval to use a technique similar to this, Jay S. Bybee, a former assistant attorney general, noted in an 18-page memo dated Aug. 1, 2002, that “through observing Zubaydah in captivity, you have noted that he appears to be quite flexible despite his wound.” He also noted in the authorization, addressed to the C.I.A.’s acting general counsel at the time, John A. Rizzo, that the agency asserted that “these positions are not designed to produce the pain associated with contortions or twisting of the body.”
Bybee now has a lifetime appointment as a judge on a federal court of appeals. Rizzo is a fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Jeremy Corbyn made waves recently when he released documents showing the NHS is currently on the table in discussions for a UK/US trade deal. Now the Labour leader has just done it again. He’s revealed details from a confidential government report on Brexit.
The last two Colmar Bruntons suggest National and ACT currently "have the numbers to scrape together a Government". This is, of course, predicated on the idea that NZF will fall below the 5% threshold.
How likely is this ?
The latest Colmar Brunton was conducted at the 25 month mark.
Here I compare current NZF poll ratings with their Colmar Brunton stats (at the same point in the electoral cycle) during their last two times in Govt.
NZF in Colmar Bruntons:
2019
CB at 25 month mark (Dec 2019) = 4.3%
Average over previous 12 months = 4.18%
Range over previous 12 months = 3.3 – 5.0
1998
CB at 25 month mark (Nov 1998) = 2%
Average over previous 12 months = 1.96%
Range over previous 12 months = 1 – 3
Subsequent Election 1999 GE = 4.26% (up 2.26 points on 25 month mark CB / up 2.3 points on previous 12 month average)
2007
CB at 25 month mark (Oct 2007) = 1.9%
Average over previous 12 months = 2.28%
Range over previous 12 months = 1.9 – 2.9
Subsequent Election 2008 GE = 4.07 (up 2.17 points on 25 month mark CB / up 1.79 points on previous 12 month average)
So … the Winnie Brigade are roughly 2 points more popular than they were at the same point during their previous two stints in Govt … & the historic pattern is a 2 point lift for the Party by Election Day.
It's also true, of course, that in both cases (1999 & 2008 GEs) they fell below the 5% threshold. National-aligned doomsayers have focussed on the 4% Party Vote NZF received at both of those Elections … (implying it's some sort of Iron Law of NZ Electoral Politics that the Peters Party will always fall to 4% when in Govt), … whereas I'm inclined to place greater emphasis on the roughly 2 point boost they enjoyed at each of these elections (99 / 08) & to highlight their better performance in recent Polls compared to post-1996 & post-19992005. [correction entered by Moderator]
Also note (given recent events) that NZF received this 2 point boost despite being embroiled in controversy during those previous periods in Govt (including a well-organised media campaign against the Party in 2008).
To be sure, the context differs a little … in its previous two stints in Govt, NZF had opted to join ailing Third Term Administrations … this time, of course, it's a fresh First Termer … & yes you have to be careful about relying too much on historic precedent … but the best reading of the entrails is that NZF will take around 6% of the Party Vote in 2020.
Minor correction: End of third-to-last paragraph should, of course, read: " … to highlight their better performance in recent Polls compared to post-1996 &post-2005". (not 1999).
Do you think that the 1998 Poll numbers from November are really meaningful?
The poll would have been done about 2 months after Jenny Shipley had sacked Winston from the Cabinet and his party had fissioned under him. There were just over half his members who stuck with him and just under half who stayed with the then Government. I would have thought that this would have been the dominant factor in whatever the results of the poll in November were.
However I can't find the other CB results for that year. Was this November one an oddity or did it match any poll taken in say July of 1998? The sacking took place on 14 August 1998. I can't really remember that much about the lead-up to the event and whether it was a surprise to the general public.
If it is a real oddball it renders the calculations rather uncertain. There would only be a sample of one in previous sessions on NZF in power..
Have another look at the 1998 stats I set out in my earlier comment, alwyn.
1998
CB at 25 month mark (Nov 1998) = 2%
Average over previous 12 months = 1.96%
Range over previous 12 months = 1 – 3
So, as you can see, NZF's support in Colmar Bruntons over the previous 12 months (ie the immediate 12 months before Nov 1998) ranged from 1 to 3% … and averaged 1.96% … so their November rating was pretty much bang on the average.
The implosion of the National-NZF Govt made no discernable difference to the Peters Party's ratings.
Sorry. I didn't read it carefully enough. I got very interested in the question of the NZF blow-up and didn't think through your published numbers clearly.
No effect at all, is there. I am surprised. I would have thought it would have had a significant effect.
Out of curiosity are these numbers available on line? I hunted quite hard but couldn't find a record of polls going back to the ones for the period before the 1999 election.
Have you got a reference or have you got a private set of the numbers from an offline source.
The latter … & pretty much like David Farrar I'm inclined to greedily keep them very close to my chest … gives both of us a certain added value, as it were.
.
Took quite some time to track all the data down more than a decade ago …right back to the first National Research Bureau Polls of late 1969 (& a few very early NZ Gallup polls from the first half of the 60s) … so might as well get a wee reward for all the effort, I guess.
Then again, I do like to think I have a few democratic instincts as well … so eventually might look at making them widely available by setting all the poll numbers out on my blog right back to 69 (for Herald-NRB) & 74 (for TVNZ-Heylen / Colmar Brunton).
Incidentally, I gave a very brief overview of NZ's early polling history in a comment on Chris Trotter's Bowalley Road here:
Thank you. I tried very hard to find that data but getting back past the 2002 election was beyond my skills. At least it wasn't just my inability to manipulate Google that meant it wasn't showing up.
From the 2002 election you can find the polls on Wikipedia of course.
My God though. Getting all that ephemeral data right back to '69 is truly impressive. Ah, those were the days. National never, at least so I was told a long time afterward by one of their very senior MPs, never expected to win that one. One of their Ministers built a new house before the election so that he would have somewhere to move to after he had to leave his Ministerial residence. Then they won and he could stay on in the house he was supplied with.
I won't waste your time asking for the Poll numbers that might have convinced them they were going to lose though.
Thank you for the information. I don't feel bad about not finding it myself now.
Sad to disagree Stephen. I was involved with the IHC Sheltered Workshops years ago. Those Intellectually Handicapped people rolled up each day with enthusiasm and socialised with like minded folk. They were paid at less than half the lowest average pay but the daily relationships were a delight. The interactions were worth far more than the pay.
It was a very sad day when a Government ruling meant that the Workshops were closed down.
And the people no longer had anything to look forward to. Days empty and lonely.
That is interesting to hear ianmac. I had heard that the sheltered workshops had been enjoyed and that they could earn their own money and have a job they could manage made them proud and content.
But the preachy women and some men who decide everything from a point of view that is totally middle class, materialistic with a bit of spirituality thrown in and most of all, are pedantic, pompous and righteous. Their opinion oif what is right rules the day, and the opinions of those affected by their decisions are irrelevant; 'those' people don't understand the range of possibilities available to give them fairness and equity. This may not be what you think but it is observable very often and is something that often occurs in 'consultations'.
were incomes additional to a benefit? Seem to recall the change had something to do with minimum wage regs…if that was the case you would expect some better law could be drafted
They needed to be on a benefit for their security of care, and their working pay should have had an option to be at a rate that was less than minimum pay. This was the welfare system being undone, and everyone being treated the same – equality rather than equity. The fact is ignored, that some relationships don't fit the SWelfs narrow formula, ie a parent being officially paid by the mentally handicapped child, as she works caring for him, therefore he is officially her employer!
The problem has also been of the state setting minimum rates for things that should be able to be decided on an informal basis with an appeal process if felt too low. Also affects babysitting which used to be done by students for pocket money.
"The IHC applauded. It too had been ideologically captured. Over opposition from many of its bewildered members, the IHC seized the opportunity to shut down 76 workshops and "business units".
Part of the problem was that the IHC itself had changed radically. From an organisation run largely by parents and volunteers, it had evolved into a government-funded Wellington bureaucracy led by disability-sector careerists."
I was very peripherally involved. A friend had a son who was employed there and the closure of them meant he was now basically at home all day driving his mother crazy. I had no direct involvement with the workshops though and can only go on what they said, then, about them.
I remember a very moving interview published at the time with the mother of another person who worked there and who was now unemployed. She said that he was paid about a dollar an hour and that was all his work was really worth. She got a benefit that provided for his actual living costs but the money he received was really his pocket money but was something he was very proud of.
Why the IHC was so keen on getting rid of them was beyond her and why the then Government went along with the idea made no sense. I have seen comments that it was caused by the IHC administration being taken over by careerist civil servants in Wellington. I have no idea if that was true.
There was quite a bit of abusing the low wages going on in some of those workshops in order to keep the wages low. I had family working in some of them and standing up against this.
