Well of course, they don’t have tame little guinea pigs mascarading as Press over there!!! They tell it like it is, and boy, how humiliating and beyond embarrassing to be known as a weird little fetish-creep, right John?? Wonder if the Queen will invite him back to Balmoral again – she must be wondering what he got up to the last time he was there??
How tragic. You obviously have not been following the rabid anti-Milliban stuff the Sun et al have been running these last few weeks. Filthy Murdoch media and other Tory press
Interestingly recently on the British Show “Pointless” John Key was an answer, but not a pointless one. They asked 100 people to identify as many world leaders as they knew in 100 seconds. From memory over 10% of them named John Key of New Zealand.
But how many Brits currently think John Key is a clown (irrespective of whether or not they know the country of which he is PM)?
And of the 10% who you suspect do know he is New Zealand’s Prime Minister the vast majority will presumably only know that from the fact that he is being mocked?
If there happens to be any future case in which John Key – as NZ PM – makes some serious appeal to the British people (e.g., to buy our products, help us with a natural disaster, support our economic and foreign policy interests, etc.) we can guess that their first dawning reaction will not be sympathy and support but, instead … ‘Oh, so that’s the country that voted in that clown??’
You seem to be implying that this current ‘anonymity’ concerning Key’s nationality is ‘reassuring’ when it is actually a ticking ‘join the dots’ time bomb (involving, as you imply, far more than 10% of Brits) that, when it goes off, is likely to dampen and subtract from the British people’s support for us in the future.
And, more importantly, that reaction amongst the British public will embolden those in Britain who might oppose our interests (for political or economic reasons).
Key has, no doubt unthinkingly, delivered rhetorical ammunition for anyone in Britain – or elsewhere – to use to undermine our interests.
Rightly or wrongly, that in future will be the public reaction overseas and those will be the uses made of that reaction. (e.g., think about how Fox News might now frame our Prime Minister should he, on a visit there, publicly argue to reduce US agricultural subsidies).
As right wingers here so often point out when they use Key’s electoral popularity as his ultimate defence against criticism: Irrespective of the reality, perception is everything.
Unfortunately, the same argument also works negatively – when, on the world stage, Key is associated not with a blokey ‘popularity’ but with idiocy and weirdness.
Big day for Auckland Council and Auckland’s future. Two related themes.
Firstly, the proposed rates hike – particularly for transport purposes – is steeper than expected. Government will likely not recognize the political blowback Mayor Brown will get from the public.
Secondly, the housing crisis is not reflected in Council’s Auckland Development Company proposal. It’s going to be a fairly neutered beast. Back in the day, Auckland Council was the second-biggest housing owner in the country. The days of intervention at scale appear gone.
Join these two together: can Key, Bennett, and Bridges as pro-Auckland Cabinet Ministers, overcome the anti-Auckland sentiments of Brownlee, Smith, and English? That is, can central government form a stronger and more direct governance instrument for prioritizing transport investment that leads to more affordable housing being built?
Particularly because this government is demanding more homes be built, by necessity they have to be on the outskirts, but won’t put its hand in its collective pocket to fund the infrastructure (particularly transport) required to make it practical for dwellers…
They also effectively cut the developers cost… so who take sup the shortfall if this is generally used to fund infrastructure for the new properties and research?
My home has gone up in paper value over 300,000 since October last year…
Something needs to be pointed out about rate hikes all over the country. The basic cause of rate hikes by councils is that the central government is not sufficiently funding these regional councils. This is the underlying reason councils are looking to put rates up or are looking to raise revenue in other ways, or in some cases moth balling development projects. Where we as a country want these projects to go ahead, but rate payers increases would be too steep, the government should simply fund these projects.
But the tricky thing is that councils funding also adjusts to the economy, when economic activity falls then their rates and other payments (income) fall as well. It can be tricky to understand that due to the recession if the council is going to maintain previous levels of investment in regional development, then either rates need to go up a lot or central government needs to step in and provide the funds and a larger portion of the councils budget. At present the central government is significantly under-funding councils all over the country.
It’s comments like this that prove that you, and other RWNJs, are a fucken idiot.
We need the services that taxes provide and we can’t get them for less than they physically cost no matter what National Act tell us.
Of course, a large part of your idiocy is due to the fact that we’ve been taught to see our finances backwards. We see taxes as providing an income for government when we should be seeing government spending as the foundation which holds up the economy – especially the private sector.
Why should central government tell local government where people can build houses without providing infrastructure to support their (central government) decisions.
Because they refuse to let local government charge the level of rates that would provide an appropriate level of services, in particular the overarching infrastructure needed to support communities and economic activity.
“Why should central government fund local government?”
Because local government can’t afford to raise the necessary funds (It would depress the local economy of Auckland to much if Auckland rates, and other council service charges, were that high) needed to support their local government economy. Duh!
One of the reasons central government should fund local government is that central government make up the laws that local government have to enact, implement, monitor and enforce…….e.g. Building Act, RMA, Health and Safety Act, Weathertight homes resolution services Act, Local Government Act etc etc.
It’s fine for Councils to pay for bylaws and services that communities want (democratic choice), but why is the burden of cost placed exclusively on rate payers (particularly for expensive infrastructure) when that change comes from central government?
NZ needs regional development, and significant funding to support regional development.
Auckland Council had little choice but pay for the changes that were required by the Local Government Auckland Council and Local Government Auckland Transition Acts that were foisted on them by Mr Hyde…….and look at what that is going to cost Aucklanders……possibly their harbour, given the dysfunctionality of the governance that were set up between the Council and their subsidiary entities (Ports of Auckland, Auckland Transport).
And where does the government get this extra money Nic? I suppose you think it grows on trees for the plucking 🙂
This is typical NZ, perhaps thoughout the world,where few if any consider the holistic cost as they work out the costs and benefits to their group and their group only … urrrgh!
I suppose you think it grows on trees for the plucking
Of course it doesn’t. Private banks create 97% of it ex nihilo.
This is typical NZ, perhaps thoughout the world,where few if any consider the holistic cost as they work out the costs and benefits to their group and their group only
Actually, the problem is that we’ve 30+ years of the RWNJs saying that we don’t need to pay for anything and the majority of people seem to have believed that lie. Now our infrastructure is collapsing, our government services are sub par and taxes are having to go up to pay for fixing all the damage that 30 years of neo-liberalism have done and the RWNJs are complaining about it.
“And where does the government get this extra money Nic? I suppose you think it grows on trees for the plucking”
From the NZ central governments point of view, it does. All they need to do is write into the budget the amount they are providing to local government and the money is then issued into the economy as it is spent.
From the point of view of an economist its never a question of funding, but a question of how much this might put pressure on inflation. However there is no threat of an impact on inflation from this until the economy is operating at full capacity (which you will probably observe it isn’t presently). Until such a time the government can simply spend more, creating more real wealth (both goods and services) for NZers to enjoy and income for businesses and their employees at the same time, effectively for free.
The opportunity cost of not doing this can never be recovered, its clearly a pretty bone headed move by the government to simply leave the additional real wealth available to the NZ economy (at no cost) on the table!
As an investor the author knows full well that the value of an asset is directly proportionate to its yield and that Auckland houses are in a bubble phase.
Rental properties in areas of NZ with low or no housing inflation, such as the provinces, are returning investors 6-7% from rents. Based on existing interest rates that’s currently about the right return if you’re an investor, you must get at least that much else you won’t invest. You’d be better off putting your cash in the bank if you got any less.
Auckland properties are lucky to return 4-5% from rents which is well below the return any investor would require. You can’t borrow at 6% and make a buck when rents are only returning 4%. It’s not possible…. unless there’s capital gain or rent increases. That’s a bubble, the income from the asset is not supporting the price.
Economists & politicians keep bleating about house prices when the real issue isn’t houses. It’s rents. Without rental income an investment property has no value whatsoever. The higher the rent… the higher the value of the property. If rents don’t go up house prices will always fall back to when the bubble started.
What King has neglected to tell people there is that the longer term investors buy with the intention of increasing rents. An investment bubble can only be deflated if the income from the investment rises to match the bubble price. A higher house price can only be sustained if the underlying rent increases to support it.
My point in this spiel is that low income Aucklanders can look forward to more grinding poverty with their landlords constantly holding out their hands for more & more filthy lucre. The ‘proper’ rent on a $500k property is over $600 per week and investors who own those $500k properties plan on getting their $600.
at that rate pretty much anyone in Auckland is going to be a low income Aucklander, but i guess that is then mission accomplished and we are one step closer to third country status.
and there is. Lord knows I don’t want to be seen as standing up for landlords, but the picture you offer is not quite so watertight. The idea of “proper rent” for a 500K property being $600pw just doesn’t match reality. Rents, depending on area, are closer to half the rate you say they are. Rents here are high, as a percentage of average gross income, no doubt. Neither does the image of landlords being highly intelligent scammers and sharks reconcile with close inspection. Those types exist, but if they were the only type around, there’d be a lot of people, hundreds of thousands, living on the street. The flattering idea of being an “investor” just because someone owns a rental property, isn’t true. Luckily, landlords have as many colours of nutty as anyone else, so a tolerable deal can still be found.
Cheer up old bean, having to move house because the landlord has an aspirational brain-fart is infuriating, highly stressfull and expensive, and potentially financially crippling, but shit happens, so don’t focus on the shit because it only makes things worse.