Some examples – a women with an intellectual disability employed by the IHC to do receptionist work for 12 years. Carried out the role as well as any other receptionist paid well below rate at a few dollars a day. Did everything from phones/reception/typing.
Each year there was supposed to be a productivity assessment that worked out the appropriate below rate pay rate for each person. A family member in this instance assessed the rate for each person based on the number of widgets at the correct quality they produced. This lift in wages for many workers was deemed by management to be too expensive (after all they had just bought all the managers new cars and were going on a trip to China) and so they buried her assessment and got an unqualified person to assess them at unsurprisingly the same rate as it had been previously. The labour inspector responsible for signing off on this previously worked for the trust involved.
The IHC has a strong resistance in it's ranks at all levels to any client in it's care earning more than the limits prescribed by WINZ for benefit purposes. It's not that the IHC gets any less money it's that the mix changes – the benefit portion which the IHC gets reduces and the DHB portion increases. The client gets to keep all extra earnings so it is in their interests to earn more. Part of another family member's jobs was finding good quality work for people with disabilities. The IHC did not like the extra paperwork that comes with earning over the exemption and so she used to get told off for having people earn more.
This is an organisation that used to keep clients money in their own coffers til they were forced to set up individual trust accounts, that took peoples disability allowance to supply finding employment services they often never supplied (friend of ours fought very hard to stop this for her intellectually disabled sister), who often colluded with poly-techs to run profit making employment courses for clients to put them somewhere for the day, that is "Idea Services" to reduce stigma most of the time but IHC when it comes to fund-raising, that for many years paid a pittance to staff working all night and so on.
I would argue that the careerist civil servants had been colluding with the IHC administration for many, many years to keep paying disabled people low wages, to profit off their work and training and to support the IHC to keep people institutionalised for as long as possible.
In reality much of the institutionlisation was a loss of freedom for the disabled.
Robert Martin gives a good insight into life before and after.
"he said that he was paid about a dollar an hour and that was all his work was really worth."
Parents are part of the problem – so many undervalue their own children and have such low expectations. Particularly the generation that institutionalised the majority of the disabled – out of sight out of mind.
Compounded by the reforms of the public service to replace effectiveness (e.g. giving people with disabilities a decent paid job because overall it is good for society) versus efficiency (it's only about productivity).
The joys of being able to walk into a government department if you had Downs syndrome for instance and be able to see someone like you in the workplace need to be welcomed back. Sheltered workshops should stay in the historical institutional past.
I read that and the immediate thought that came to mind is he must drop some seriously floaty ones. Maybe he should stop snacking on the polystyrene boxes his favourite meals come in.
Polystyrene? Is that what gives him that peculiar hair colour? However he does seem to have a very full head of hair for a man of his age so it might seem worth it to him.
Combover yes, but definitely not professional. Apparently it's all his own work. No professional has ever admitted to having anything to do with it (that I know of, anyway). Be honest, do you think anyone with any kind of self-esteem whatsoever would ever confess to an abomination like that?
I know his words actually have no meaning whatsoever beyond hinting at whatever spiny bug up his ass is wriggling at that particular moment, but the nerdy pedant in me can't help pointing out that environmentally friendly bulbs actually de-emphasise orange and red.
That's because LEDs have proportionately very little output in red and orange compared to daylight and especially compared to incandescents (including halogens). Check out these spectra for the comparison.
I dunno. Seems to me things people don't have immediate direct control over need to be treated with respect. But actual voluntary direct choices are fair game.
So a choice to go for a dayglo hue of fake-bronze spraytan is a legit target of mockery, but the moobs are prob'ly best left alone. (the image looks suspiciously like a fake to me, tho)
Similarly chubby legs and baldness should be off-limits. Hair implants are tricky because they were a long-ago decision that's not readily reversible and may be a different choice today.
The lack of a fucking haircut is definitely fair game if that matters to anyone. Although he'd probably lose half his support if he did go and get it tidied up, it's a big part of his maverick outsider aura.
Y'know, we really should be appreciative of the way he's expanded our vocabularies. Until he used the word, I never knew a bunch of fastfood chain budget range burgers left to go cold and congealed then stacked in a big pile was actually called a hamberder.
Anderton and Cullen gave the voting public the better option of forming our own bank – Kiwibank – as an option that consumers could freely take up.
However with about 4% of market share, it's just barely achieving its nationalistic vision. It is perfectly within the power of the government to tilt the procurement table and get Kiwibank to do all of its banking. That move alone would quadruple its power.
Orr has given our banking system greater safety, for which he should be applauded.
But so far I don't detect any political appetite from anyone to re-nationalise anything or indeed make any move of a structural nature that Cullen and Anderton did.
Kiwibank. Doing what their customers want. Well that seems to be what they claim.
Meanwhile they are, in just a couple of months going to completely get rid of cheques.
"After 30 September 2019 Kiwibank won’t issue cheque or deposit books.
After 28 February 2020 cheque deposits will not be accepted into a Kiwibank customer account; other banks may stop accepting Kiwibank cheques.
After 28 February 2020 Kiwibank will stop providing bank cheques."
I know one or two , typically elderly, people who still use cheques. The don't want to have to do Internet banking. Well tough luck if you have been with Kiwibank, supposedly the pensioners friend.
Tell me again why we have the bank? If you want a New Zealand owned bank why don't you go the the popular, and well regarded by their customers, TSB or The Co-Operative Bank.
Consumer found them to have far higher satisfaction ratings than Kiwibank or any of the majors. In 2019 Co-Op got 87%, TSB 83% and Kiwibank 66%. The big ones were lower. TSB were top in 2017 and 2018.
Incidentally the big four will have higher Capital ratios than the minnows. On the basis of Orr's arguments the big ones will be safer that than the smaller ones.
Bill Clinton was impeached on the 19th of December, 1998.
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Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called out House Democrats for trying to impeach President Donald Trump “on the eve of Christmas” during an interview with Fox News, Friday.
[…]
“And really, on the eve of Christmas it is really sad to see the dishonesty and the partisanship that the House Democrats are displaying,” he concluded.
“If they took sexual harassment as seriously as they take petty theft, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” says UNITE industrial officer Duncan Allen of the raft of harassment complaints he has helped lodge.
UNITE has had complaints from employees at other companies – but nothing like Restaurant Brands, which Allen says appears to have a deep-rooted issue with its company culture.
“Far more energy (is) put into protecting the alleged harasser than there is about investigating properly and fixing things.”
He believes there’s a pattern of employees leaving their jobs because laying a complaint is made too difficult, with the company demanding specific evidence – including exact dates and times – before they will agree to look into allegations.
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This article was first published on 7 February 2025. In January, I crossed the milestone of 24 years of service in two militaries—the British and Australian armies. It is fair to say that I am ...
He shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.Age shall not weary him, nor the years condemn.At the going down of the sun and in the morningI will remember him.My mate Keith died yesterday, peacefully in the early hours. My dear friend in Rotorua, whom I’ve been ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on news New Zealand abstained from a vote on a global shipping levy on climate emissions and downgraded the importance ...
Hi,In case you missed it, New Zealand icon Lorde has a new single out. It’s called “What Was That”, and has a very low key music video that was filmed around her impromptu performance in New York’s Washington Square Park. When police shut down the initial popup, one of my ...
A strategy of denial is now the cornerstone concept for Australia’s National Defence Strategy. The term’s use as an overarching guide to defence policy, however, has led to some confusion on what it actually means ...
The IMF’s twice-yearly World Economic Outlook and Fiscal Monitor publications have come out in the last couple of days. If there is gloom in the GDP numbers (eg this chart for the advanced countries, and we don’t score a lot better on the comparable one for the 2019 to ...
For a while, it looked like the government had unfucked the ETS, at least insofar as unit settings were concerned. They had to be forced into it by a court case, but at least it got done, and when National came to power, it learned the lesson (and then fucked ...
The argument over US officials’ misuse of secure but non-governmental messaging platform Signal falls into two camps. Either it is a gross error that undermines national security, or it is a bit of a blunder ...
Cost of living ~1/3 of Kiwis needed help with food as cost of living pressures continue to increase - turning to friends, family, food banks or Work and Income in the past year, to find food. 40% of Kiwis also said they felt schemes offered little or no benefit, according ...
Hi,Perhaps in 2025 it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the CEO and owner of Voyager Internet — the major sponsor of the New Zealand Media Awards — has taken to sharing a variety of Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories to his 1.2 million followers.This included sharing a post from ...
In the sprint to deepen Australia-India defence cooperation, navy links have shot ahead of ties between the two countries’ air forces and armies. That’s largely a good thing: maritime security is at the heart of ...