Miliband still on target to become British PM according to most pundits. General consensus (give or take a little variation) seems to be:
– Tories will probably win the popular vote by 1-3 percentage points
– Tories probably around 10 seats ahead of Labour (but a lot of uncertainty due to very close contest in some of the key marginals according to the Ashcroft Polls)
– None of which, according to the majority view, will be enough to prevent an Anti-Tory majority (see May2015 website and my comment here…http://thestandard.org.nz/miliband-kos-johnson/#comment-1006991)
The only concern:
– Traditional inaccuracy of UK pre-Election polls. Most notoriously, of course, in 1992 when polls grossly overstated Labour support and under-estimated the Tory vote. Same in a few other Elections – I’ve recently watched a fascinating 6 hours of the 1970 UK Election coverage (complete with some quite extraordinary comb-overs – particularly from the middle-aged political scientists – we’re talking on a Donald Trump scale of grandeur) and most of the polls then wrongly indicated a return of Harold Wilson’s Government.
Anyone who has been following the New Statesman’s excellent May2015 site will know that, over recent weeks, there has been a serious divide between the on-line and phone polls – the former consistently suggesting a neck-and-neck race, the latter a fairly clear Tory lead. Nerve-wracking – although I see the most recent phone-based polls have mostly re-aligned with the on-line ones, all except the Com Res/Daily Mail now calling a close race.
Letter to my local Gisborne Herald – they may not publish – being rather chummy with the Tolley. Or at least will hack out the stomach staples to protect her modesty and her image of self responsibility and self-control.
This paper’s editor considers my letters to be ‘attacks’. So be it.
Here’s an ‘attack’.
The Minister of Social Development is now banning beneficiaries – whose care she is responsible for – from getting loans for emergency dental treatment. Loans.
This is vicious.
Any dentist or technician or maxillofacial surgeon will tell you those with serious gum disease are 40% more likely to have a chronic condition on top.
Diabetes, heart disease/stroke risk – infections in the gums release inflammatory substances which in turn increase brain inflammation that can cause neuronal (brain cell) death.
Bacteria from periodontal disease can travel through the bloodstream to the lungs where it can aggravate respiratory systems.
Men with gum disease – 49% more likely to develop kidney cancer, 54% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer, and 30% more likely to develop blood cancers.
Women with gum disease took an average of seven months to conceive, compared to five months among their peers without gum disease.
My surgeon told me I could of died before I spent $4 000 to get the help I needed. I require 3x a year maintenance work. I’m one of the lucky ones. I don’t need to go to a loan shark.
So Tolley has enough clues about the dangers of obesity to spend up to $30 000 to have her stomach stapled (that took some guts) so I assume she is aware of the dangers of poor dental health. Enough to have top-notch dental care for her winning smile – but the section of society that can only dream of her wealth and privilege – and the rude good health it affords her – will now be in pain. They will be in chronic pain and distress and under Anne Tolleys care and on her watch.
This latest attack – by this government – on the most vulnerable of our community is just vicious.
1) Apply for the dollar amount you need regardless of cost (yes, I know…stress, $, and possible humiliation from the dentist who hates beneficiaries). The legislation doesn’t limit it to $300, that is done through policy and they can and do go higher.
2) Review the decision, and continue the appeal to the SSAA
An increase in reviews may be more costly than providing the loan in the first place. Good luck.
from her wiki
Personal[edit]
It emerged in 2010 that Tolley had undergone gastric bypass (stomach stapling) surgery in order to lose weight.[14] Tolley joins other current and former New Zealand politicians including Rahui Katene, David Lange, Chester Borrows, Donna Awatere-Huata and Tariana Turia to have had gastric bypass surgery at some point in the past.
Hers one I sent in which the editor took-out the stomach staples reference – completely ruining the gag I set up – (to protect Anne Tolleys modesty?)
Dear Sir,
Fresh from the regular ordeal of dry-retching at the horror of witnessing – day after day – people parading massive marlins that they’ve tortured and dragged around with their launches and then murdered, gutted and strung up on the wharf to be photographed for the pages of the Gisborne Herald; I am now implored by John Key, local M.P Anne Tolley and the Gisborne Herald editorial to ‘Get some Guts and get on the right side”, “roll up our sleeves and get stuck in” because “Something has to be done..”.
So Anne Tolley and the Gisborne Herald Editor got some guts. To drag N.Z onto John Keys sick selfie adventure into Iraq takes guts of steel. über-guts. Tolleys got the stomach staples so she’s got $30 000 armoured guts. The Herald Editor has barrels of ink guts. The printed word handing up to the mighty – the sword.
So, potentially, Gisborne-born guts will be spilt for John Keys photo-ops in the ‘middle east’ to come but more importantly – what desert-chic number has Anne Tolley picked for her inspection tour in Iraq? Her designers will have such fun with the flak-jackets and bullet proof helmets!
“Get Some Guts”? If the Islamic Caliphate want to really stick it to N.Z for the National and Act Party’s desire to have our “club” membership validated then any Kiwis they capture for their propaganda murders may well be – gutted.
Joe .. a retraction was published for this change in loans announcement .. it was a mikstake. Will try to find the correction link from a day or so ago … brb … but great letter !!
From Jan Logie on Tuesday: curious and curiouser ….
“So it turns out yesterday’s story about WINZ cuts to dental care loans was wrong, and through no fault of Radio New Zealand who ran it.
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has today corrected the Official Information Act release the story was based on. The corrected numbers now show fairly steady dispersal of loans and grants for emergency dental care since 2010.
While this is good news, the situation is still very confusing. I continue to hear stories of people being told they can only get money for extractions, not things like root canals or crowns. I have also heard people being told not to bother applying.
It’s strange that this doesn’t seem to show up in the statistics. It’s hard to have confidence in the statistics when the Ministry can apparently get them so wrong themselves.
Beyond this, I must say I think it is just bizarre that alarms bells did not go off in MSD when they found there had apparently been a 99% decline in advance payments for dental care.
It is even more bizarre that MSD initially sought to explain that drop, in an email copied to me, by saying there had been a policy change in 2012 that precluded the payment of advances for emergency dental care.
There wasn’t a policy change, so that bit was made up. A policy change of that magnitude would actually have been unlawful, as it would have unreasonably restrained MSD case managers from exercising their statutory discretion to grant advance payments of benefit, but no one involved with this at MSD seemed to realise that.
Furthermore, MSD has now effectively told the entire country via yesterday’s Radio New Zealand story that beneficiaries can’t get loans for dental care, and have not corrected that publicly.
The National Government’s welfare reforms have been overwhelming for staff and beneficiaries alike, and the cuts to back room MSD staff significant, but quality of information informs decision making. Mistakes like this matter.”
Don’t forget that TRNZ are getting a comment option going. Look for comment under the particular items that have been chosen. They are tryng a range.
Eventually I get to where they have RNZtalk and that takes you past the stats to the cent
Stephen Franks voices concern over the two-tier justice system. I find myself in the strange position of agreeing with someone from the Sensible Sentencing Trust.
He also appears to gently hint at recent ‘prominent NZer’ cases.
I thought you got the memo – the SST is there for scared white people to vent their spleen about brown people doing crime. Because it’s so scary being white.
Lucretia Seales who is terminally ill with a brain tumour, is fighting in the courts to have the right to decide when she dies. The courts have allowed two ‘interested’ parties to join the case. One is the Human Right Commision and the other a group by the name of Care Alliance.
I was curious who they were and a little googling shows that the alliance which seems to be a grouping of organisations all opposed to euthanasia, including some groups that appear to have a vested interest in keeping people alive.
The group appears to traces back to another organisation called The Nathaniel Centre which turns about to be an offshoot of The Roman Catholic Church and is listed as their Bioethics Centre.
The Care Alliance was co-founded by one Maggie Barry MP. No prizes for guessing her religion. Its web site has no real details of who they are but refer contact details to one Matthew Jansen, one would could only wonder if this is the same Matthew Jansen on the Board of Saint Catherines College Wellington Ltd? http://www.csbl.co.nz/about/shareholders-and-directors
Is this a case once again of right wing church groups forming defacto front groups to push their narrow view of society. http://www.carealliance.org.nz/
“The six cops who killed Freddie Gray in Baltimore have been charged.
“Freddie Gray isn’t the first person that cops put in the back of a van, expressly to injure him. No seat belt, hands cuffed behind his back, feet shackled, he was left to bounce off the van’s walls. Others have been gravely injured, even paralyzed. And Freddie Gray is not the first man to die in Baltimore like this.
“Protests lead to first cops in Baltimore ever being charged for such killing
“And yet, this is the first time any Baltimore cop has been charged for the crime.
“Isn’t it obvious? If young people hadn’t gone out into the streets on Monday night, the cops would not have been charged. . .
As was true in a spate of recent death-in-custody cases, the Baltimore police department’s seeming reluctance (or inability) to mount a prompt, thorough investigation of its own officers has generated escalating protests, fueled by existing distrust of the police and suggestions of a cover-up.
But in this case it wasn’t just the thin blue line of solidarity shielding the cops involved from having to testify against themselves or each other.
The problem, said Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, is that city officials were unable to “fully engage” with the officers “because of our Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.”
On paper, this country still has one of the most reactionary abortion laws in the world. There are enough liberal doctors that the reality is rather different, so the actual law isn’t especially effective or closely enforced. However it’s still there and the criminalisation of abortion still takes a psychological toll on women who choose to terminate pregnancies.
Once upon a time there was an active campaign for women’s right to choose; isn’t there still a need for one?
Australian reality show taking the piss out of poor people, surprisingly being shown on the SBS channel (I thought they had a bit more class than that). How long till we get the NZ version, giving the middle-classes a good chuckle and reinforcing what they always thought about the poor.
hola unblocker is the answer, Phil. It’s an add on/extension that sets up a VPN. Also good for UK telly (ie watching the election results tomorrow etc.).
unblock-us.com this one is good to unblock Netflix, you can even change the region worldwide to view were you wish, Netflix US seems the best too me though, massive content.
The SDHB public meeting was a bit of fiasco, the Chairman Butterfield was clearly opposed to the idea of public input. There were no microphones, or PA (at a monthly public meeting), which made much of the talk inaudible to those at the back. So after half an hour when it had devolved into the crowd talking over the board to try get their points across he called a recess so the room would clear out. There was another half hour of “public” meeting after that; mainly the board going through the agenda as fast as possible while avoiding eye contact with those members of the public who had stuck around. Then we were turfed out while the board went to the cafe in preparation for the public-excluded session in which they’d record the decisions they had already made.
Two elected Board Member were good though:
Some reacted angrily when a bid by board member Mary Gamble to shift the decision into the public part of the meeting was rejected by other board members… Her motion found only one supporter, fellow elected board member Dr John Chambers.
”What have we got to hide?” Mrs Gamble asked.
Some members of the public fired irate comments at the board before filing out of the meeting.
This one exchange from the second half was worth jotting down (may not be an exact transcription, but as close as I could get):
Board Member Mary Gamble: “…are we ever going to open the books and see that we are within budget?”
CEO Carole Heatley: “We have a lot of tough decisions, and not all will be popular; as we have seen this morning”
…
Chairman Butterfield: “the 5% cuts are only the start.”
All this heartache to save a measly $5million over 7 years and serve pre-cooked frozen- to-be-microwaved food to very sick people ?? ( it’s about $13,500 pw which is likely less than redundancies and Winz benefits will cost them.) And of course, any profit will be leaving the country courtesy of Compass — and where in any universe can you write profit and hospital food in the same sentence and not be ridiculed ? Yep. Auckland and Dunedin.
Where or where are we headed ?? Toxic food by a compromised toxic British
company.
Tony Ryall jumped ship .. or was he pushed for this debacle and the millions that disappeared under his medical revolution? To this day, never accounted for.
That makes $3.5m over 7.5 years, your figure wasn’t nearly measly enough. Especially considering that HBL spent over $4m devloping the business plan! The money seems to be the justification, not the reason, for the likely adoption of this shortsighted scheme:
Mary Gamble, of Central Otago, says she is voting against the controversial 15-year deal today, but does not expect much support around the table.
Board member Dr John Chambers said he was voting against it, and was also pessimistic about the likely outcome…
‘‘My main reason is I’m not convinced that we will see the savings promised. I don’t believe Compass is incentivised, the whole way it’s set up . . . to deliver savings to us,” Mrs Gamble said.
‘‘My feeling is the majority of [board members] will vote for [outsourcing].”
When it comes time for council elections next year, I will make a point to proclaim the names of those elected board members who vote for this outsourcing as loud as I possibly can.
However, from looking about today, it seemed that the; 8 elected Board Members, were outnumbered by the; 6 Executive Directors, plus; CEO, Chairman, & Deputy (plus Board Secretary, but she probably doesn’t have voting rights). I don’t think the Chairman is an elected position (in fact I think Butterfield’s already retired, but is filling in until someone else is appointed – only no one wants the job), I’m not sure about the deputy. So that seems to make 8 elected representatives to 9 appointed, which makes public accountability a farce.
it is a farce, isn’t it ? and I thought on the figures I quoted !! How are they falling for this? Is to just to save face on having spent $4 million on a business plan ?
( Isn’t that more than the equivalent of the first 7.5 years savings ???)
have you seen this report from Oz on the multiple serious failings of Compass … needs to be thrown around the DHB offices asap …
The Southern District Health Board has announced it is going ahead with a plan to outsource its hospital kitchens.
The move will see up to 20% of food workers lose their job.
The board was not swayed by the strong public presence at today’s meeting, at which Grey Power, unions, workers and members of the public implored the board to rethink the proposal…
A petition with more than 7000 signatures opposing the outsourcing of hospital kitchens was presented at a crowded Southern District Health Board meeting this morning.
As soon as most of the public left during the 5min recess, Chairman Butterfield immediately stowed the boxes containing the petition under the table unread where no board member could be reminded of their presence. I remember hearing someone call out; “what is it too far to walk to the waste-paper bin?”.
Next step is legal action:
National secretary John Ryall said the union would lodge the a similar case against Southern to the one it is fighting with the Auckland DHB over outsourcing…
”We think that there’s major legal issues around pushing people over to a contractor under Part 6A [of the Employment Relations Act], which is meant to protect vulnerable workers, when you know that as soon as they move over they’re going to have their hours and jobs cut.
”If Southern go ahead with the proposal to contract out all the work and privatise the services a similar sort of legal action will be taking place in Southern,” Mr Ryall said.
BTW/ Thanks to rs-yh for the link, though it’s taking me a while to go through all the relevant footnotes. Page 17 of this ruling has some disturbing instances of Compass/ Medirest being incompetent about freezer storage and out of date food:
What bites my balls is that the union reckon they can put together a plan that will generate much more revenue than the privatisation will save, but the board in its wisdom decided to consider compass without looking for any alternatives.
Joe Butterfield is a chartered accountant who has spent his working life as a partner/director of the accounting firm Footes Ltd Chartered Accountants (and its predecessors) to which he is now a consultant. Joe, who is from Timaru, is in his second term as Chair of the Southern Board and has a strong interest in health and welfare matters. He is also Chair of Southern DHB’s Hospital Advisory Committee and the Appointments and Remuneration Advisory Committee. He was Chairman of South Canterbury District Health Board (SCDHB) from 2000-2009, until he stood down after his term had expired. He was a member of Health South Canterbury (the predecessor to SCDHB) and served as its Chairman from 1996 until 2000. He has also served on the Ministry of Health National Capital Committee and District Health Boards New Zealand.
As well as roles in health and finance, Joe has extensive experience in the transport and agricultural sector and has held directorships in companies including Intercity Holdings Ltd and its subsidiaries, Ritchie’s Transport Holdings, the Port of Timaru and the South Canterbury Regional Development Board. Joe is also a Fellow of the NZ Institute of Directors and a Chartered Member of the Institute of Logistics and Transport. A lifetime yachtsman, Joe was a member of Yachting NZ’s governance board from 1986-95 and its president 92/95. He was its representative on the sport’s international body 1994-2008 and was an international umpire 1989/05 and is still an international judge.”
Mrs Mary Gamble, SRM, SCM, B.Sc, M.Sc
Elected Member (Otago Constituency)
Mrs Gamble is a retired midwife who worked for many years helping hundreds of Otago women to deliver their babies. She also has a strong background in health management and governance.
In 2005 Mary wound up her high profile midwifery practice and was recruited as a Research Manager at the University of Otago’s faculty of Health Sciences. After two years she was appointed to the foundation team charged with the establishment of a new medical school at the University of Limerick, Ireland. By July 2011 the Medical School had graduated its first Medical Doctors and Mrs Gamble fulfilled the roles of Research Development Manager and then as the Clinical Liaison Manager ensuring that students were appropriately placed for their clinical training both in hospitals and in GP practices.
Prior to returning to Ireland, Mrs Gamble was twice elected to the Otago DHB in 2001 and 2007 and so has six years health governance experience prior to her recent election to the Southern District Health Board. She is also serving on the Southern DHB’s Hospital Advisory Committee.
John Chambers, FRCS (Ed), FACEM
Elected Member (Otago Constituency)
Dr John Chambers is a Dunedin-based Senior Emergency Medical Officer who has worked in Dunedin Hospital for over 20 years. John is an active member of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists and a member of New Zealand Faculty Board of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, and a member of the Southern DHB’s Hospital Advisory Committee.
John is also is the Director of a small business Chambers Consultancy (2007) Ltd, and health services consultancy, and is employed 0.05 FTE as an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer of the Dunedin Medical School, University of Otago. He continues to work full time as an emergency specialist seeing and treating a wide variety of patients and has a particular interest in the use of ultrasound in emergency diagnosis and care.
I don’t know the answer but I do know that they do not need to enter a 15 year contract. Why not a two or three year contract to see if Compass deliver on what it has promised?
Seems they’re using a system called Steamplicity where meals are prepared and packaged using cooked, partially cooked, and raw components, chilled, with a shelf life of around four days, and reheated cooking the raw and finishing the partially cooked components.
One of the most radical developments in hospital catering in recent years is the
introduction of this new technology which relies on a sealed pack incorporating a valve.
The food, both raw and partially cooked, is plated in a centralised production unit,
chilled (<5°C) and distributed to satellite kitchens where it remains chilled with an
expiry date currently of four days.
Inside jobs (Economist link so need to register to read)
Research suggests that government cronyism may cripple Spain’s economy
Blame has traditionally been pinned on a housing bubble that fostered distorted growth in the construction industry. But a recent paper by a team headed by Manuel García-Santana of the Université Libre de Bruxelles finds that the productivity fall was spread more evenly across all sectors. It had little to do with skills, innovation or debt. “We found that bad [less productive] companies grew faster than the good ones,” says one of the co-authors, Enrique Moral-Benito. Productivity falls were greater when the government was heavily involved, through contracts, licences or regulations. Luis Garicano, the economics adviser of the liberal Ciudadanos party, says this points to an economy dependent on contacts, corruption and cronyism.
These aren’t the government doing things themselves but the government contracting out the work that the government should be doing directly. Such a system produces a massive opportunity for graft and corruption that the government doing things directly won’t as they’re actually publicly accountable.
In many of these countries the differentiation between the top levels of government and the top levels of corporations is simply arbitrary. Welcome to the age of corporate rule.
This article on NRT has a new Registrar of New Zealand Business Numbers being created and the creation excluding it from the OIA as is expected under this guideline:
All public bodies should be subject to the Ombudsmen Act 1975, the Public Audit Act 2001, the Public Records Act 2005, the Official Information Act 1982 (or the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987)
But that is a guideline and not a legal requirement. Obviously it needs to be changed to an actual law so that government departments are automatically included under the OIA. Exclusions would have to be specifically written into the legal framework with reasons for the exclusion.
Such needs to happen so that we’re not left wondering if an exclusion is incompetence or malicious intent by the people writing up the legislation.