'Cause you and me, were meant to be,Walking free, in harmony,One fine day, we'll fly away,Don't you know that Rome wasn't built in a day?Songwriters: Paul David Godfrey / Ross Godfrey / Skye Edwards.I was half expecting to see photos this morning of National Party supporters with wads of cotton ...
The PSA says a settlement with Health New Zealand over the agency’s proposed restructure of its Data and Digital and Pacific Health teams has saved around 200 roles from being cut. A third of New Zealanders have needed help accessing food in the past year, according to Consumer NZ, and ...
John Campbell’s Under His Command, a five-part TVNZ+ investigation series starting today, rips the veil off Destiny Church, exposing the rot festering under Brian Tamaki’s self-proclaimed apostolic throne. This isn’t just a church; it’s a fiefdom, built on fear, manipulation, and a trail of scandals that make your stomach churn. ...
Some argue we still have time, since quantum computing capable of breaking today’s encryption is a decade or more away. But breakthrough capabilities, especially in domains tied to strategic advantage, rarely follow predictable timelines. Just ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Pearl Marvell(Photo credit: Pearl Marvell. Image credit: Samantha Harrington. Dollar bill vector image: by pch.vector on Freepik) Igrew up knowing that when you had extra money, you put it under a bed, stashed it in a book or a clock, or, ...
The political petrified piece of wood, Winston Peters, who refuses to retire gracefully, has had an eventful couple of weeks peddling transphobia, pushing bigoted policies, undertaking his unrelenting war on wokeness and slinging vile accusations like calling Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick a “groomer”.At 80, the hypocritical NZ First leader’s latest ...
It's raining in Cockermouth and we're following our host up the stairs. We’re telling her it’s a lovely building and she’s explaining that it used to be a pub and a nightclub and a backpackers, but no more.There were floods in 2009 and 2015 along the main street, huge floods, ...
A recurring aspect of the Trump tariff coverage is that it normalises – or even sanctifies – a status quo that in many respects has been a disaster for working class families. No doubt, Donald Trump is an uncertainty machine that is tanking the stock market and the growth prospects ...
The National Party’s Minister of Police, Corrections, and Ethnic Communities (irony alert) has stumbled into yet another racist quagmire, proving that when it comes to bigotry, the right wing’s playbook is as predictable as it is vile. This time, Mitchell’s office reposted an Instagram reel falsely claiming that Te Pāti ...
In the week of Australia’s 3 May election, ASPI will release Agenda for Change 2025: preparedness and resilience in an uncertain world, a report promoting public debate and understanding on issues of strategic importance to ...
In a world crying out for empathy, J.K. Rowling has once again proven she’s more interested in stoking division than building bridges. The once-beloved author of Harry Potter has cemented her place as this week’s Arsehole of the Week, a title earned through her relentless, tone-deaf crusade against transgender rights. ...
Health security is often seen as a peripheral security domain, and as a problem that is difficult to address. These perceptions weaken our capacity to respond to borderless threats. With the wind back of Covid-19 ...
Would our political parties pass muster under the Fair Trading Act?WHAT IF OUR POLITICAL PARTIES were subject to the Fair Trading Act? What if they, like the nation’s businesses, were prohibited from misleading their consumers – i.e. the voters – about the nature, characteristics, suitability, or quantity of the products ...
Rod EmmersonThank you to my subscribers and readers - you make it all possible. Tui.Subscribe nowSix updates today from around the world and locally here in Aoteaora New Zealand -1. RFK Jnr’s Autism CrusadeAmerica plans to create a registry of people with autism in the United States. RFK Jr’s department ...
We see it often enough. A democracy deals with an authoritarian state, and those who oppose concessions cite the lesson of Munich 1938: make none to dictators; take a firm stand. And so we hear ...
370 perioperative nurses working at Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre will strike for two hours on 1 May – the same day senior doctors are striking. This is part of nationwide events to mark May Day on 1 May, including rallies outside public hospitals, organised by ...
Character protections for Auckland’s villas have stymied past development. Now moves afoot to strip character protection from a bunch of inner-city villas. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories shortest from our political economy on Wednesday, April 23:Special Character Areas designed to protect villas are stopping 20,000 sites near Auckland’s ...
Artificial intelligence is poised to significantly transform the Indo-Pacific maritime security landscape. It offers unprecedented situational awareness, decision-making speed and operational flexibility. But without clear rules, shared norms and mechanisms for risk reduction, AI could ...
For what is a man, what has he got?If not himself, then he has naughtTo say the things he truly feelsAnd not the words of one who kneelsThe record showsI took the blowsAnd did it my wayLyrics: Paul Anka.Morena folks, before we discuss Winston’s latest salvo in NZ First’s War ...
Britain once risked a reputation as the weak link in the trilateral AUKUS partnership. But now the appointment of an empowered senior official to drive the project forward and a new burst of British parliamentary ...
Australia’s ability to produce basic metals, including copper, lead, zinc, nickel and construction steel, is in jeopardy, with ageing plants struggling against Chinese competition. The multinational commodities company Trafigura has put its Australian operations under ...
There have been recent PPP debacles, both in New Zealand (think Transmission Gully) and globally, with numerous examples across both Australia and Britain of failed projects and extensive litigation by government agencies seeking redress for the failures.Rob Campbell is one of New Zealand’s sharpest critics of PPPs noting that; "There ...
On Twitter on Saturday I indicated that there had been a mistake in my post from last Thursday in which I attempted to step through the Reserve Bank Funding Agreement issues. Making mistakes (there are two) is annoying and I don’t fully understand how I did it (probably too much ...
Indonesia’s armed forces still have a lot of work to do in making proper use of drones. Two major challenges are pilot training and achieving interoperability between the services. Another is overcoming a predilection for ...
The StrategistBy Sandy Juda Pratama, Curie Maharani and Gautama Adi Kusuma
As a living breathing human being, you’ve likely seen the heart-wrenching images from Gaza...homes reduced to rubble, children burnt to cinders, families displaced, and a death toll that’s beyond comprehension. What is going on in Gaza is most definitely a genocide, the suffering is real, and it’s easy to feel ...
Donald Trump, who has called the Chair of the Federal Reserve “a major loser”. Photo: Getty ImagesLong stories shortest from our political economy on Tuesday, April 22:US markets slump after Donald Trump threatens the Fed’s independence. China warns its trading partners not to side with the US. Trump says some ...
Last night, the news came through that Pope Francis had passed away at 7:35 am in Rome on Monday, the 21st of April, following a reported stroke and heart failure. Pope Francis. Photo: AP.Despite his obvious ill health, it still came as a shock, following so soon after the Easter ...
The 2024 Independent Intelligence Review found the NIC to be highly capable and performing well. So, it is not a surprise that most of the 67 recommendations are incremental adjustments and small but nevertheless important ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkThe world has made real progress toward tacking climate change in recent years, with spending on clean energy technologies skyrocketing from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars globally over the past decade, and global CO2 emissions plateauing.This has contributed to a reassessment of ...
Hi,I’ve been having a peaceful month of what I’d call “existential dread”, even more aware than usual that — at some point — this all ends.It was very specifically triggered by watching Pantheon, an animated sci-fi show that I’m filing away with all-time greats like Six Feet Under, Watchmen and ...
Once the formalities of honouring the late Pope wrap up in two to three weeks time, the conclave of Cardinals will go into seclusion. Some 253 of the current College of Cardinals can take part in the debate over choosing the next Pope, but only 138 of them are below ...
The National Party government is doubling down on a grim, regressive vision for the future: more prisons, more prisoners, and a society fractured by policies that punish rather than heal. This isn’t just a misstep; it’s a deliberate lurch toward a dystopian future where incarceration is the answer to every ...
The audacity of Don Brash never ceases to amaze. The former National Party and Hobson’s Pledge mouthpiece has now sunk his claws into NZME, the media giant behind the New Zealand Herald and half of our commercial radio stations. Don Brash has snapped up shares in NZME, aligning himself with ...
A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 13, 2025 thru Sat, April 19, 2025. This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. The formatting is a ...
“What I’d say to you is…” our Prime Minister might typically begin a sentence, when he’s about to obfuscate and attempt to derail the question you really, really want him to answer properly (even once would be okay, Christopher). Questions such as “Why is a literal election promise over ...
Ruth IrwinExponential Economic growth is the driver of Ecological degradation. It is driven by CO2 greenhouse gas emissions through fossil fuel extraction and burning for the plethora of polluting industries. Extreme weather disasters and Climate change will continue to get worse because governments subscribe to the current global economic system, ...
A man on telly tries to tell me what is realBut it's alright, I like the way that feelsAnd everybody singsWe are evolving from night to morningAnd I wanna believe in somethingWriter: Adam Duritz.The world is changing rapidly, over the last year or so, it has been out with the ...