Trevette back to her ‘soothing-balm’ styles re Key in The Herald this morning. Warning against peurile motive and spite. Projection-by-proxy of the past and present peurile motives underlying this flag stunt methinks:
” ………. trying to influence people’s votes out of puerile political spite is a different matter. It may be true that Key is keen on a legacy, but it should be irrelevant. The referendums are on the flag, not on the political parties or personalities.
Regulation Trevette – “Time to leave John Key alone now I think……”
History channel on Sky has been screening Ken Loach’s ‘Spirit of ’45’ this week. Highly recommended and with many parallels with the political changes in that period in our own country.
Abbott acts on foreign RE buyers..Prime Minister Tony Abbott has announced tough new laws for foreign property investors in an effort to ‘level the playing field’ for Australian buyers.
The changes will see foreign buyers charged a $5000 fee to enter the Australian market, as well as increased fines and possible jail terms for investors who breach foreign ownership laws – and the agents who help them do so.
The stricter laws follow an investigation by the Foreign Investment Review Board into housing affordability in Australia, which partly blamed foreign buyers for inflated domestic prices.
‘The new regime will maximise opportunities for Australians, give Australian home owners confidence and a level playing field,’ Mr Abbott told reporters at a press conference in Sydney on Saturday.
ONE News has learned that the Government has spent $6 million air freighting 900 pregnant ewes and farming equipment to Hamood Al Ali Khalaf’s farm in Saudi Arabia.
According to Mr Al Ali Khalaf’s business partner, Sydney-based George Assaf, everything from the fencing to “the shed and the wool shed and the yards and the drafting machines, the weighing, the scales, you mention it, it’s all from New Zealand”.
Mr Assaf says the deal was done to “compensate” the pair over a six-year-old ban of live sheep exports in which they say they lost hundreds of millions of dollars.
He says New Zealand was told “unless you fix that part of it, we won’t sign” the free trade deal between New Zealand and the Gulf States.
I’m sure that with a law in place to ensure that this type of bribery is legal it’ll just get worse.
New Zealand will receive no profit from the Saudi farm, which Mr Assaf claims is worth $80 million.
But, it provides New Zealand businesses with the opportunity to showcase their wares, according to Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy.
Asked what return the country should expect from the farm, Mr Guy replied: “Ultimately it may help us land the free trade agreement.”
Actually, it’s going to help put NZ sheep farms out of the export business.
Campbell Live tonight…….ChCh volunteer whose Good Samaritanism has come back on his very soul. With no ACC back-up because the damage ain’t physical. Wasn’t there the noted example of the built young Maori or Polynesian guy who leapt in lustily heaving heavy lumps of concrete off trapped people ? Who was honoured with an award ?
All the proof you need that the editorial of Campbell Live is indispensable !
Mediaworks should be proud that it’s happening under their banner !
For fuck’s sake…….what has happened to New Zealand ?
Campbell Live next clip……the rental-rape of Filipino ChCh reconstruction workers ???
Simeon Brown’s Ideology BentSimeon Brown once told Kiwis he tries to represent his deep sense of faith by interacting “with integrity”.“It’s important that there’s Christians in Parliament…and from my perspective, it’s great to be a Christian in Parliament and to bring that perspective to [laws, conversations and policies].”And with ...
Severe geological and financial earthquakes are inevitable. We just don’t know how soon and how they will play out. Are we putting the right effort into preparing for them?Every decade or so the international economy has a major financial crisis. We cannot predict exactly when or exactly how it will ...
Questions1. How did Old Mate Grabaseat describe his soon-to-be-Deputy-PM’s letter to police advocating for Philip Polkinghorne?a.Ill-advisedb.A perfect letterc.A letter that will live in infamyd.He had me at hello2. What did Seymour say in response?a.What’s ill-advised is commenting when you don’t know all the facts and ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff has called on OJI Fibre Solutions to work with the government, unions, and the community before closing the Kinleith Paper Mill. “OJI has today announced 230 job losses in what will be a devastating blow for the community. OJI needs to work with ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff is sounding the alarm about the latest attack on workers from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden, who is ignoring her own officials to pursue reckless changes that would completely undermine the personal grievance system. “Brooke van Velden’s changes will ...
Hi,When I started writing Webworm in 2020, I wrote a lot about the conspiracy theories that were suddenly invading our Twitter timelines and Facebook feeds. Four years ago a reader, John, left this feedback under one of my essays:It’s a never ending labyrinth of lunacy which, as you have pointed ...
And if you said this life ain't good enoughI would give my world to lift you upI could change my life to better suit your moodBecause you're so smoothAnd it's just like the ocean under the moonOh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from youYou got the ...
Aotearoa remains the minority’s birthright, New Zealand the majority’s possession. WAITANGI DAY commentary see-saws manically between the warmly positive and the coldly negative. Many New Zealanders consider this a good thing. They point to the unexamined patriotism of July Fourth and Bastille Day celebrations, and applaud the fact that the ...
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: and on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump’s administration over Gaza and Ukraine; on the ...
Up until now, the prevailing coalition view of public servants was that there were simply too many of them. But yesterday the new Public Service Commissioner, handpicked by the Luxon Government, said it was not so much numbers but what they did and the value they produced that mattered. Sir ...
In a moment we explore the question: What is Andrew Bayly wanting to tell ACC, and will it involve enjoying a small wine tasting and then telling someone to fuck off? But first, for context, a broader one: What do we look for in a government?Imagine for a moment, you ...
As expected, Donald Trump just threw Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's illegal theft of land, while ruling out any future membership of NATO. Its a colossal betrayal, which effectively legitimises Russia's invasion, while laying the groundwork for the next one. But Trump is apparently fine with ...
This is a guest post by George Weeks, reviewing a book called ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin AshtonBook review: ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin Ashton (2015) – and what it means for Auckland. The title of this article might unnerve any Greater Auckland ...
This story was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been ...
In this world, it's just usYou know it's not the same as it wasSongwriters: Harry Edward Styles / Thomas Edward Percy Hull / Tyler Sam JohnsonYesterday, I received a lovely message from Caty, a reader of Nick’s Kōrero, that got me thinking. So I thought I’d share it with you, ...
In past times a person was considered “unserious” or “not a serious” person if they failed to grasp, behave and speak according to the solemnity of the context in which they were located. For example a serious person does not audibly pass gas at Church, or yell “gun” at a ...
Long stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, February 13 are:The coalition Government’s early 2024 ‘fiscal emergency’ freeze on funding, planning and building houses, schools, local roads and hospitals helped extend and deepen the economic and jobs recession through calendar ...
For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
This session will feature Simon McCallum, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Computer Science (VUW) and recent Labour Party candidate in the Southland Electorate talking about some of the issues around AI and how this should inform Labour Party policy. Simon is an excellent speaker with a comprehensive command of AI ...
The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
Three weeks in, and the 24/7 news cycle is not helping anyone feel calm and informed about the second Trump presidency. One day, the US is threatening 25% trade tariffs on its friends and neighbours. The reasons offered by the White House are absurd, such as stopping fentanyl coming in ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Wherever you look, you'll hear headlines claiming we've passed 1.5 degrees of global warming. And while 2024 saw ...
Photo by Heather M. Edwards on UnsplashHere’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s politics and economy in the week to Feb 10 below. That’s ahead of live chats on the Substack App and The Kākā’s front page on Substack at 5pm with: on his column in The ...
Is there anyone in the world the National Party loves more than a campaign donor? Why yes, there is! They will always have the warmest hello and would you like to slip into something more comfortable for that great god of our age, the High Net Worth Individual.The words the ...
Waste and fraud certainly exist in foreign aid programs, but rightwing celebration of USAID’s dismantling shows profound ignorance of the value of soft power (as opposed to hard power) in projecting US influence and interests abroad by non-military/coercive means (think of “hearts and minds,” “hugs, not bullets,” “honey versus vinegar,” ...
Health New Zealand is proposing to cut almost half of its data and digital positions – more than 1000 of them. The PSA has called on the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate the cuts due to the potential for serious consequences for patients. NZNO is calling for an urgent increase ...
We may see a few more luxury cars on Queen Street, but a loosening of rules to entice rich foreigners to invest more here is unlikely to “turbocharge our economic growth”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopersBut Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:"We're not building to sell, so we'll be ...
Stuff’s Political Editor Luke Malpass - A Fellow at New Zealand IniativeLast week I half-joked that Stuff / The Post’s Luke Malpass1 always sounded like he was auditioning for a job at the New Zealand Initiative.Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. For a limited time, subscriptions are 20% off. Thanks ...
At a funeral on Friday, there were A4-sized photos covering every wall of the Dil’s reception lounge. There must have been 200 of them, telling the story in the usual way of the video reel but also, by enlargement, making it more possible to linger and step in.Our friend Nicky ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is methane the ...
The Government’s idea is that the private sector and Community Housing Providers will fund, build and operate new affordable housing to address our housing crisis. Meanwhile, the Government does not know where almost half of the 1,700 children who left emergency housing actually went. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong ...
Oh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youOh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youSongwriters: Alexander Ebert / Jade Allyson CastrinosMorena,I’m on a tight time frame this morning. In about an hour and a half, I’ll need to pack up and hit the road ...
This is a post about the Mountain Tui substack, and small tweaks - further to the poll and request post the other day. Please don’t read if you aren’t interested in my personal matters. Thank you all.After oohing-and-aahing about how to structure the Substack model since November, including obtaining ...
This transcript of a recent conversation between the Prime Minister and his chief economic adviser has not been verified.We’ve announced we are the ‘Yes Government’. Do you like it?Yes, Prime Minister.Dreamed up by the PR team. It’s about being committed to growth. Not that the PR team know anything about ...
The other day, Australian Senator Nick McKim issued a warning in the Australian Parliement about the US’s descent into fascim.And of course it’s true, but I lament - that was true as soon as Trump won.What we see is now simply the reification of the intention, planning, and forces behind ...
Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
Queuing on Queen St: the Government is set to announce another apparently splashy growth policy on Sunday of offering residence visas to wealthy migrants. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, February 7:PM Christopher ...
The fact that Waitangi ended up being such a low-key affair may mark it out as one of the most significant Waitangi Days in recent years. A group of women draped in “Toitu Te Tiriti” banners who turned their backs on the politicians’ powhiri was about as rough as it ...
Hi,This week’s Flightless Bird episode was about “fake seizure guy” — a Melbourne man who fakes seizures in order to get members of the public to sit on him.The audio documentary (which I have included in this newsletter in case you don’t listen to Flightless Bird) built on reporting first ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The 119th Congress comes with a price tag. The oil and gas industry gave about $24 million in campaign contributions to the members of the U.S. House and Senate expected to be sworn in January 3, 2025, according to a ...
Early morning, the shadows still long, but you can already feel the warmth building. Our motel was across the road from the historic homestead where Henry Williams' family lived. The evening before, we wandered around the gardens, reading the plaques and enjoying the close proximity to the history of the ...
Thanks folks for your feedback, votes and comments this week. I’ll be making the changes soon. Appreciate all your emails, comments and subscriptions too. I know your time is valuable - muchas gracias.A lot is happening both here and around the world - so I want to provide a snippets ...
Data released today by Statistics NZ shows that unemployment rose to 5.1%, with 33,000 more people out of work than last year said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Economist Craig Renney. “The latest data shows that employment fell in Aotearoa at its fastest rate since the GFC. Unemployment rose in 8 ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
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Just arrived in London, working for a couple of months
Here, John Key is a figure of fun and ridicule. it is very embarrassing.
in the media there – we have moved from ponytail-pulling prime minister – to dentistry during sex..
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/06/new-zealand-man-found-guilty-of-pulling-out-lovers-teeth-during-sex
Well of course, they don’t have tame little guinea pigs mascarading as Press over there!!! They tell it like it is, and boy, how humiliating and beyond embarrassing to be known as a weird little fetish-creep, right John?? Wonder if the Queen will invite him back to Balmoral again – she must be wondering what he got up to the last time he was there??
How tragic. You obviously have not been following the rabid anti-Milliban stuff the Sun et al have been running these last few weeks. Filthy Murdoch media and other Tory press
People in London know who John Key is ?
Tugger Key? Are you unaware that he has been fodder for “odd” news and comedy pieces around the world?
I expect if you asked 100 people in the UK which country John Key was the PM of less than 10% would have any idea.
Interestingly recently on the British Show “Pointless” John Key was an answer, but not a pointless one. They asked 100 people to identify as many world leaders as they knew in 100 seconds. From memory over 10% of them named John Key of New Zealand.
I missed that one…..another brit show that as quite interesting (no pun intended)
I enjoy it. I note how different it is to US quiz shows. The questions are hard and the prize money is low..
Agreed I couldn’t bring myself to watch a US quiz show.
That would be quite an interesting post,. Questions to which the answer is John Key.
Mine is, “Who is New Zealand’s most publicly ridiculed PM internationally?”
I don’t think that even Peter Fraser got such a press from Lord Haw Haw.
Clark would probably beat key as “globally most famous NZ PM”, but that might be reversed if we added “for actions performed whilst NZ PM”.
Who wanted to be Prime Minister since he was a child but had no political awareness or consciousness?
But how many Brits currently think John Key is a clown (irrespective of whether or not they know the country of which he is PM)?
And of the 10% who you suspect do know he is New Zealand’s Prime Minister the vast majority will presumably only know that from the fact that he is being mocked?
If there happens to be any future case in which John Key – as NZ PM – makes some serious appeal to the British people (e.g., to buy our products, help us with a natural disaster, support our economic and foreign policy interests, etc.) we can guess that their first dawning reaction will not be sympathy and support but, instead … ‘Oh, so that’s the country that voted in that clown??’
You seem to be implying that this current ‘anonymity’ concerning Key’s nationality is ‘reassuring’ when it is actually a ticking ‘join the dots’ time bomb (involving, as you imply, far more than 10% of Brits) that, when it goes off, is likely to dampen and subtract from the British people’s support for us in the future.
And, more importantly, that reaction amongst the British public will embolden those in Britain who might oppose our interests (for political or economic reasons).
Key has, no doubt unthinkingly, delivered rhetorical ammunition for anyone in Britain – or elsewhere – to use to undermine our interests.
Rightly or wrongly, that in future will be the public reaction overseas and those will be the uses made of that reaction. (e.g., think about how Fox News might now frame our Prime Minister should he, on a visit there, publicly argue to reduce US agricultural subsidies).
As right wingers here so often point out when they use Key’s electoral popularity as his ultimate defence against criticism: Irrespective of the reality, perception is everything.
Unfortunately, the same argument also works negatively – when, on the world stage, Key is associated not with a blokey ‘popularity’ but with idiocy and weirdness.
Whatever, the only thing in the British Media at the moment is the election.
It is hard to ridicule someone who no one notices.
Big day for Auckland Council and Auckland’s future. Two related themes.
Firstly, the proposed rates hike – particularly for transport purposes – is steeper than expected. Government will likely not recognize the political blowback Mayor Brown will get from the public.
Secondly, the housing crisis is not reflected in Council’s Auckland Development Company proposal. It’s going to be a fairly neutered beast. Back in the day, Auckland Council was the second-biggest housing owner in the country. The days of intervention at scale appear gone.
Join these two together: can Key, Bennett, and Bridges as pro-Auckland Cabinet Ministers, overcome the anti-Auckland sentiments of Brownlee, Smith, and English? That is, can central government form a stronger and more direct governance instrument for prioritizing transport investment that leads to more affordable housing being built?
Couple of weeks will tell.
Interesting times indeed…
Particularly because this government is demanding more homes be built, by necessity they have to be on the outskirts, but won’t put its hand in its collective pocket to fund the infrastructure (particularly transport) required to make it practical for dwellers…
They also effectively cut the developers cost… so who take sup the shortfall if this is generally used to fund infrastructure for the new properties and research?
My home has gone up in paper value over 300,000 since October last year…
Something needs to be pointed out about rate hikes all over the country. The basic cause of rate hikes by councils is that the central government is not sufficiently funding these regional councils. This is the underlying reason councils are looking to put rates up or are looking to raise revenue in other ways, or in some cases moth balling development projects. Where we as a country want these projects to go ahead, but rate payers increases would be too steep, the government should simply fund these projects.
But the tricky thing is that councils funding also adjusts to the economy, when economic activity falls then their rates and other payments (income) fall as well. It can be tricky to understand that due to the recession if the council is going to maintain previous levels of investment in regional development, then either rates need to go up a lot or central government needs to step in and provide the funds and a larger portion of the councils budget. At present the central government is significantly under-funding councils all over the country.
Why should central government fund local government?
For that matter why shouldn’t local government fund central government ?
Or alternatively why don’t they all fuck off and stop picking our pockets ad infinitum.
seasteader much?
It’s comments like this that prove that you, and other RWNJs, are a fucken idiot.
We need the services that taxes provide and we can’t get them for less than they physically cost no matter what National Act tell us.
Of course, a large part of your idiocy is due to the fact that we’ve been taught to see our finances backwards. We see taxes as providing an income for government when we should be seeing government spending as the foundation which holds up the economy – especially the private sector.
Why should central government tell local government where people can build houses without providing infrastructure to support their (central government) decisions.
Because they refuse to let local government charge the level of rates that would provide an appropriate level of services, in particular the overarching infrastructure needed to support communities and economic activity.
“Why should central government fund local government?”
Because local government can’t afford to raise the necessary funds (It would depress the local economy of Auckland to much if Auckland rates, and other council service charges, were that high) needed to support their local government economy. Duh!
One of the reasons central government should fund local government is that central government make up the laws that local government have to enact, implement, monitor and enforce…….e.g. Building Act, RMA, Health and Safety Act, Weathertight homes resolution services Act, Local Government Act etc etc.
It’s fine for Councils to pay for bylaws and services that communities want (democratic choice), but why is the burden of cost placed exclusively on rate payers (particularly for expensive infrastructure) when that change comes from central government?
NZ needs regional development, and significant funding to support regional development.
Auckland Council had little choice but pay for the changes that were required by the Local Government Auckland Council and Local Government Auckland Transition Acts that were foisted on them by Mr Hyde…….and look at what that is going to cost Aucklanders……possibly their harbour, given the dysfunctionality of the governance that were set up between the Council and their subsidiary entities (Ports of Auckland, Auckland Transport).
And where does the government get this extra money Nic? I suppose you think it grows on trees for the plucking 🙂
This is typical NZ, perhaps thoughout the world,where few if any consider the holistic cost as they work out the costs and benefits to their group and their group only … urrrgh!
Maybe from the real estate agents and developers they are assisting in Auckland?
Of course it doesn’t. Private banks create 97% of it ex nihilo.
Actually, the problem is that we’ve 30+ years of the RWNJs saying that we don’t need to pay for anything and the majority of people seem to have believed that lie. Now our infrastructure is collapsing, our government services are sub par and taxes are having to go up to pay for fixing all the damage that 30 years of neo-liberalism have done and the RWNJs are complaining about it.
“And where does the government get this extra money Nic? I suppose you think it grows on trees for the plucking”
From the NZ central governments point of view, it does. All they need to do is write into the budget the amount they are providing to local government and the money is then issued into the economy as it is spent.
From the point of view of an economist its never a question of funding, but a question of how much this might put pressure on inflation. However there is no threat of an impact on inflation from this until the economy is operating at full capacity (which you will probably observe it isn’t presently). Until such a time the government can simply spend more, creating more real wealth (both goods and services) for NZers to enjoy and income for businesses and their employees at the same time, effectively for free.
The opportunity cost of not doing this can never be recovered, its clearly a pretty bone headed move by the government to simply leave the additional real wealth available to the NZ economy (at no cost) on the table!
[And where does the government get this extra money Nic? I suppose you think it grows on trees for the plucking :)]
They should pluck it out of thin air, same as the banks do.
A closer look at big donations to the National Party where Winston Peters sums things up perfectly ” for every thousand dollar donated one hundred thousand is returned.
http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/rich-listers-dig-deep-for-national-2015050707#axzz3ZO8tYPMN
National doesn’t have donors. It has business partners.
Yes and countering the bosses are the workers who donated 900 k to Labour.
This article in the NZH shows how we’re being manipulated by the self-interested when it comes to housing.
“Andrew King: Why I think there’s no housing bubble in Auckland”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11444119
As an investor the author knows full well that the value of an asset is directly proportionate to its yield and that Auckland houses are in a bubble phase.
Rental properties in areas of NZ with low or no housing inflation, such as the provinces, are returning investors 6-7% from rents. Based on existing interest rates that’s currently about the right return if you’re an investor, you must get at least that much else you won’t invest. You’d be better off putting your cash in the bank if you got any less.
Auckland properties are lucky to return 4-5% from rents which is well below the return any investor would require. You can’t borrow at 6% and make a buck when rents are only returning 4%. It’s not possible…. unless there’s capital gain or rent increases. That’s a bubble, the income from the asset is not supporting the price.
Economists & politicians keep bleating about house prices when the real issue isn’t houses. It’s rents. Without rental income an investment property has no value whatsoever. The higher the rent… the higher the value of the property. If rents don’t go up house prices will always fall back to when the bubble started.
What King has neglected to tell people there is that the longer term investors buy with the intention of increasing rents. An investment bubble can only be deflated if the income from the investment rises to match the bubble price. A higher house price can only be sustained if the underlying rent increases to support it.
My point in this spiel is that low income Aucklanders can look forward to more grinding poverty with their landlords constantly holding out their hands for more & more filthy lucre. The ‘proper’ rent on a $500k property is over $600 per week and investors who own those $500k properties plan on getting their $600.
at that rate pretty much anyone in Auckland is going to be a low income Aucklander, but i guess that is then mission accomplished and we are one step closer to third country status.
bridges we need to build shacks underneath…
“…unless there’s capital gain…”
and there is. Lord knows I don’t want to be seen as standing up for landlords, but the picture you offer is not quite so watertight. The idea of “proper rent” for a 500K property being $600pw just doesn’t match reality. Rents, depending on area, are closer to half the rate you say they are. Rents here are high, as a percentage of average gross income, no doubt. Neither does the image of landlords being highly intelligent scammers and sharks reconcile with close inspection. Those types exist, but if they were the only type around, there’d be a lot of people, hundreds of thousands, living on the street. The flattering idea of being an “investor” just because someone owns a rental property, isn’t true. Luckily, landlords have as many colours of nutty as anyone else, so a tolerable deal can still be found.
Cheer up old bean, having to move house because the landlord has an aspirational brain-fart is infuriating, highly stressfull and expensive, and potentially financially crippling, but shit happens, so don’t focus on the shit because it only makes things worse.
Your epistle, Charles, says a lot about you and little about the subject in question.
It wouldn’t take a stretch of the imagination to conclude you’re an investor and a little bit sensitive about it too huh.
Miliband still on target to become British PM according to most pundits. General consensus (give or take a little variation) seems to be:
– Tories will probably win the popular vote by 1-3 percentage points
– Tories probably around 10 seats ahead of Labour (but a lot of uncertainty due to very close contest in some of the key marginals according to the Ashcroft Polls)
– None of which, according to the majority view, will be enough to prevent an Anti-Tory majority (see May2015 website and my comment here…http://thestandard.org.nz/miliband-kos-johnson/#comment-1006991)
The only concern:
– Traditional inaccuracy of UK pre-Election polls. Most notoriously, of course, in 1992 when polls grossly overstated Labour support and under-estimated the Tory vote. Same in a few other Elections – I’ve recently watched a fascinating 6 hours of the 1970 UK Election coverage (complete with some quite extraordinary comb-overs – particularly from the middle-aged political scientists – we’re talking on a Donald Trump scale of grandeur) and most of the polls then wrongly indicated a return of Harold Wilson’s Government.
Anyone who has been following the New Statesman’s excellent May2015 site will know that, over recent weeks, there has been a serious divide between the on-line and phone polls – the former consistently suggesting a neck-and-neck race, the latter a fairly clear Tory lead. Nerve-wracking – although I see the most recent phone-based polls have mostly re-aligned with the on-line ones, all except the Com Res/Daily Mail now calling a close race.
Thanks for this fish. I wonder what happened in 1970 that led to the first poll?
Letter to my local Gisborne Herald – they may not publish – being rather chummy with the Tolley. Or at least will hack out the stomach staples to protect her modesty and her image of self responsibility and self-control.
This paper’s editor considers my letters to be ‘attacks’. So be it.
Here’s an ‘attack’.
The Minister of Social Development is now banning beneficiaries – whose care she is responsible for – from getting loans for emergency dental treatment. Loans.
This is vicious.
Any dentist or technician or maxillofacial surgeon will tell you those with serious gum disease are 40% more likely to have a chronic condition on top.
Diabetes, heart disease/stroke risk – infections in the gums release inflammatory substances which in turn increase brain inflammation that can cause neuronal (brain cell) death.
Bacteria from periodontal disease can travel through the bloodstream to the lungs where it can aggravate respiratory systems.
Men with gum disease – 49% more likely to develop kidney cancer, 54% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer, and 30% more likely to develop blood cancers.
Women with gum disease took an average of seven months to conceive, compared to five months among their peers without gum disease.
My surgeon told me I could of died before I spent $4 000 to get the help I needed. I require 3x a year maintenance work. I’m one of the lucky ones. I don’t need to go to a loan shark.
So Tolley has enough clues about the dangers of obesity to spend up to $30 000 to have her stomach stapled (that took some guts) so I assume she is aware of the dangers of poor dental health. Enough to have top-notch dental care for her winning smile – but the section of society that can only dream of her wealth and privilege – and the rude good health it affords her – will now be in pain. They will be in chronic pain and distress and under Anne Tolleys care and on her watch.
This latest attack – by this government – on the most vulnerable of our community is just vicious.
Good letter Joe, thanks.
Here’s how to fix it:
1) Apply for the dollar amount you need regardless of cost (yes, I know…stress, $, and possible humiliation from the dentist who hates beneficiaries). The legislation doesn’t limit it to $300, that is done through policy and they can and do go higher.
2) Review the decision, and continue the appeal to the SSAA
An increase in reviews may be more costly than providing the loan in the first place. Good luck.
Good on ya, let us know if it publishes…
PS
I didn;t know Tolley had a staple op?
shes in this story
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3260435/Stomach-stapled-MPs-put-weight-behind-Turia
from her wiki
Personal[edit]
It emerged in 2010 that Tolley had undergone gastric bypass (stomach stapling) surgery in order to lose weight.[14] Tolley joins other current and former New Zealand politicians including Rahui Katene, David Lange, Chester Borrows, Donna Awatere-Huata and Tariana Turia to have had gastric bypass surgery at some point in the past.
Hers one I sent in which the editor took-out the stomach staples reference – completely ruining the gag I set up – (to protect Anne Tolleys modesty?)
Dear Sir,
Fresh from the regular ordeal of dry-retching at the horror of witnessing – day after day – people parading massive marlins that they’ve tortured and dragged around with their launches and then murdered, gutted and strung up on the wharf to be photographed for the pages of the Gisborne Herald; I am now implored by John Key, local M.P Anne Tolley and the Gisborne Herald editorial to ‘Get some Guts and get on the right side”, “roll up our sleeves and get stuck in” because “Something has to be done..”.
So Anne Tolley and the Gisborne Herald Editor got some guts. To drag N.Z onto John Keys sick selfie adventure into Iraq takes guts of steel. über-guts. Tolleys got the stomach staples so she’s got $30 000 armoured guts. The Herald Editor has barrels of ink guts. The printed word handing up to the mighty – the sword.
So, potentially, Gisborne-born guts will be spilt for John Keys photo-ops in the ‘middle east’ to come but more importantly – what desert-chic number has Anne Tolley picked for her inspection tour in Iraq? Her designers will have such fun with the flak-jackets and bullet proof helmets!
“Get Some Guts”? If the Islamic Caliphate want to really stick it to N.Z for the National and Act Party’s desire to have our “club” membership validated then any Kiwis they capture for their propaganda murders may well be – gutted.
Joe .. a retraction was published for this change in loans announcement .. it was a mikstake. Will try to find the correction link from a day or so ago … brb … but great letter !!
From Jan Logie on Tuesday: curious and curiouser ….
“So it turns out yesterday’s story about WINZ cuts to dental care loans was wrong, and through no fault of Radio New Zealand who ran it.
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has today corrected the Official Information Act release the story was based on. The corrected numbers now show fairly steady dispersal of loans and grants for emergency dental care since 2010.
While this is good news, the situation is still very confusing. I continue to hear stories of people being told they can only get money for extractions, not things like root canals or crowns. I have also heard people being told not to bother applying.
It’s strange that this doesn’t seem to show up in the statistics. It’s hard to have confidence in the statistics when the Ministry can apparently get them so wrong themselves.
Beyond this, I must say I think it is just bizarre that alarms bells did not go off in MSD when they found there had apparently been a 99% decline in advance payments for dental care.
It is even more bizarre that MSD initially sought to explain that drop, in an email copied to me, by saying there had been a policy change in 2012 that precluded the payment of advances for emergency dental care.