MFB Co-Founder Cecilia Robinson runs Tend HealthcareSummary:Kieran McAnulty calls out National on healthcare lies and says Health Minister Simeon Brown is “dishonest and disingenuous”(video below)McAnulty says negotiation with doctors is standard practice, but this level of disrespect is not, especially when we need and want our valued doctors.National’s $20bn ...
Chris Luxon’s tenure as New Zealand’s Prime Minister has been a masterclass in incompetence, marked by coalition chaos, economic lethargy, verbal gaffes, and a moral compass that seems to point wherever political expediency lies. The former Air New Zealand CEO (how could we forget?) was sold as a steady hand, ...
Has anybody else noticed Cameron Slater still obsessing over Jacinda Ardern? The disgraced Whale Oil blogger seems to have made it his life’s mission to shadow the former Prime Minister of New Zealand like some unhinged stalker lurking in the digital bushes.The man’s obsession with Ardern isn't just unhealthy...it’s downright ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is climate change a net benefit for society? Human-caused climate change has been a net detriment to society as measured by loss of ...
When the National Party hastily announced its “Local Water Done Well” policy, they touted it as the great saviour of New Zealand’s crumbling water infrastructure. But as time goes by it's looking more and more like a planning and fiscal lame duck...and one that’s going to cost ratepayers far more ...
Donald Trump, the orange-hued oligarch, is back at it again, wielding tariffs like a mob boss swinging a lead pipe. His latest economic edict; slapping hefty tariffs on imports from China, Mexico, and Canada, has the stench of a protectionist shakedown, cooked up in the fevered minds of his sycophantic ...
In the week of Australia’s 3 May election, ASPI will release Agenda for Change 2025: preparedness and resilience in an uncertain world, a report promoting public debate and understanding on issues of strategic importance to ...
One pill makes you largerAnd one pill makes you smallAnd the ones that mother gives youDon't do anything at allGo ask AliceWhen she's ten feet tallSongwriter: Grace Wing Slick.Morena, all, and a happy Bicycle Day to you.Today is an unofficial celebration of the dawning of the psychedelic era, commemorating the ...
It’s only been a few months since the Hollywood fires tore through Los Angeles, leaving a trail of devastation, numerous deaths, over 10,000 homes reduced to rubble, and a once glorious film industry on its knees. The Palisades and Eaton fires, fueled by climate-driven dry winds, didn’t just burn houses; ...
Four eighty-year-old books which are still vitally relevant today. Between 1942 and 1945, four refugees from Vienna each published a ground-breaking – seminal – book.* They left their country after Austria was taken over by fascists in 1934 and by Nazi Germany in 1938. Previously they had lived in ‘Red ...
Good Friday, 18th April, 2025: I can at last unveil the Secret Non-Fiction Project. The first complete Latin-to-English translation of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s twelve-book Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (Disputations Against Divinatory Astrology). Amounting to some 174,000 words, total. Some context is probably in order. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) ...
National MP Hamish Campbell's pathetic attempt to downplay his deep ties to and involvement in the Two by Twos...a secretive religious sect under FBI and NZ Police investigation for child sexual abuse...isn’t just a misstep; it’s a calculated lie that insults the intelligence of every Kiwi voter.Campbell’s claim of being ...
New Zealand First’s Shane Jones has long styled himself as the “Prince of the Provinces,” a champion of regional development and economic growth. But beneath the bluster lies a troubling pattern of behaviour that reeks of cronyism and corruption, undermining the very democracy he claims to serve. Recent revelations and ...
Give me one reason to stay hereAnd I'll turn right back aroundGive me one reason to stay hereAnd I'll turn right back aroundSaid I don't want to leave you lonelyYou got to make me change my mindSongwriters: Tracy Chapman.Morena, and Happy Easter, whether that means to you. Hot cross buns, ...
Te Pāti Māori are appalled by Cabinet's decision to agree to 15 recommendations to the Early Childhood Education (ECE) sector following the regulatory review by the Ministry of Regulation. We emphasise the need to prioritise tamariki Māori in Early Childhood Education, conducted by education experts- not economists. “Our mokopuna deserve ...
The Government must support Northland hapū who have resorted to rakes and buckets to try to control a devastating invasive seaweed that threatens the local economy and environment. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill that would ensure the biological definition of a woman and man are defined in law. “This is not about being anti-anyone or anti-anything. This is about ensuring we as a country focus on the facts of biology and protect the ...
After stonewalling requests for information on boot camps, the Government has now offered up a blog post right before Easter weekend rather than provide clarity on the pilot. ...
More people could be harmed if Minister for Mental Health Matt Doocey does not guarantee to protect patients and workers as the Police withdraw from supporting mental health call outs. ...
The Green Party recognises the extension of visa allowances for our Pacific whānau as a step in the right direction but continues to call for a Pacific Visa Waiver. ...
The Government yesterday released its annual child poverty statistics, and by its own admission, more tamariki across Aotearoa are now living in material hardship. ...
Today, Te Pāti Māori join the motu in celebration as the Treaty Principles Bill is voted down at its second reading. “From the beginning, this Bill was never welcome in this House,” said Te Pāti Māori Co-Leader, Rawiri Waititi. “Our response to the first reading was one of protest: protesting ...
The Green Party is proud to have voted down the Coalition Government’s Treaty Principles Bill, an archaic piece of legislation that sought to attack the nation’s founding agreement. ...
A Member’s Bill in the name of Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter which aims to stop coal mining, the Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill, has been pulled from Parliament’s ‘biscuit tin’ today. ...
Labour MP Kieran McAnulty’s Members Bill to make the law simpler and fairer for businesses operating on Easter, Anzac and Christmas Days has passed its first reading after a conscience vote in Parliament. ...
Nicola Willis continues to sit on her hands amid a global economic crisis, leaving the Reserve Bank to act for New Zealanders who are worried about their jobs, mortgages, and KiwiSaver. ...
By Susana Suisuiki, RNZ Pacific presenter The doors of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican have now been closed and the coffin sealed, ahead of preparations for tonight’s funeral of Pope Francis. The Vatican says a quarter of a million people have paid respects to Pope Francis in the last ...
By Susana Suisuiki, RNZ Pacific presenter The doors of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican have now been closed and the coffin sealed, ahead of preparations for tonight’s funeral of Pope Francis. The Vatican says a quarter of a million people have paid respects to Pope Francis in the last ...
When Professor David Krofcheck got an email congratulating him on winning the Oscar of the science world, he dismissed it as a hoax.“I thought it was a scam, I thought it was a phishing email,” recalls Krofcheck, nuclear physicist at Auckland University.“Yeah right, I’ve won the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in ...
Once or twice a week, Dr Margaret Henley rolls up the door on a windowless storage locker in central Auckland, pulls her plastic chair up to a picnic table and sifts through the history of netball in New Zealand.She works alongside netball archivist and statistician Todd Miller, together trawling through ...
Corin DannThe time is 7:36am on Wednesday, April 23, and you’re listening to Morning Report, New Zealand’s voice of the educated left on good incomes. I’m joined now by acting Prime Minister Winston Peters. Good morning Mr Peters.Winston PetersIt was, until I saw you. I much prefer your brother.Corin DannLiam ...
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was.I’ve been re-watching Girls lately, the HBO classic that perfectly captures millennial women in the most painful way. I highly recommend it especially if you haven’t watched it before. Every character on the show is deeply flawed and frustrating in their own ...
With the double-header long weekend comes a welcome chance to escape streaming slop, writes Alex Casey. Over Easter I texted my husband Joe a sentence that perhaps nobody in human history has ever texted: “hurry up geostorm is starting”. No punctuation, no capitalisation, not because I was trying to ...
April 27 is Moehanga Day, the anniversary of the day in 1806 when Ngāpuhi warrior Moehanga became the first Māori to visit England. This is his story. The wooden ship sailed down the River Thames, past smoke stacks and brick factories, until it reached a wharf in industrial south London. ...
Heidi Thomson on how her husband’s illness and Daniel Kalderimis’s book Zest have enhanced her understanding of George Eliot’s great novel.Sometimes a book finds you at just the right time. In early December my husband John had a stroke. At the time we were both reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch, ...
The musician, actor and star of upcoming documentary Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds takes us through his life in television. Musician Marlon Williams has been on our My Life in TV wish list ever since he revealed during his My Boy tour that he wrote ‘Thinking ...
When she walked dripping into the lounge, hair wet from the shower, she took one look at Hamish and dropped her towel.He was holding her phone.—How long has it been going on for?His blue eyes blazed. She wanted to pluck them out and blow on them gently, cool them off. ...
A citizens’ assembly of 100 Porirua locals has provided the city council with more than a dozen recommendations about how to tackle climate change and make sure the region is resilient to worsening extreme weather events.Ranging from expanding access to renewable energy and incentivising the planting of native trees through ...
Comment: Democracy globally is in crisis. Around the world we are seeing the rise of nationalism and declining trust in democratic institutions. Politicians, even in Aotearoa, undermine the authority of core institutions like the media and the courts, which are critical for a functioning democracy. To live well together, in ...
Journalist Rod Oram, who died last year, would have been delighted to see the commitment to addressing climate change shown by the 23-year-old winner of a prize established in his memory.Mika Hervel, a student at Victoria University of Wellington, is today named winner of the Rod Oram Memorial Essay Prize, ...
COMMENTARY:By Nour Odeh There was faint hope that efforts to achieve a ceasefire deal in Gaza would succeed. That hope is now all but gone, offering 2.1 million tormented and starved Palestinians dismal prospects for the days and weeks ahead. Last Saturday, the Israeli Prime Minister once again affirmed ...
An ocean conservation non-profit has condemned the United States President’s latest executive order aimed at boosting the deep sea mining industry. President Donald Trump issued the “Unleashing America’s offshore critical minerals and resources” order on Thursday, directing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to allow deep sea mining. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In this election, voters are more distrustful than ever of politicians, and the political heroes of 2022 have fallen from grace, swept from favour by independent players. A Roy Morgan survey has found, for ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor The former head of BenarNews’ Pacific bureau says a United States court ruling this week ordering the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to release congressionally approved funding to Radio Free Asia and its subsidiaries “makes us very happy”. However, Stefan Armbruster, who has ...
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on April 25, 2025. Labor takes large leads in YouGov and Morgan polls as surge continuesSource: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne With just eight days until the May 3 federal election, and with in-person early voting well under way, Labor has taken a ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (Fourth Estate, $35) Fictionalised true crime for foodies. 2 Sunrise on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Taneshka Kruger, UP ISMC: Project Manager and Coordinator, University of Pretoria Healthcare in Africa faces a perfect storm: high rates of infectious diseases like malaria and HIV, a rise in non-communicable diseases, and dwindling foreign aid. In 2021, nearly half of ...
Australia and New Zealand join forces once more to bring you the best films and TV shows to watch this weekend. This Anzac Day, our free-to-air TV channels will screen a variety of commemorative coverage. At 11am, TVNZ1 has live coverage of the Anzac Day National Commemorative Service in Wellington. ...
Our laws are leaving many veterans who served after 1974 out in the cold. I know, because I’m one of them.This Sunday Essay was made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.First published in 2024.As I write this story, I am in constant pain. My hands ...
An MP fighting for anti-trafficking legislation says it is hard for prosecutors to take cases to court - but he is hopeful his bill will turn the tide. ...
NONFICTION1 No Words for This by Ali Mau (HarperCollins, $39.99)2 Everyday Comfort Food by Vanya Insull (Allen & Unwin, $39.99)3 Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw (Allen & Unwin, $39.99)
This Anzac Day marks 110 years since the Gallipoli landings by soldiers in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps - the ANZACS. It signalled the beginning of a campaign that was to take the lives of so many of our young men - and would devastate the ...
The violent deportation of migrants is not new, and New Zealand forces had a hand in such a regime after World War II, writes historian Scott Hamilton. The world is watching the new Trump government wage a war against migrants it deems illegal. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and ...
While Anzac Day has experienced a resurgence in recent years, our other day of remembrance has slowly faded from view.This Sunday Essay was made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand. Original illustrations by Hope McConnell.First published in 2022.The high school’s head girl and ...
A new poem by Aperahama Hurihanganui, about the name of Aperahama and Abby Hauraki’s three-year-old son, Te Hono ki Īhipa (which translates to ‘The Connection to Egypt’). Te Hono ki Īhipa what’s in a name? te hono – the connection to your tīpuna, valiant soldiers of the 28th Māori Battalion ...
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Pacific Media Watch The Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network today condemned the Fiji government’s failure to stand up for international law and justice over the Israeli war on Gaza in their weekly Black Thursday protest. “For the past 18 months, we have made repeated requests to our government to do ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Michelle Grattan and Amanda Dunn discuss the fourth week of the 2025 election campaign. While the death of Pope Francis interrupted campaigning for a while, the leaders had another debate on Tuesday night and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Whatever the result on May 3, even people within the Liberals think they have run a very poor national campaign. Not just poor, but odd. Nothing makes the point more strongly than this week’s ...
Have a look at Fireblades posts (2) at the end of yesterday's Daily Review (6 December).
Identifies the hypocrisy of Opposition. Wish I knew how to copy them and paste.
This should take you to one of Fireblade's on Daily Review for Friday 6.12 – https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-06-12-2019/#comment-1671358 – and then above it is the other. Good stuff with images.
When putting the link for a particular comment: You get it by clicking and copying the date and time of the comment you want, which you will copy from the URL address at the top (I call it the header line). With that you paste it in your comment so that you place it within a sentence. See below.
It may need to have a word in front and at end and a full stop and space to ensure it appears in full – https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-06-12-2019/#comment-1671358 FYI.
Thanks for the help we get with wrangling our computers and getting control of the pesky things so we can produce a finished comment without getting wiped out!
Cool, I didn't know that pasting within a line of text avoided the bug.
the other way for TS links, if you want the link below text, is to once you have copied the URL, click on the Link button just above the Comment text box, and the past the URL into the popup
(if you just paste straight into the text box below text) the bug will revert the URL to the post link not the comment link).
True. System must only auto-embed the link (as a clickable block rather than text) if it is the only thing in a paragraph.
annoying for people like me who like to separate out things by line, but I'm guessing that many here just paste the URL after whatever they've just typed.
Please have a look at weka's post from yesterday about what we can do to progress the ideas of dealing with our problems of climate change etc. It is something we could keep adding to, keep at the front of our minds. It is good to be keyboard warriors, how can we transfer the energy of our minds to our own actions, or if unable to assisting others in action in some ways, perhaps getting information for them, arranging venues – doing support work. Below is the link to take you straight there.
https://thestandard.org.nz/the-risk-of-climate-tipping-points-is-upon-us/
Thx
I heard some weeks ago the NZ Council of the Labour Party meet this week-end. I don't know for sure if it is true, but assuming it is:
My pick is, they will be examining the findings of the sexual harassment report against a Labour Party staffer. If so, we can expect those findings to be released in the next few days. Whatever they are, we can also expect Simon Bridges and co. to distort, twist and infer negative connotations that don't exist.
Will Labour forcefully respond and call them out for lying and cheating this time?
Simon is a sideshow in this and a hypocrite. I’d focus on the important stuff such us how to prevent similar things from happening in future and improve things that they can (and must) improve. Simon will still be barking at cars so let him bark and throw him a little bone every now and then to keep him happy.
[Please don’t use capitals for your username, as Weka has already asked you. Please read the replies to your comments, the moderation notes addressed to you, and respond to acknowledge these, as Weka has already asked you to do. Failing to do so will result in you getting blacklisted (AKA banned) – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 2:07 PM.
" If so, we can expect those findings to be released in the next few days."
If anything at all is released I would say that it will not be until after Parliament rises for the year. Your best bet would be 5pm on 24 December.
On the other hand you may not see anything at all, at least officially. The PM said that "The third-party review into Labour's processes would be made public on the condition that participants wanted that."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12268112
I'm sure that they can find at least one of the participants who will object.
If that party's comms team are doing their job, yes. No point in offering up a free hit.
Quite right. A competent Comms team should certainly be able to do that.
A good one would make sure that there was nothing in the report to embarrass them. It would be pretty easy to shut the complainants down. Just threaten them with treatment like one of the girls in the youth camp affair got. The defendant's lawyer came out in Court saying that of course it wasn't a sexual assault. After all the lawyer claimed that "she wanted it".
Or threaten them they will get the treatment that Winston is dishing out to the former President of his Party, and one that the Labour and Green Parties are happily going along with. Tell anyone who won't shut up that you will accuse them of having mental health problems.
Then you can get a total whitewash as anyone who knows it is false will be too cowed to speak up.
Fortunately they can be competent without being arseholes.
Strike me down with a feather, Alwyn shows his bias again with a ridiculous comment attacking Labour and his buddy Winston Peters.
If a case goes to Court, it is a whitewash, obviously.
The defendant’s lawyer is not a member of Labour or Labour’s comms team, but he (I assume it is a “he”) might as well be if you take Alwyn’s silly comment at face value.
The context of alleged lawyer’s claims in Court is missing, of course. Context and nuance is for mugs, obviously.
Alwyn knows that the Labour and Green Parties are happily going along with anything Winston Peters says or does. No link required, of course, because Alwyn knows.