There wasn’t a policy change, so that bit was made up. A policy change of that magnitude would actually have been unlawful, as it would have unreasonably restrained MSD case managers from exercising their statutory discretion to grant advance payments of benefit, but no one involved with this at MSD seemed to realise that.
Furthermore, MSD has now effectively told the entire country via yesterday’s Radio New Zealand story that beneficiaries can’t get loans for dental care, and have not corrected that publicly.
The National Government’s welfare reforms have been overwhelming for staff and beneficiaries alike, and the cuts to back room MSD staff significant, but quality of information informs decision making. Mistakes like this matter.”
https://blog.greens.org.nz/2015/05/06/oia-chaos-in-the-ministry-of-social-development
Hey thanks. Whenever was I going to hear this. On R.N.Z?
maybe it serves a better AND LIKELY more profitable purpose not to correct it ?? bstds.
but it’s been there on our right hand links since tuesday which is where I first read it …
maybe ring RNZ and ask why no correction .. maybe they don’t know either?
we are ruled by Kaos agents 😥
Don’t forget that TRNZ are getting a comment option going. Look for comment under the particular items that have been chosen. They are tryng a range.
Eventually I get to where they have RNZtalk and that takes you past the stats to the cent
are you thc-deficient..?
i know i am..
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/am-thc-deficient
Stephen Franks voices concern over the two-tier justice system. I find myself in the strange position of agreeing with someone from the Sensible Sentencing Trust.
He also appears to gently hint at recent ‘prominent NZer’ cases.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/273027/ex-mp-claims-two-tier-justice-system
3 tier, IMHO, politicians with name suppression, rugby players, the rest of us.
The name suppression comments have been removed from the article.
He prefers a 1 tier system where every decision he agrees with is the one that matters.
Yes, I really loathe the SST and their inconsistent advocacy.
What inconsistency arkie?
I thought you got the memo – the SST is there for scared white people to vent their spleen about brown people doing crime. Because it’s so scary being white.
+111
😈
Lucretia Seales who is terminally ill with a brain tumour, is fighting in the courts to have the right to decide when she dies. The courts have allowed two ‘interested’ parties to join the case. One is the Human Right Commision and the other a group by the name of Care Alliance.
I was curious who they were and a little googling shows that the alliance which seems to be a grouping of organisations all opposed to euthanasia, including some groups that appear to have a vested interest in keeping people alive.
The group appears to traces back to another organisation called The Nathaniel Centre which turns about to be an offshoot of The Roman Catholic Church and is listed as their Bioethics Centre.
The Care Alliance was co-founded by one Maggie Barry MP. No prizes for guessing her religion. Its web site has no real details of who they are but refer contact details to one Matthew Jansen, one would could only wonder if this is the same Matthew Jansen on the Board of Saint Catherines College Wellington Ltd?
http://www.csbl.co.nz/about/shareholders-and-directors
“The Alliance was established in 2012 in opposition to the poorly written, confusing and flawed End of Life Choice Bill proposed by a Labour List MP which has since been withdrawn following political pressure.”
http://www.nathaniel.org.nz/component/content/article/19-homepage-slider-articles/330-broad-alliance-launches-to-oppose-legalising-euthanasia
Is this a case once again of right wing church groups forming defacto front groups to push their narrow view of society.
http://www.carealliance.org.nz/
I ams ure they will be very upfront about their real driving principles in Court 😉
a heads-up on ancestry.com
whoar..!
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/ancestrycom-caught-sharing-customer-dna-data-police
“The six cops who killed Freddie Gray in Baltimore have been charged.
“Freddie Gray isn’t the first person that cops put in the back of a van, expressly to injure him. No seat belt, hands cuffed behind his back, feet shackled, he was left to bounce off the van’s walls. Others have been gravely injured, even paralyzed. And Freddie Gray is not the first man to die in Baltimore like this.
“Protests lead to first cops in Baltimore ever being charged for such killing
“And yet, this is the first time any Baltimore cop has been charged for the crime.
“Isn’t it obvious? If young people hadn’t gone out into the streets on Monday night, the cops would not have been charged. . .
report from Baltimore: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/the-anger-in-baltimore/
It has happened before that though police charged, which takes the pressure off, but the outcome was not guilty. This case will be pretty important.
Special treatment for special people.
/
As was true in a spate of recent death-in-custody cases, the Baltimore police department’s seeming reluctance (or inability) to mount a prompt, thorough investigation of its own officers has generated escalating protests, fueled by existing distrust of the police and suggestions of a cover-up.
But in this case it wasn’t just the thin blue line of solidarity shielding the cops involved from having to testify against themselves or each other.
The problem, said Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, is that city officials were unable to “fully engage” with the officers “because of our Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.”
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/27/blue-shield
On paper, this country still has one of the most reactionary abortion laws in the world. There are enough liberal doctors that the reality is rather different, so the actual law isn’t especially effective or closely enforced. However it’s still there and the criminalisation of abortion still takes a psychological toll on women who choose to terminate pregnancies.
Once upon a time there was an active campaign for women’s right to choose; isn’t there still a need for one?
Abortion: remaking the case for the right to choose: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/ann-furedi-on-pro-choice/
Getting abortion out the Crimes Act: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/getting-abortion-out-of-the-crimes-act/
Australian reality show taking the piss out of poor people, surprisingly being shown on the SBS channel (I thought they had a bit more class than that). How long till we get the NZ version, giving the middle-classes a good chuckle and reinforcing what they always thought about the poor.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/68341317/struggle-street-reality-tv-show-has-sydney-up-in-arms
does anyone know how to get around the regional restrictions on aust. tv..?
i wanna watch ‘struggle street’..
..but computer/sbs says ‘no’…
hola unblocker is the answer, Phil. It’s an add on/extension that sets up a VPN. Also good for UK telly (ie watching the election results tomorrow etc.).
chrs..
kewl 😀
unblock-us.com this one is good to unblock Netflix, you can even change the region worldwide to view were you wish, Netflix US seems the best too me though, massive content.
State broadcasting at its best…
Nate Silver inspired result prediction, updated for 6 May.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/uk-general-election-predictions/
Also see more related info here:
http://thestandard.org.nz/uk-election-2/#comment-1011060
The SDHB public meeting was a bit of fiasco, the Chairman Butterfield was clearly opposed to the idea of public input. There were no microphones, or PA (at a monthly public meeting), which made much of the talk inaudible to those at the back. So after half an hour when it had devolved into the crowd talking over the board to try get their points across he called a recess so the room would clear out. There was another half hour of “public” meeting after that; mainly the board going through the agenda as fast as possible while avoiding eye contact with those members of the public who had stuck around. Then we were turfed out while the board went to the cafe in preparation for the public-excluded session in which they’d record the decisions they had already made.
Two elected Board Member were good though:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/341408/heat-food-outsourcing-meeting
Yesterday, I thought that the Union’s offer of matching the Compass Group’s terms (whilst humiliating) would be enough to save the kitchens:
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-06052015/#comment-1010671
Now I’m very pessimistic.
This one exchange from the second half was worth jotting down (may not be an exact transcription, but as close as I could get):
Board Member Mary Gamble: “…are we ever going to open the books and see that we are within budget?”
CEO Carole Heatley: “We have a lot of tough decisions, and not all will be popular; as we have seen this morning”
…
Chairman Butterfield: “the 5% cuts are only the start.”
All this heartache to save a measly $5million over 7 years and serve pre-cooked frozen- to-be-microwaved food to very sick people ?? ( it’s about $13,500 pw which is likely less than redundancies and Winz benefits will cost them.) And of course, any profit will be leaving the country courtesy of Compass — and where in any universe can you write profit and hospital food in the same sentence and not be ridiculed ? Yep. Auckland and Dunedin.
Where or where are we headed ?? Toxic food by a compromised toxic British
company.
Tony Ryall jumped ship .. or was he pushed for this debacle and the millions that disappeared under his medical revolution? To this day, never accounted for.
rawshark-y
That makes $3.5m over 7.5 years, your figure wasn’t nearly measly enough. Especially considering that HBL spent over $4m devloping the business plan! The money seems to be the justification, not the reason, for the likely adoption of this shortsighted scheme:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/341376/dhb-member-speaks-out-over-outsourcing-plan
When it comes time for council elections next year, I will make a point to proclaim the names of those elected board members who vote for this outsourcing as loud as I possibly can.
However, from looking about today, it seemed that the; 8 elected Board Members, were outnumbered by the; 6 Executive Directors, plus; CEO, Chairman, & Deputy (plus Board Secretary, but she probably doesn’t have voting rights). I don’t think the Chairman is an elected position (in fact I think Butterfield’s already retired, but is filling in until someone else is appointed – only no one wants the job), I’m not sure about the deputy. So that seems to make 8 elected representatives to 9 appointed, which makes public accountability a farce.
it is a farce, isn’t it ? and I thought on the figures I quoted !! How are they falling for this? Is to just to save face on having spent $4 million on a business plan ?
( Isn’t that more than the equivalent of the first 7.5 years savings ???)
have you seen this report from Oz on the multiple serious failings of Compass … needs to be thrown around the DHB offices asap …
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/awuqld/pages/326/attachments/original/1415324859/Compass_group_and_medirest_track_record.pdf?1415324859
please let us have updates if you can bear to do it …
Update:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/341408/heat-food-outsourcing-meeting
As soon as most of the public left during the 5min recess, Chairman Butterfield immediately stowed the boxes containing the petition under the table unread where no board member could be reminded of their presence. I remember hearing someone call out; “what is it too far to walk to the waste-paper bin?”.
Next step is legal action:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/340039/union-warns-sdhb-legal-action
BTW/ Thanks to rs-yh for the link, though it’s taking me a while to go through all the relevant footnotes. Page 17 of this ruling has some disturbing instances of Compass/ Medirest being incompetent about freezer storage and out of date food:
http://www.nzdrc.co.nz/site/commercialdisputes/files/Court%20Decisions/Compass%20Group%20UK%20and%20Ireland%20Ltd%20v%20Mid%20Essex%20Hospital%20Services%20NHS%20Trust%20%5B2012%5D%20EWHC%20781%20_QB_.pdf
What bites my balls is that the union reckon they can put together a plan that will generate much more revenue than the privatisation will save, but the board in its wisdom decided to consider compass without looking for any alternatives.