Now, I’m sure that Alwyn can produce a link in which Winston Peters tells anyone who won't shut up that he will accuse them of having mental health problems. Alwyn would only be too happy to oblige, wouldn’t he? I can sense his glee already.
The lawyer was actually a "she". With your enormous skills in using a search engine that you talked about here recently I am sure you could have found that out.
If you were the parent of a teenage girl who was the complainant of a sexual assault, would you tell her that she should go ahead with the complaint and get attacked by the defendant's lawyer in Court or would you suggest that she simply forget the matter and pretend that it never happened? It isn't a question of who employed this particular lawyer. It is the fact that it pretty routinely happens and I am told it is one of the reasons that so few complaints actually get to Court. It simply isn't worth it.
As far as Winston's attacks on his former party President is concerned there is a very easily found link here
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12291423
All the Labour members on the Committee voted against having them appear before it. The would no doubt have embarrassed Winston. The Green Party, although supposedly wanting to clean up the anonymous and undeclared donations to Political Parties in New Zealand have remained very, very quiet. Surely correcting what appear to be very doubtful activities by New Zealand First should be of interest to them?
Perhaps you can produce some evidence whar the Green Party opposed something that Winston has asked for. Did they push for a Kermadec sanctuary perhaps?
Now for a challenge to you. You claim that Winston is my buddy. Perhaps you can produce a skerrick of evidence for your ridiculous claim. I think he is a disgrace to New Zealand politics and every other party in the house should treat him as a pariah. Unfortunately the only party leaders who have ever done so were Jenny Shipley after she took over from Bolger, and, most notably, John Key prior to the 2008 and 2011 elections.
In 2008 he said he would not work with Winston because he said, as I remember it, "I cannot trust him". In 2011 he said that "If Winston Peters holds the balance of power it will be a Phil Goff-led Labour government,".
Unfortunately he didn'r say the same before the 2014 election Neither did any party say it before the 2017 election. Shame on them.
I presume you will be happy to show me your evidence that Winston is my buddy? I'm sure you don't want to try and perpetuate such a foolish, and fallacious, claim.
Very well said Alwyn, the most open and transparent government we have ever had !~ //
The lawyer is irrelevant but what he/she said in Court is not. What happened in Court is not under the control of Labour or the Labour comms team. You created a strawman and I don’t need a search engine to notice that.
Your link does not support your assertions that “the Labour and Green Parties are happily going along with [it]” [my italics]. In fact, it states that it was “closed business” and you have no knowledge of what went on behind closed doors. So, you’re making up shit again. FYI, using my famous search skills I found that there are no members of the Green Party on the Justice Committee https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/scl/justice/tab/mp Never mind, Alwyn.
As to Peters telling people about having mental health problems, he has already mentioned it so this is now an empty threat and not what you alleged @ 3.2.1.1. Are you having problems comprehending your own comment?
Oh, the buddy issue 🙂
We all know how much you love to hate Tsar Winston and the Green Party, for example, and you can’t help yourself telling lies about them due to your negative bias towards them. You have just provided the evidence (again) so it is QED for you, Alwyn. If you want more: you have used that silly juvenile term 35 times here on TS. I’m happy to provide all 35 links but then I’ll have to ban you for life. Your call, Alwyn, I’m more than happy to oblige.
You see, Alwyn, it is perfectly ok to criticise but it is not ok to make up shit to ‘prove’ your point, or rather your opinion, and you’re making a bit of habit of it.
I presume you count of 35 refers to T*** Peters.
You told me you didn't like it and asked if I would stop. At 1.32pm on 22 July I said "OK Just for you I'll do it.".
Here it is, just in case you can't find it.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-21-07-2019/#comment-1639279
I haven't used it on a single occasion in the last four and a half months. I repeat "I haven't used it on a single occasion in the last four and a half months". Why don't you just accept that I did what I said I would? Why are you the person who brings it up again? Why do you feel the need to use the term if you dislike it so much?
You will also see, if you read this carefully that what I said about Peters is that he might threaten OTHER people with the sort of attack that he has mounted on the former President of his own party. He doesn't have to put it into words. People merely have to worry that he might lash out wildly at them, when they have no way to properly respond.
You will also see that I never even hinted that the lawyer was part of the Labour Party "Comms" team. I merely said that people who might be among those with complaints are going to worry about having this sort of accusation hurled at them. It is why many women will not proceed with complaints about sexual harassment. They are the ones who end up in the firing line and it just isn't worth it.
You also tell me that there are no Green members on the Committee. I know that. I never claimed there were. I said only that the four Labour members of the committee wouldn't allow them to testify. I also said that the Green Party never commented on this even though it appears to be something they claim to be interested in.
When Nick Smith moved an amendment to the silly bill Andrew Little pushed though under urgency that would have treated the New Zealand First Foundation donations as being donations to New Zealand First the Green Party voted against the amendment. Hardly following a practice that will provide openness and transparency about donations is it?
Meanwhile I will point out that I don't "lie" about the Green Party. I point out occasions when they don't seem to be following the practices they say the would like to see;.I quite happily confess I don't jump into the fray about the occasional good thing they do but there are plenty of people contributing to this site who will do that ad nauseam. I merely try and provide a little balance.
Finally of course are you willing to state that you are completely unable to find anything that supposedly demonstrates that Winston is my buddy? Then you will have removed a slur you have cast on my character.
I really thought that incognito might have responded to this.
Even if only to admit that his complaints about references to T*** Peters were rather off course.
Oh well. I suppose it is just another example that hope springs eternal in the alwyn breast, and that it then remains unrequited.
… slowly withering in the dark and evil contrivance that invented it, realising it is merely a chiffon-esque drapery invented to conceal the soulless abyss that would use any form of human suffering to gain meaningless pretended advantage in an online debate. Sad, shrivelled, and hollow, it eventually rots into the pool of ichor that that had originally given it a perverted facsimile of life.
@flockie.
You really sound unbearably depressed.I think my view of myself is a much happier one than your self portrait of your own existence. You poor chap. How dreadful must be your life with only misery and darkness to look forward to.
Please don't do anything that you cannot reverse. Things will get better. They certainly can't get any worse for you, can they?
All of that to receive an "I know you are but what am I" response?
I don't mind you being an unregenerate lying tory mouthpiece, it's the fact that you're a cut-rate one I can't abide.
Can I suggest you splurge on a good cigar. That is sure, providing you can forget the obscene taxes that are levied in New Zealand, to cheer you up.
A good cigar, a good night's rest and the world will seem a much more cheerful place in the morning.
At least I hope it will be better tomorrow. I am getting sick and tired of the incessant wind and rain we seem to be getting in Wellington. I think I will move to Hawke's Bay
Thanks grey /open-mike-07-12-2019/#comment-1671388 it works.
That's my Chrissie present to you – and it works! Probably more useful than others I am giving. But I'll give you A Marvellous Toy too.
Thanks. Takes me back a way!
'Murica.
https://twitter.com/CharlesPPierce/status/1202963986515410944
The sketches are part of a report entitled “How America Tortures,” which was put together by Denbeaux and his students at Seton Hall Law. The sketches are a trip through hell; Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times. He was left in “stress positions” for days at a time, and confined, shackled, in a tiny crate for the same length of time. Americans did this. The American government sanctioned it. And the American people haven’t given enough of a damn about it to hold its monsters accountable.
Bybee now has a lifetime appointment as a judge on a federal court of appeals. Rizzo is a fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Monsters.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a30148805/cia-torture-program-abu-zubaydah-sketches/
A change to the U.K and its parliamentary rules mooted by Jeremy Corbyn.
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2019/12/05/jeremy-corbyn-makes-a-stunning-proposal-that-could-fix-british-politics-for-good/
And this uncovering of Tory intentions:
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2019/12/06/jeremy-corbyns-brexit-bombshell-blows-tories-entire-election-strategy-to-pieces/
How will the bbc bury it?
With a cone of silence.
Go after the messenger AKA attack is the best form of defence: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50699168
General election 2019: Source of UK-US trade document leak must be found – PM
If Donald Trump has any lead left in his orange pencil, Muhammad would be a popular name for his new baby boy.
Muhammad makes the list of top 10 baby names in the US for the first time.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/muhammad-breaks-top-10-popular-baby-names-2019-191206064945493.html
Not the boy's teddy bear though.
The last two Colmar Bruntons suggest National and ACT currently "have the numbers to scrape together a Government". This is, of course, predicated on the idea that NZF will fall below the 5% threshold.
How likely is this ?
The latest Colmar Brunton was conducted at the 25 month mark.
Here I compare current NZF poll ratings with their Colmar Brunton stats (at the same point in the electoral cycle) during their last two times in Govt.
NZF in Colmar Bruntons:
2019
CB at 25 month mark (Dec 2019) = 4.3%
Average over previous 12 months = 4.18%
Range over previous 12 months = 3.3 – 5.0
1998
CB at 25 month mark (Nov 1998) = 2%
Average over previous 12 months = 1.96%
Range over previous 12 months = 1 – 3
Subsequent Election 1999 GE = 4.26% (up 2.26 points on 25 month mark CB / up 2.3 points on previous 12 month average)
2007
CB at 25 month mark (Oct 2007) = 1.9%
Average over previous 12 months = 2.28%
Range over previous 12 months = 1.9 – 2.9
Subsequent Election 2008 GE = 4.07 (up 2.17 points on 25 month mark CB / up 1.79 points on previous 12 month average)
So … the Winnie Brigade are roughly 2 points more popular than they were at the same point during their previous two stints in Govt … & the historic pattern is a 2 point lift for the Party by Election Day.
It's also true, of course, that in both cases (1999 & 2008 GEs) they fell below the 5% threshold. National-aligned doomsayers have focussed on the 4% Party Vote NZF received at both of those Elections … (implying it's some sort of Iron Law of NZ Electoral Politics that the Peters Party will always fall to 4% when in Govt), … whereas I'm inclined to place greater emphasis on the roughly 2 point boost they enjoyed at each of these elections (99 / 08) & to highlight their better performance in recent Polls compared to post-1996 & post-
19992005. [correction entered by Moderator]Also note (given recent events) that NZF received this 2 point boost despite being embroiled in controversy during those previous periods in Govt (including a well-organised media campaign against the Party in 2008).
To be sure, the context differs a little … in its previous two stints in Govt, NZF had opted to join ailing Third Term Administrations … this time, of course, it's a fresh First Termer … & yes you have to be careful about relying too much on historic precedent … but the best reading of the entrails is that NZF will take around 6% of the Party Vote in 2020.
Minor correction: End of third-to-last paragraph should, of course, read: " … to highlight their better performance in recent Polls compared to post-1996 & post-2005". (not 1999).
Ok now?
Cheers.
Do you think that the 1998 Poll numbers from November are really meaningful?
The poll would have been done about 2 months after Jenny Shipley had sacked Winston from the Cabinet and his party had fissioned under him. There were just over half his members who stuck with him and just under half who stayed with the then Government. I would have thought that this would have been the dominant factor in whatever the results of the poll in November were.
However I can't find the other CB results for that year. Was this November one an oddity or did it match any poll taken in say July of 1998? The sacking took place on 14 August 1998. I can't really remember that much about the lead-up to the event and whether it was a surprise to the general public.
If it is a real oddball it renders the calculations rather uncertain. There would only be a sample of one in previous sessions on NZF in power..
Did you read the last paragraph or maybe even just the last sentence?
It was the right thing to include the 1998 data, for the sake of completeness, if nothing else.
Have another look at the 1998 stats I set out in my earlier comment, alwyn.
So, as you can see, NZF's support in Colmar Bruntons over the previous 12 months (ie the immediate 12 months before Nov 1998) ranged from 1 to 3% … and averaged 1.96% … so their November rating was pretty much bang on the average.
The implosion of the National-NZF Govt made no discernable difference to the Peters Party's ratings.
Sorry. I didn't read it carefully enough. I got very interested in the question of the NZF blow-up and didn't think through your published numbers clearly.
No probs.
For the record:
NZF's CB average in the 8 polls immediately before Winnie's sacking = 1.95%
NZF's CB average in the 3 polls immediately after Winnie's sacking = 2.00%
(= 11 Polls over the year up to & including the Nov 1998 25 month CB)
No effect at all, is there. I am surprised. I would have thought it would have had a significant effect.
Out of curiosity are these numbers available on line? I hunted quite hard but couldn't find a record of polls going back to the ones for the period before the 1999 election.
Have you got a reference or have you got a private set of the numbers from an offline source.
The latter … & pretty much like David Farrar I'm inclined to greedily keep them very close to my chest … gives both of us a certain added value, as it were.
.
Took quite some time to track all the data down more than a decade ago …right back to the first National Research Bureau Polls of late 1969 (& a few very early NZ Gallup polls from the first half of the 60s) … so might as well get a wee reward for all the effort, I guess.
Then again, I do like to think I have a few democratic instincts as well … so eventually might look at making them widely available by setting all the poll numbers out on my blog right back to 69 (for Herald-NRB) & 74 (for TVNZ-Heylen / Colmar Brunton).
Incidentally, I gave a very brief overview of NZ's early polling history in a comment on Chris Trotter's Bowalley Road here:
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2019/12/driving-us-up-poll.html?showComment=1575636685912#c5315993626022830853
Thank you. I tried very hard to find that data but getting back past the 2002 election was beyond my skills. At least it wasn't just my inability to manipulate Google that meant it wasn't showing up.
From the 2002 election you can find the polls on Wikipedia of course.
My God though. Getting all that ephemeral data right back to '69 is truly impressive. Ah, those were the days. National never, at least so I was told a long time afterward by one of their very senior MPs, never expected to win that one. One of their Ministers built a new house before the election so that he would have somewhere to move to after he had to leave his Ministerial residence. Then they won and he could stay on in the house he was supplied with.
I won't waste your time asking for the Poll numbers that might have convinced them they were going to lose though.
Thank you for the information. I don't feel bad about not finding it myself now.
The Nasty Party.
https://twitter.com/GSpellchecker/status/1202905814874370048
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/06/tory-candidate-sally-ann-hart-defends-low-pay-people-learning-disabilities
Sad to disagree Stephen. I was involved with the IHC Sheltered Workshops years ago. Those Intellectually Handicapped people rolled up each day with enthusiasm and socialised with like minded folk. They were paid at less than half the lowest average pay but the daily relationships were a delight. The interactions were worth far more than the pay.
It was a very sad day when a Government ruling meant that the Workshops were closed down.
And the people no longer had anything to look forward to. Days empty and lonely.
So not a bad idea to reopen Workshops eh?
That is interesting to hear ianmac. I had heard that the sheltered workshops had been enjoyed and that they could earn their own money and have a job they could manage made them proud and content.
But the preachy women and some men who decide everything from a point of view that is totally middle class, materialistic with a bit of spirituality thrown in and most of all, are pedantic, pompous and righteous. Their opinion oif what is right rules the day, and the opinions of those affected by their decisions are irrelevant; 'those' people don't understand the range of possibilities available to give them fairness and equity. This may not be what you think but it is observable very often and is something that often occurs in 'consultations'.
were incomes additional to a benefit? Seem to recall the change had something to do with minimum wage regs…if that was the case you would expect some better law could be drafted
They needed to be on a benefit for their security of care, and their working pay should have had an option to be at a rate that was less than minimum pay. This was the welfare system being undone, and everyone being treated the same – equality rather than equity. The fact is ignored, that some relationships don't fit the SWelfs narrow formula, ie a parent being officially paid by the mentally handicapped child, as she works caring for him, therefore he is officially her employer!
The problem has also been of the state setting minimum rates for things that should be able to be decided on an informal basis with an appeal process if felt too low. Also affects babysitting which used to be done by students for pocket money.
hmmmm..
"The IHC applauded. It too had been ideologically captured. Over opposition from many of its bewildered members, the IHC seized the opportunity to shut down 76 workshops and "business units".
Part of the problem was that the IHC itself had changed radically. From an organisation run largely by parents and volunteers, it had evolved into a government-funded Wellington bureaucracy led by disability-sector careerists."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/79045618/closing-sheltered-workshops-did-more-harm-than-good-for-intellectually-disabled
I was very peripherally involved. A friend had a son who was employed there and the closure of them meant he was now basically at home all day driving his mother crazy. I had no direct involvement with the workshops though and can only go on what they said, then, about them.
I remember a very moving interview published at the time with the mother of another person who worked there and who was now unemployed. She said that he was paid about a dollar an hour and that was all his work was really worth. She got a benefit that provided for his actual living costs but the money he received was really his pocket money but was something he was very proud of.
Why the IHC was so keen on getting rid of them was beyond her and why the then Government went along with the idea made no sense. I have seen comments that it was caused by the IHC administration being taken over by careerist civil servants in Wellington. I have no idea if that was true.
There was quite a bit of abusing the low wages going on in some of those workshops in order to keep the wages low. I had family working in some of them and standing up against this.
Some examples – a women with an intellectual disability employed by the IHC to do receptionist work for 12 years. Carried out the role as well as any other receptionist paid well below rate at a few dollars a day. Did everything from phones/reception/typing.
Each year there was supposed to be a productivity assessment that worked out the appropriate below rate pay rate for each person. A family member in this instance assessed the rate for each person based on the number of widgets at the correct quality they produced. This lift in wages for many workers was deemed by management to be too expensive (after all they had just bought all the managers new cars and were going on a trip to China) and so they buried her assessment and got an unqualified person to assess them at unsurprisingly the same rate as it had been previously. The labour inspector responsible for signing off on this previously worked for the trust involved.