Thanks for reporting back on this.
http://www.southerndhb.govt.nz/pages/boardmembers/
”
Joe Butterfield, MNZM, FCA, FinstD, CMILT
Chairman
Joe Butterfield is a chartered accountant who has spent his working life as a partner/director of the accounting firm Footes Ltd Chartered Accountants (and its predecessors) to which he is now a consultant. Joe, who is from Timaru, is in his second term as Chair of the Southern Board and has a strong interest in health and welfare matters. He is also Chair of Southern DHB’s Hospital Advisory Committee and the Appointments and Remuneration Advisory Committee. He was Chairman of South Canterbury District Health Board (SCDHB) from 2000-2009, until he stood down after his term had expired. He was a member of Health South Canterbury (the predecessor to SCDHB) and served as its Chairman from 1996 until 2000. He has also served on the Ministry of Health National Capital Committee and District Health Boards New Zealand.
As well as roles in health and finance, Joe has extensive experience in the transport and agricultural sector and has held directorships in companies including Intercity Holdings Ltd and its subsidiaries, Ritchie’s Transport Holdings, the Port of Timaru and the South Canterbury Regional Development Board. Joe is also a Fellow of the NZ Institute of Directors and a Chartered Member of the Institute of Logistics and Transport. A lifetime yachtsman, Joe was a member of Yachting NZ’s governance board from 1986-95 and its president 92/95. He was its representative on the sport’s international body 1994-2008 and was an international umpire 1989/05 and is still an international judge.”
Mrs Mary Gamble, SRM, SCM, B.Sc, M.Sc
Elected Member (Otago Constituency)
Mrs Gamble is a retired midwife who worked for many years helping hundreds of Otago women to deliver their babies. She also has a strong background in health management and governance.
In 2005 Mary wound up her high profile midwifery practice and was recruited as a Research Manager at the University of Otago’s faculty of Health Sciences. After two years she was appointed to the foundation team charged with the establishment of a new medical school at the University of Limerick, Ireland. By July 2011 the Medical School had graduated its first Medical Doctors and Mrs Gamble fulfilled the roles of Research Development Manager and then as the Clinical Liaison Manager ensuring that students were appropriately placed for their clinical training both in hospitals and in GP practices.
Prior to returning to Ireland, Mrs Gamble was twice elected to the Otago DHB in 2001 and 2007 and so has six years health governance experience prior to her recent election to the Southern District Health Board. She is also serving on the Southern DHB’s Hospital Advisory Committee.
John Chambers, FRCS (Ed), FACEM
Elected Member (Otago Constituency)
Dr John Chambers is a Dunedin-based Senior Emergency Medical Officer who has worked in Dunedin Hospital for over 20 years. John is an active member of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists and a member of New Zealand Faculty Board of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, and a member of the Southern DHB’s Hospital Advisory Committee.
John is also is the Director of a small business Chambers Consultancy (2007) Ltd, and health services consultancy, and is employed 0.05 FTE as an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer of the Dunedin Medical School, University of Otago. He continues to work full time as an emergency specialist seeing and treating a wide variety of patients and has a particular interest in the use of ultrasound in emergency diagnosis and care.
i understand mid central health are opting in on this frozen cuisine scheme as well.
It arrives frozen? Has to be thawed and cooked/warmed by recipient, is that right?
microwaved from frozen …
Bet you it’s the same food which is going into prisons/about to go into prisons.
also by Compass ?
I don’t know the answer but I do know that they do not need to enter a 15 year contract. Why not a two or three year contract to see if Compass deliver on what it has promised?
“15-year deal today…”
This is so Labour can’t do fuck all about fuck all when they are next in Govt.
so, for those unable to tear off the covers, are bed-ridden or otherwise disabled in such a way as to not be able to prepare the meal from frozen?
ive just heard the chair of the board say they are pleased because they have secured a nutrituoius meal!
Seems they’re using a system called Steamplicity where meals are prepared and packaged using cooked, partially cooked, and raw components, chilled, with a shelf life of around four days, and reheated cooking the raw and finishing the partially cooked components.
http://compass-group.co.nz/our-brands/medirest/
One of the most radical developments in hospital catering in recent years is the
introduction of this new technology which relies on a sealed pack incorporating a valve.
The food, both raw and partially cooked, is plated in a centralised production unit,
chilled (<5°C) and distributed to satellite kitchens where it remains chilled with an
expiry date currently of four days.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aGPyXIf36XcJ:core.ac.uk/download/pdf/75009.pdf+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz
So the volunteers will do the tear-off, partial cook/reheat for those unable to?
It’s kind of funny reading their website about their catering expertise and then
by the way we also do security…
Among other things – bribery, listeria and horse meat.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/oct/16/money.internationalnews
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/possible-listeria-exposure-in-ontario-jails-1.702077
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21476736
thx Joe .. I knew there was more ..
Giant hotel chain sends small town sent C&D letter for continuing to use the name “Copthorne” for at least 5000 years:
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/05/06/trademark-terrorism-hotel-chain-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-1000-year-old-village-for-using-its-own-name/
just imagine what will happen under the TPPA then !
Pity the village of Copthorne cannot sue the hotel company for stealing the village name which they have owned for a thousand years. Justice!
Nasty twist on “Rule for a thousand years……….”
I tell you…….it’s a sign.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/205289/two-senate-dems-challenge-obama-release-tpp-text
Senate Democrats write open letter demanding that Obama release the TPP text.
Inside jobs (Economist link so need to register to read)
Can anyone say Talent2? How about other contracts that have government funding and close relationships with MPs?
These aren’t the government doing things themselves but the government contracting out the work that the government should be doing directly. Such a system produces a massive opportunity for graft and corruption that the government doing things directly won’t as they’re actually publicly accountable.
In many of these countries the differentiation between the top levels of government and the top levels of corporations is simply arbitrary. Welcome to the age of corporate rule.
robertson just did the best i have seen him do up against english..
..english just came out of it looking like a total clown..
..and nanaia mahuta did well up against flavell..
..getting him squirming over whanau ora..
I want to personally thank Len Brown for allowing me to increase my rents irrespective of what the market rates currently are.
In other words, you were going to raise rents anyway but you can now shift the blame onto someone else.
EXACTLY.
This article on NRT has a new Registrar of New Zealand Business Numbers being created and the creation excluding it from the OIA as is expected under this guideline:
But that is a guideline and not a legal requirement. Obviously it needs to be changed to an actual law so that government departments are automatically included under the OIA. Exclusions would have to be specifically written into the legal framework with reasons for the exclusion.
Such needs to happen so that we’re not left wondering if an exclusion is incompetence or malicious intent by the people writing up the legislation.
Despite 3 major banks announcing increased profits, they will pass on their tax evasion costs to… their customers…
A GREAT Ad for co-op banks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/68346946/multinationals-tried-to-defeat-tax-rules
Trevette back to her ‘soothing-balm’ styles re Key in The Herald this morning. Warning against peurile motive and spite. Projection-by-proxy of the past and present peurile motives underlying this flag stunt methinks:
” ………. trying to influence people’s votes out of puerile political spite is a different matter. It may be true that Key is keen on a legacy, but it should be irrelevant. The referendums are on the flag, not on the political parties or personalities.
Regulation Trevette – “Time to leave John Key alone now I think……”
As for “legacy” there is alhairdy a legacy.
History channel on Sky has been screening Ken Loach’s ‘Spirit of ’45’ this week. Highly recommended and with many parallels with the political changes in that period in our own country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_%2745
Abbott acts on foreign RE buyers..Prime Minister Tony Abbott has announced tough new laws for foreign property investors in an effort to ‘level the playing field’ for Australian buyers.
The changes will see foreign buyers charged a $5000 fee to enter the Australian market, as well as increased fines and possible jail terms for investors who breach foreign ownership laws – and the agents who help them do so.
The stricter laws follow an investigation by the Foreign Investment Review Board into housing affordability in Australia, which partly blamed foreign buyers for inflated domestic prices.
‘The new regime will maximise opportunities for Australians, give Australian home owners confidence and a level playing field,’ Mr Abbott told reporters at a press conference in Sydney on Saturday.
‘It’s about giving locals a fair go.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3064941/Australia-crack-foreign-investors-buying-property-revealed-Chinese-owner-buyer-forced-sell-one-Australias-expensive-mansions.html#ixzz3ZQVnid9w
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Investor/State dispute settled Key style:
I’m sure that with a law in place to ensure that this type of bribery is legal it’ll just get worse.
Actually, it’s going to help put NZ sheep farms out of the export business.
Look at Cameron……..he’s a Key with lashings of Hoorah Henry.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/06/lord-odonnell-leader-of-largest-party-does-not-automatically-become-pmhttp://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/06/lord-odonnell-leader-of-largest-party-does-not-automatically-become-pm
Then Boris is a weird amalgam of JoKeyHen, Farrar, Hide, and Gerry Brownlee after the Swiss Clinic.
Campbell Live tonight…….ChCh volunteer whose Good Samaritanism has come back on his very soul. With no ACC back-up because the damage ain’t physical. Wasn’t there the noted example of the built young Maori or Polynesian guy who leapt in lustily heaving heavy lumps of concrete off trapped people ? Who was honoured with an award ?
All the proof you need that the editorial of Campbell Live is indispensable !
Mediaworks should be proud that it’s happening under their banner !
For fuck’s sake…….what has happened to New Zealand ?
Campbell Live next clip……the rental-rape of Filipino ChCh reconstruction workers ???