The IHC has a strong resistance in it's ranks at all levels to any client in it's care earning more than the limits prescribed by WINZ for benefit purposes. It's not that the IHC gets any less money it's that the mix changes – the benefit portion which the IHC gets reduces and the DHB portion increases. The client gets to keep all extra earnings so it is in their interests to earn more. Part of another family member's jobs was finding good quality work for people with disabilities. The IHC did not like the extra paperwork that comes with earning over the exemption and so she used to get told off for having people earn more.
This is an organisation that used to keep clients money in their own coffers til they were forced to set up individual trust accounts, that took peoples disability allowance to supply finding employment services they often never supplied (friend of ours fought very hard to stop this for her intellectually disabled sister), who often colluded with poly-techs to run profit making employment courses for clients to put them somewhere for the day, that is "Idea Services" to reduce stigma most of the time but IHC when it comes to fund-raising, that for many years paid a pittance to staff working all night and so on.
I would argue that the careerist civil servants had been colluding with the IHC administration for many, many years to keep paying disabled people low wages, to profit off their work and training and to support the IHC to keep people institutionalised for as long as possible.
In reality much of the institutionlisation was a loss of freedom for the disabled.
Robert Martin gives a good insight into life before and after.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Martin_(disability_rights_activist)
https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Becoming_a_Person.html?id=zjXYoAEACAAJ&redir_esc=y#:~:targetText=Becoming%20a%20Person%20is%20the,suffered%20neglect%2C%20abuse%20and%20violence.
"he said that he was paid about a dollar an hour and that was all his work was really worth."
Parents are part of the problem – so many undervalue their own children and have such low expectations. Particularly the generation that institutionalised the majority of the disabled – out of sight out of mind.
Compounded by the reforms of the public service to replace effectiveness (e.g. giving people with disabilities a decent paid job because overall it is good for society) versus efficiency (it's only about productivity).
The joys of being able to walk into a government department if you had Downs syndrome for instance and be able to see someone like you in the workplace need to be welcomed back. Sheltered workshops should stay in the historical institutional past.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/06/trump-says-people-flush-the-toilet-10-times-and-seeks-solution
I bet the regulations won't apply to him.
I read that and the immediate thought that came to mind is he must drop some seriously floaty ones. Maybe he should stop snacking on the polystyrene boxes his favourite meals come in.
Polystyrene? Is that what gives him that peculiar hair colour? However he does seem to have a very full head of hair for a man of his age so it might seem worth it to him.
Ummm… implantation and daily professional comb overs alwyn. Add a dash of odourless hairspray and Bob's your uncle.
Combover yes, but definitely not professional. Apparently it's all his own work. No professional has ever admitted to having anything to do with it (that I know of, anyway). Be honest, do you think anyone with any kind of self-esteem whatsoever would ever confess to an abomination like that?
https://www.quora.com/How-does-Donald-Trump-style-his-hair
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/photos/2015/09/an-illustrated-history-of-donald-trumps-hair
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2775589/trump-hair-finasteride-ivanka-michael-wolff-twitter/
bronx orange is the go to
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1203048075759095808
https://boingboing.net/2019/12/05/buy-the-cheap-orange-foundatio.html
I know his words actually have no meaning whatsoever beyond hinting at whatever spiny bug up his ass is wriggling at that particular moment, but the nerdy pedant in me can't help pointing out that environmentally friendly bulbs actually de-emphasise orange and red.
That's because LEDs have proportionately very little output in red and orange compared to daylight and especially compared to incandescents (including halogens). Check out these spectra for the comparison.
https://www.twitter.com/defeat_gop/status/919220204881809408
Workers like that who just body-shame their clients and pst the image across the world should be fired immediately.
The supposedly woke left can now turn to discussing:
– Warren's chubby legs
– Biden's hair implants
– Booker's baldness, and
– The critical failure of Sanders to get a fucking haircut once a year.
Shame on you all. #MeToo my ass.
I dunno. Seems to me things people don't have immediate direct control over need to be treated with respect. But actual voluntary direct choices are fair game.
So a choice to go for a dayglo hue of fake-bronze spraytan is a legit target of mockery, but the moobs are prob'ly best left alone. (the image looks suspiciously like a fake to me, tho)
Similarly chubby legs and baldness should be off-limits. Hair implants are tricky because they were a long-ago decision that's not readily reversible and may be a different choice today.
The lack of a fucking haircut is definitely fair game if that matters to anyone. Although he'd probably lose half his support if he did go and get it tidied up, it's a big part of his maverick outsider aura.
But wait, there's more.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3918284/Spray-tans-porn-pageant-queens-Oval-Office-dodgy-military-regalia-glimpse-life-like-inside-Trump-White-House.html
..serious cables after all those hamberders and fries ..
Y'know, we really should be appreciative of the way he's expanded our vocabularies. Until he used the word, I never knew a bunch of fastfood chain budget range burgers left to go cold and congealed then stacked in a big pile was actually called a hamberder.
..it comes down, it's called rain..
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1203055422388736000
Chris Trotter has raised some interesting points and political mqneouvres open to us in NZ if we choose to accept them.
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2019/12/adrian-orr-reserve-banks-revolutionary.html
Anderton and Cullen gave the voting public the better option of forming our own bank – Kiwibank – as an option that consumers could freely take up.
However with about 4% of market share, it's just barely achieving its nationalistic vision. It is perfectly within the power of the government to tilt the procurement table and get Kiwibank to do all of its banking. That move alone would quadruple its power.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/115992087/18yearold-kiwibank-still-has-only-4-per-cent-of-the-market-whats-happened
Orr has given our banking system greater safety, for which he should be applauded.
But so far I don't detect any political appetite from anyone to re-nationalise anything or indeed make any move of a structural nature that Cullen and Anderton did.
Kiwibank. Doing what their customers want. Well that seems to be what they claim.
Meanwhile they are, in just a couple of months going to completely get rid of cheques.
"After 30 September 2019 Kiwibank won’t issue cheque or deposit books.
After 28 February 2020 cheque deposits will not be accepted into a Kiwibank customer account; other banks may stop accepting Kiwibank cheques.
After 28 February 2020 Kiwibank will stop providing bank cheques."
I know one or two , typically elderly, people who still use cheques. The don't want to have to do Internet banking. Well tough luck if you have been with Kiwibank, supposedly the pensioners friend.
https://www.kiwibank.co.nz/about-us/news-and-updates/media-releases/2019-05-16-kiwibank-go-cheque-free-from-2020/
They are also closing branches. Johnsonville, one of the largest Wellington suburbs is just losing their Branch. Only six weeks to go.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/117917873/johnsonville-kiwibank-to-close-in-january-steady-decline-of-customers-cited
Tell me again why we have the bank? If you want a New Zealand owned bank why don't you go the the popular, and well regarded by their customers, TSB or The Co-Operative Bank.
Consumer found them to have far higher satisfaction ratings than Kiwibank or any of the majors. In 2019 Co-Op got 87%, TSB 83% and Kiwibank 66%. The big ones were lower. TSB were top in 2017 and 2018.
Incidentally the big four will have higher Capital ratios than the minnows. On the basis of Orr's arguments the big ones will be safer that than the smaller ones.
Bill Clinton was impeached on the 19th of December, 1998.
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Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called out House Democrats for trying to impeach President Donald Trump “on the eve of Christmas” during an interview with Fox News, Friday.
[…]
“And really, on the eve of Christmas it is really sad to see the dishonesty and the partisanship that the House Democrats are displaying,” he concluded.
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/newt-gingrich-slams-democrats-for-impeaching-trump-on-eve-of-christmas/
Andrew Johnson – the other impeached one – only held on to his job by a single vote.
https://time.com/5552679/impeached-presidents/
https://twitter.com/eve_rebecca/status/1203073439520710658
Live stream link below, finishes at 10pm, will post link to episode tomorrow
It's a goodie.
This could be a teenager near you. Restaurant Brands is large enough to affect every region in NZ
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/117973819/pizza-hut-kfc-workers-break-silence-on-rape-threats-and-harassment
“If they took sexual harassment as seriously as they take petty theft, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” says UNITE industrial officer Duncan Allen of the raft of harassment complaints he has helped lodge.
UNITE has had complaints from employees at other companies – but nothing like Restaurant Brands, which Allen says appears to have a deep-rooted issue with its company culture.
“Far more energy (is) put into protecting the alleged harasser than there is about investigating properly and fixing things.”
He believes there’s a pattern of employees leaving their jobs because laying a complaint is made too difficult, with the company demanding specific evidence – including exact dates and times – before they will agree to look into allegations.